CMJ: Truth, damn truth, and the Ashes (10 Jun 1997)

Tuesday 10 June 1997

Truth, damn truth, and the Ashes

Christopher Martin-Jenkins.

HERE are two remarkable statistics: (a) the last six Ashes series have been won by the side winning the first Test; (b) England have only beaten Australia at Lord`s once this century.

Only if England should fail to improve on the second record in the game beginning at Lord`s next Thursday will the first one be in danger of revision. They are playing well enough, however, to win again.

Conditions at Lord`s are unlikely to be significantly different from those at Edgbaston, where Australia`s nine-wicket defeat confounded not only the bookmakers but practically every pundit. Unsettled weather is forecast again and the first objective of MCC, as it was of Warwickshire, will be to produce a pitch which lasts five days. This is Phil Tufnell`s home ground, however, and he and another left-arm bowler, Mike Smith of Gloucestershire, may be added to the victorious XI, along with Adam Hollioake, in the party of 14 the England selectors may want to collect early next week to cover all possibilities.

Devon Malcolm did not significantly add to his laurels at Edgbaston (he took two for 77) but he produced a good, fierce spell on Sunday evening and it would take something very special later this week at Old Trafford by either of the Kent fast bowlers, Martin McCague and Dean Headley, who are both apparently fit again, to displace him in the role as spearhead.

Mark Butcher will surely be given two more Tests before judgment is made about his ability to handle the role of a Test opener. At Edgbaston he confirmed, even in two short innings, that he has a tighter technique than Nick Knight, but also that he is not in the same class as a close fielder.

Smith has taken 33 wickets at 15 each this season and his ability to duck the ball in late to right-handers, and to swing it away from the left-handers, would be useful if the pitch looks like having insufficient pace to suit Malcolm. A left-arm-over bowler would also create rough on both sides of the wicket, which would be handy if England are to re- vert to the Croft/Tufnell partnership which worked well last winter.

It would also, of course, give more purchase to the legbreaks and googlies of Shane Warne, although he bowled very few of the latter during the first Test when his figures of one for 137 were inferior to Robert Croft`s three for 125.

Moreover, Australia may have to do without Michael Be- van`s suppporting wrist spin if it is concluded from his two very similar dismissals at Edgbaston that his inability to control the ball lifting across his rib cage is incurable.

Mark Taylor defended Bevan up to a point in this respect after the game, saying: "I thought he handled the short ball much better in the second innings and the ball that got him out definitely popped unexpectedly off a spot at the far end." Taylor had been equally loyal to Bevan after he had been out in identical fashion to Courtney Walsh and Curtley Ambrose in the first Test of Australia`s recent home series against West Indies. Bevan subsequently made three fifties, averaged over 50 in the series and was a match-winner with the ball at Adelaide.

Nevertheless, the four redundant batsmen - Michael Slater, Ricky Ponting, Justin Langer and Adam Gilchrist - will all, presumably, be given the chance to claim a place for themselves in the two games in which Australia have to sort them- selves out before Lord`s: tomorrow they start a three-day match against Nottinghamshire and on Saturday they should be tested by the likes of Mullally, Millns and Maddy at Leicester. Andy Bichel is expected to be fit to bowl in the first match and the newly arrived Paul Reiffel will play in the second. So, it is hoped, will Jason Gillespie.

England`s coach, David Lloyd, and the back-up England committee under the Lancashire chairman, Bob Bennett, will continue to concentrate on their own team`s well being. At Edgbaston Golf Club, on the eve of the Test, a relaxed Lloyd broke off from chuntering about his tendency to slice the ball to give detailed analysis of the bowling plan for each of the Australian batsmen. In most cases his homework paid off and so, crucially, did his decision to send England into the field on Thursday calmly focused rather than charged up. It was a lesson learned.

Bennett went home to the Isle of Man yesterday to continue detailed planning for the winter tour to the West Indies and the A tour. "I`ve hardly slept for a month wondering if there is anything we have left undone in giving the team all the support we can," he said.

Mike Atherton and his team deserve the main credit, ob- viously, but Lord MacLaurin`s clear message that their needs must take priority over all else has undoubtedly played its part in the good start. All, I trust, will beware wounded Australians.

Source :: The Electronic Telegraph (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/)