Jarrod Kimber's Blog, page 27

Crowd or not, here comes the first Test

On a lovely, bone dry Centurion morning, a tune played. “Boom! Here comes the Boom! Ready or not, here comes the boys from the South!”

They are the sort of lyrics, when backed up with punchy nu-metal angst, that should open a heavyweight contest. And it was the first music of the Test. There was no anthem, no parochial song, just Dale Steyn’s personal anthem and the world’s best and third-best Test sides starting a series.

But it was a Wednesday, in February. Much like the band P.O.D., it was not quite as “Boom!” as it looked.

The security was so lax that you could walk straight into the ground, president suite and then press box without any pass or ticket. The sun was hot but not oppressive. There was no hint of rain. No real build-up, the players were just out on the field. Occasionally there was even the Spanish horn that plays in the IPL to awaken people.

There seemed to be more sponsored umbrellas around the ground than people. And every part of the ground was zoned off for something fun. The chill zone, the family area, the Castle Lager Terrace. Even a “maidens bowled over” section where women could watch cricket, meet someone from the South Africa squad and have massages and pedicures. You can’t fault Cricket South Africa for trying. They threw it all out there.

But it was a Wednesday, in February. So the crowd wasn’t really there. It wasn’t horrible for a Test at Centurion, but it wasn’t a cauldron, or massive-event-like feeling. It felt like a big Test series, started on a Wednesday, with Christian heavy rock in the back ground.

There were schoolkids on the bank, sitting in front of a few smart locals who had brought their own shade. The real fans were in the grandstand, a battered warhorse that probably looked ok when brand new, and has looked solid and ugly since. Apparently there was a group of people that some sponsors called “sizzlers”, but I never saw anyone who justified a name that stupid. There was even a Mexican wave, but only when the schoolkids spread out around the long-off boundary did it work.

The cricket didn’t need extra areas or corporate tricks to excite people. Steyn started off against David Warner on a pitch that was supposed to be lots of fun. That doesn’t need a rock soundtrack or marketing tricks. People should just want to see it. Those there saw the South Africa team spend a confusing and frustrating day in the field, and Australia find one partnership that worked and keep it going. It wasn’t pretty.

It was the sort of tough uncompromising day of cricket that metaphors and clichés were made for. The proper cricket fans would have appreciated Shaun Marsh’s doggedness, Steven Smith’s strokeplay and complaining about South Africa in the field.

There were a few proper cricket fans there to enjoy it, not many. Not nearly enough.

But it was a Wednesday, in February.

Show the administrators you care

The fact that Australia, England and India have formed a cabal to choke the game of cricket is not exactly new. Like a bum with a sandwich board, myself and others have been walking the streets of cricket shouting this message for a long time. During the Champions Trophy I wrote that only the top three in cricket matter. Before that I started making a documentary on the death of Test cricket. And during this Boxing Day Test at the MCG, I was chatting to ABC Grandstand about it.

If you follow cricket politicking at all (and I do, so you don’t have too), you could see this coming. So it was nice that Sharda Ugra showed that it was not just a conspiracy theory by a few nut jobs. That it was a real takeover of cricket by the greedy and wealthy.

But what does this leaked draft actually mean, and is the ICC financial and commercial committee actually run by giant lizards? I tried to answer a few questions that people had.

In a word, good or bad for Test cricket?

Bad, not just for Tests, but for all international cricket.

If there is promotion and relegation in Test cricket, but Australia, England and India can’t be relegated, isn’t that cheating?

It’s not just cheating, it’s organised fixing. Any individual who signs off on a regulation like this is corrupting the game, and should be banned by the ICC for their action. They are ensuring the result of the competition before a game is played. The integrity of the game is corrupted as much as by any huge no-ball. They might as well only let other teams use five batsmen, bowl with beach balls and field with sponsored flippers on. As long as the sponsorship money is split unfairly, favouring the stronger nation.

Who are the people involved in this secret dossier for cricket’s potential kidnapping?

The names of the people on the committee that the draft came from are Giles Clarke (chairman, ECB), Alan Isaac (ICC president), Dave Richardson (chief executive), N Srinivasan (BCCI), Neil Speight (Associate and Affiliate member, Bermuda Cricket Board), Wally Edwards (CA), Dave Cameron (WICB), Campbell Jamieson (GM, commercial) and Faisal Hasnain (CFO).

But the big winners, if the draft was implemented, would be Clarke, Srinivasan and Edwards. It is they who will be taking over cricket officially on behalf of their boards. We don’t have the details of who the architects of the plan are, but being that these men and their boards get the best deal, it’s not a big stretch to believe they were behind it. I doubt the Bermuda chairman acted alone in this.

What did the FTP do? What does FTP stand for and why does it matter?

The FTP is (was?) the Future Tours Programme. It essentially meant that teams would have to play everyone, and not just who they wanted to play with. It was brought in to ensure that teams had a schedule to play each other and ICC tournaments. It helped sell TV rights and aided smaller nations financially by drawing them up against teams with larger markets and on the cricket field through experience against the best teams. It was a flawed but well-meaning system of sharing the wealth and making cricket fairer.

Wasn’t the FTP ignored?

Occasionally. It was more a nagging aunty than a scary prison guard. I know Australia have played Bangladesh, I just can’t remember when. And Bangladesh have never toured India. Things are moved around on a whim quite often, but it at least meant that if something did happen, like Sri Lanka and West Indies cancelling their Test series, they had to come out and say it, not just silently agree never to play again. No FTP makes it all a bit more covert and easier for board members to ruin things without us noticing.

Why does it matter if the big three countries make more money from ICC tournaments and share the ICC top jobs? Don’t they already own and run cricket?

Yes, they do. But it matters because cricket isn’t limited to three nations, or even ten. There are 106 member nations of the ICC. If this structural upheaval happens, less money and no power will escape this evil cricket cabal. These dirty three will be able to continue to rule cricket forever for their own good. And they’ll have the backing of cricket’s governing body, which will essentially be them in all but name.

Will cricket’s best interests really be looked after by these three nations?

One recently got involved with a fraudulent crook; the second stopped players picking who they wanted to represent them at the ICC level; and the final one wanted all the other nations locked out of the World Cup.

Isn’t the current ICC set-up terrible anyway?

If by that you mean there are no votes at ICC boardrooms, that it’s run by the ten Test-playing boards who are all out for their own good and that India have all the financial muscle, then yes. The Woolf Report, an independent evaluation of the ICC (that the boards never wanted, and of which they ignored all but the bits that helped them keep their stranglehold), suggested that cricket needed to be independently run, instead of by the member boards. But at least the current set-up, as pointless and ignored as it is, gave ten nations a say.

Sport is a business, and this is just a business decision, isn’t it?

It is a business decision. A bad one. A short-term one. Like most decisions made by cricket officials, it follows the money where it is right now. It doesn’t look ahead. It doesn’t grow the game or improve it. It picks cricket up by its underwear and takes what is in its pocket.

Surprisingly, most billion-dollar businesses aren’t run by unpaid men who face absolutely no consequence if they completely stuff up the business. Who would have thought a billion-dollar business run by amateurs with no independent management could be taken over so easily?

Should Bangladesh prepare for a five-Test match tour of Australia, England or India shortly?

No.

Which Full Members outside the trio will be playing Test cricket by 2020?

It is impossible to tell. But this is not a move to lock in the future of the current Test-playing nations. It is a move to lock in the future of three of them. The rest can go to hell, and by hell, I mean more Champions Trophy tournaments.

I’m from outside the cricket cabal but don’t really like Test cricket. Why should I care?

Because the FTP and ICC restructuring isn’t just about Tests. It’s about stopping your country from getting money. It’s about ensuring through financial means that while three countries will have every single advantage, the others will have to live on far less. Money doesn’t guarantee success. But it certainly helps in sport.

I’m from inside the cabal. Why should I care about the other nations?

Maybe you shouldn’t. You’ll have all the IPL, Big Bash and Ashes you can eat. But if the other seven teams stop playing Test cricket, or don’t play enough to make it relevant, you’re going to get pretty damn bored pretty damn quickly. And while you may only watch for your own players, do you really want to live in a world that involves less Sri Lankan mystery spin, New Zealand pluckiness, Misbah-ul-Haq, and the current best Test team on earth?

What will happen to the non-Test playing nations?

Not much will actually change for them. Life wasn’t exactly free beer and endless casual sexual encounters before. If anything, now they have seven new friends who also have no power.

Can saner people in the future undo this mess?

Yes, probably. Even the old veto was eventually taken away from the ICC. Things can change. If the chairmen of the three cricket boards were to change, it could change very quickly. There is also little doubt that at least one of Clarke, Srinivasan and Edwards wants to eventually run the ICC once the main job there is made more powerful. Which means this reign of bullying and grabbing for power may not end anytime soon.

Should these three men step down?

Yes. Anyone who agreed with this draft, whether it was their idea or not, should leave cricket immediately. They won’t, obviously. But they should.

Is there any light at the end of the tunnel?

Someone leaked this draft. Someone who saw it realised that cricket fans wouldn’t like this, and instead of it being announced through an ICC press release, it was blurted out before they had a chance to lock it in. In fact, there are many good people working in cricket all around the world. They don’t like this situation any more than we do. Hopefully more of them will step forward with details. That gives us a chance.

What can I do?

Contact them. Don’t be rude, don’t abuse the people who are answering the emails, calls or letters, but contact them. Tell them what you think of all this. CA can be contacted here, the ECB here, the BCCI here. We have no vote in cricket. All we have is our passion, which is what makes the money that gives these men their power.

They are banking on you not knowing or caring about any of this. Giles Clarke regularly tells young cricket writers to stop writing about administration because it’s boring and fans don’t care about it. What this does is allow cricket’s most important men to run the game while no one is watching. Show them you’re watching.

If you have time to complain about a shocking DRS decision or a terrible cover drive, surely you have time to send an email to the men running the game. Show them you care. Tell them what you think. You have no vote in cricket’s future. But you do have the contact pages.

polite enquiries with Ian Bell

Polite Enquiries and video match report from day 3 (Death Day)

England’s tour to hell

Andy Flower stood in the SCG giving a sermon. He was surrounded by the entire England set-up. A proper crowd. Most of them big men, some seemingly twice his size. They stood around and virtually on top of this one small, intense man as he preached the good word. Unlike the sort of speeches coaches make in films, this didn’t look like it was uplifting, or would even teach the players a moral lesson. This was a professional coach laying down his law with a solid monologue.

Alastair Cook stood beside him, but just far enough away for it not to be a message he was directly involved in. The older players had steely looks on their face; it was hard to tell if they were genuinely listening, or just a bit over it all. The younger players looked on earnestly. As if they were afraid not to be showing enough attention. Afraid they would be judged.

The words kept coming from Flower. They were delivered at what seemed the same pace. Never exploding into yell or rant, never worrying too much about cadence or drama. Just a steady flow of information from the coach who guided England to No. 1. His hands often moving, sometimes instructional, sometimes to really emphasise one of his many prepared remarks.

The key to great oratory is to keep people listening. You either need to be brilliant, or brief. After a quite a few minutes you could see the fidgeting. The lecture had gone on too long. The England players almost all had their hands behind their backs. Fiddling with balls, or shirts, or just their fingers.

Flower’s line-in-the-sand address had turned into a soliloquy that seemed to have no end.

—

Before the Gabba, Alastair Cook hurt his back, Matt Prior suffered a calf injury, Kevin Pietersen had a knee injection and it rained. England’s idyllic warm up was drowned and sore even before they got to Brisbane.

Once in Brisbane they faced what they hadn’t faced as a modern England team, a howling Australian press. Pietersen was involved in a never-ending battle with a city that had one newspaper and endless insults. Stuart Broad became a villain, despite doing what Australian cricketers have done since they had legs. And the crowd were angry and loud.

On the field, they picked Chris Tremlett based on unimpressive county returns and what happened three years earlier. But they were about to find out that almost nothing was like three years ago. Tremlett bowled smart, with admirable control, but slower than an elderly couple deciding on a rental car. It was like watching a really boring press conference where a scientist explains that an animal is actually no longer venomous.

What made Tremlett even slower was that Mitchell Johnson was quicker. Way quicker. And more confident. And fitter. And scarier. He’d changed from a plush toy shark into a great white. Jonathan Trott jumped around his crease trying to show how it wasn’t bothering him. He did everything he could to get in behind the ball, and at times almost ended up at point. Johnson only took four wickets, but it felt like ten, or twenty, or maybe even a hundred.

Australia’s second innings mocked their bowlers; England’s second innings was cadaverous. They lost by 381 runs. It could have been infinity.

Trott left the tour on what should have been day five of the Test. At the SCG, England tried their third No. 3 of the series.

—

The senior England players moped around the SCG. It has been a long, depressing tour and their body language showed every part of it. The new players were anxious and unsure. No one seemed to be smiling. The few conversations seem hushed.

As they stretched and warmed up, they looked like video game characters who hadn’t been engaged by the game play. Trying to look natural, but no one seemed to be looking at anyone. Everyone was facing a different direction and all looked out of tune with each other.

It was much different to how they looked in the previous Ashes, only a few months ago. The professional machine looked broken, it was still going through the motions, but nothing was right.

England had shown a lot of arrogance – and earned the right to – while getting to the top of world cricket. On the days before Tests they would walk around like they owned the ground, and everything in it. They were players who’d had many ups and downs personally but, as a team, they had done well enough to have what the uncool pop stars call ‘swag’. As they were largely made up of players who grew up during the West Indies and Australia years, they knew how the walk went. You had to show people you were the business.

The only arrogant walk any England players have now is on YouTube, when Michael Carberry imitates Viv Richards. Carberry certainly didn’t walk off that way after he played a shocker to the second ball after tea to start the final collapse.

—

Alice Springs should have been a time to regroup, to tick the unticked boxes, to re-strategise, improve the KPIs and focus a results-based plan that could win England the series. Instead their batsmen did little and their backup bowlers bowled lifeless short-pitched spells and were cracked around by a random group of fringe state players with first-class batting averages in their 20s. Tim Bresnan did well, as he wasn’t there, but bowling in an emerging players team with virtually no one watching.

England didn’t rush in with Bresnan, but instead chose Monty Panesar on the largely untested Adelaide Oval Test pitch. Being that England rarely gamble with two spinners outside the subcontinent, this was the second time they had done it in three Tests – after the failed Simon Kerrigan experiment at home. Monty was marginally quicker than Tremlett but he wasn’t as accurate. It was a gamble that didn’t pay off.

England also chose Panesar’s return to pay homage to him in the field. They dropped, or didn’t even go for, all chance of beating Australia. And they did it on a peach of a batting wicket. Mitchell Johnson could be blamed for their batting. Brad Haddin could be blamed for their bowling. Surely they had run out of excuses when it came to fielding. They were just rubbish. Prior’s wicketkeeping was now as bad as his batting. They were defeated and, after being smeared around the field by Haddin, Michael Clarke, and Ryan Harris (who made a king pair the last time in Adelaide) they had to go out and face Johnson.

The pitch might not have been evil, but Johnson was. If they were mortally wounded in Brisbane, England were buried in Adelaide. The most assured they looked against Johnson was when Ian Bell was playing against him, or when Broad was waiting for a shiny knob on the sightscreen to be fixed. At no other time did they look like they could handle him. They were called cowards and worse. It was bomb-a-Pom time, on and off the field.

They responded by hooking. Cook, the man who didn’t sweat once in the Adelaide heat three years earlier, now tried to show how not afraid he was by hooking. It is the most macho shot you can play, and England played it often, and went out to it almost as often. It was far worse than going out on a flat pitch, because this was the first sign that not only were England no good, they had decided their whole game plan was no good.

By the SCG, they seemed to have no actual game plan but still felt the need to execute it, or themselves, as quickly as possible.

—

During slips practice, an enterprising assistant coach didn’t throw the ball at the bat for an edge, but threw it miles back over the slips’ head to replicate a skied pull shot. It was Cook who raced back to get it. It started well, he ran hard, and clearly wanted to take it, but then it swirled on him, he suddenly didn’t seem to care as much and then he barely tried to take the catch as the ball hit the ground. Instead of being annoyed at himself, he looked back at the coach and held his arms out.

That moment ended the slips drill and Cook wandered off to take a look at the pitch. He stood at the Randwick End and played a few shadow strokes and leaves to balls around off stump.

He didn’t get much alone time, soon Prior was with him and Prior clearly wanted to talk. It seemed like they were talking about wicketkeeping technique, perhaps Jonny Bairstow’s. Prior was very animated, Cook looked bored and occasionally nodded.

Cook continued to play shadow shots as the roller came at him and Prior talked – at one stage the groundsman operating the roller had to stop, Cook had barely seen it coming. It was perhaps the nicest treatment he received in Australia. And all it did was delay the inevitable.

Two days later standing in the exact same spot at the Randwick End, Cook absent-mindedly left a ball and was rolled.

—

England were supposed to do two things in Perth, unleash their battalion of tall bowlers, and lose. They got part of that right. Their six-plus metres of height were not unpacked. Tremlett was already seen as too slow. Boyd Rankin as too raw. And Steven Finn as comically out of form. They instead went back to their Clydesdale draught horse Bresnan. Shorter, and without much match fitness, but reliable and safe. The perfect England selection. Unfortunately, whether they gambled or played it safe, nothing worked. Bresnan was not the secret ingredient to happiness.

England were backing the players who had got them to No. 1, even with the overwhelming evidence that they weren’t the same.

After Haddin saved Australia for the third time, England now had to conquer the world’s most dangerous bowler on the world’s deadliest pitch. England put on an 85-run opening stand, Johnson only took two wickets, but somehow England still ended well short of Australia’s total. And Broad had his foot all but taken off by Johnson.

Australia’s second innings was perhaps the worst of it for England. Broad was getting examined in a hospital. Bresnan tried. Stokes tried. Graeme Swann tried. James Anderson was tired. The Australia top order batsmen essentially played the role of the guys who only come in and fight when the other bloke is near unconscious on the ground. Warner was mean. Watson repeatedly kicked Swann. Bailey went world record on Anderson.

Despite there being 26,000 Test runs between Cook, Prior, Bell and Pietersen, it was Ben Stokes, playing in his second Test, who made the hundred. In Sydney, Stokes left a ball that pitched on the stumps, and hit the stumps.

—

After his chat with Cook, Prior took Bairstow aside for some coaching. It was on the rubber mat that replicates keeping from a spinner. Bairstow took to it like a duck taking to architecture. Balls hit his hands and rebounded in random directions. Some went through his legs; even the ones he took often hit only one glove.

Every time he didn’t take one cleanly he smashed the rubber training stump in anger with his gloves. Prior remained kneeling, calmly feeding balls when Bairstow wasn’t chasing ones he missed, or taking a short anger management walk. Eventually, after one too many misses, Bairstow just booted the training stump about 20 metres away. Bairstow then moved on to the ball machine, which fired fast deliveries at him. He dropped one of those as well.

All that was still better than this three ball duck to a defensive prod.

—

Graeme Swann took the pressure off his team-mates by putting it all on himself. It was the worst-timed retirement in history, or the best-timed depending on how you saw it. Selfish or selfless. Maybe it was both. But his bowling certainly wasn’t helping England. His batting hadn’t helped much either. Only his fielding would be missed in his current form.

Trott had run scared they said. Swann had retired bruised they said. England were selfish loser cowards they said. With the series over, they said a lot.

Now, even the English practice sessions became unruly and tired. Instead of the professionalism and precision of before, it was like a bunch of blokes who’d been blackmailed into training in the nets.

England had finally decided to end Prior’s bad run. A big call considering his position as vice-captain, the right call considering how his game had fallen apart piece by piece over the last 10 or so Tests. But their back-up was the batsman they didn’t think was good enough during the last Ashes. A batsman who keeps a bit. Really more of an athlete who can fill in. The sort of guy you give the gloves to if your main guy gets injured on the day. Bairstow is the sort of wicketkeeper who can race after a leg bye with amazing speed and throw with a good arm. But he’s not a keeper keeper, or even a keeper batsman, he’s a batsman with keeping gloves on.

Prior’s demise was slow. It was clear that, despite his previous few years’ good form, he needed to have a break – but it felt like England had no back up. Where was the future proofing?

Clarke gave England their first real break of the series when he decided to bowl first in Melbourne. England took it, stumbled, but as their openers batted in the second innings, they were 100 runs in front and had 10 wicket still to lose. The dead rubber was their oyster. Somehow they managed to collapse twice in the one innings, end with a moderate lead and a nasty, new-ball evening session to play with.

They took no wickets that night. Missed two easy chances the next morning (one from their new keeper not moving, the other from their captain’s broken mind). And Australia cruised to a total that should never have been that easy only two wickets down.

Had it been in the first Test, it would have been one of the best comebacks in years. Instead it was in the fourth Test, and incredibly inevitable. Although, not as inevitable as what happened in Sydney.

—

England don’t take chances with selections. Darren Pattinson’s selection in 2008 seemed to scare them all straight. Second spinners aren’t thrown in on a whim. Raw quicks aren’t tested for fun. Young batsmen are groomed slowly. There are plans, plans and plans about plans.

And yet, the XI at the SCG had only five centrally contracted players in it. Of the 11 who do have contracts, three had been dropped, one had retired, one had gone home and one never played. The current team instead had a bloke who was playing club cricket in Sydney a few weeks back. On this tour 20 players have been in the squad, 18 have played. James Tredwell was added for this Test and didn’t play. Finn (centrally contracted) has been on the entire hell tour and hasn’t played.

Finn is 24. Finn is six foot seven. Finn has 90 Test wickets. Finn has a strike rate of 48. Finn bowls at 90mph. And Finn has not played in one Test as his team stumbled from disaster to shambolic, tripped-over farce and then fell face first into a steaming pile of 5-0.

Instead Boyd Rankin played and might end up being remembered most often at pub cricket trivia nights as the last wicket of the 2013-14 series.

—

The dictaphones were all on the desk. Andy Flower sat behind it. He was talking to a journalist and said “If anything I have relaxed a little in certain ways…” While he said it, he rearranged the Dictaphones in front of him. “If anything, I could bring more intensity and a closer control on certain things.”

Less than three days later the Test was over. It had lasted marginally longer than his soliloquy.

#politeenquiries and video match report

Polite Enquiries and video match report

Australia’s trip to number one without a top six

David Warner didn’t move his feet. Not for the first time. Chris Rogers was unlucky. At the wrong age to do that. Michael Clarke fended at the moving ball. Easier to do at No. 4 than No. 5. Shane Watson planted the target on the front pad. England found it for the first time this series. George Bailey was dangling outside off. People already murmuring about him there.

Brad Haddin flies in. Situation sorted. Again. Again. Again. Again.

—

Beneath the Big Bash big talk, away from the CA Twitter account’s split personality and far from ads for summer’s biggest dress up party, Cricket Australia still take cricket seriously. It may not always seem that way as the ‘Ashes pashes’ are on the big screen but Cricket Australia has been pretty consistent on one thing, it wants the team to be No. 1. It actually want to be No. 1, No. 1 and No. 1. In all formats, the best team on earth. A cynic may suggest that it’ll make for better marketing copy, but it’s still a worthy, if hard to attain, ambition.

Clarke used his newspaper column to reiterate that this team wanted to be No. 1 straight after Perth. That’s when captains speak, after the game, when the result dictates the conversation. Had Clarke been asked to speak when Australia’s fifth first-innings wicket fell, No. 1 would have been a sizable distance from his mind. The Australia top order have consistently been awful in the first innings. Only in Adelaide were they anything near passable. In every other innings they’ve been poor.

Then Haddin comes in. Technically Haddin has batted at No. 7. But in real terms he’s batted one, two, three, four, five, six and seven. Add a cape and a moustache and Mitchell Johnson may not win Man of the Series.

Haddin as the permanent saviour was enough to win the Ashes. And it may be enough to win 5-0. But to be No. 1, you are probably going to need a top order. And Australia’s next series is against a bowling attack of Morne Morkel, Vernon Philander and Dale Steyn.

Beating England, while that team is in emotional freefall, at home is just a step in the right direction, not anything more. Australia were naked in a gutter a few months back, and they haven’t won three consecutive Test series in a row since the infamous summer of kidding themselves against West Indies, Pakistan and New Zealand. This summer there are far more good signs than back in 2009-10. That’s all they are. This isn’t some finished product that has honed its game around the world and is ready to tussle at the top, it’s an old team with a good bowling attack that’s in great form.

Form is, as many cricketers have told us, temporary.

—

“Australia have the best bowling attack in the world.” It’s something you may have heard more than once. Lazy commentators say it, showing that they don’t follow the cricket outside of Australia. Coaches have said it, despite the fact it is their job to know how good other countries are. It’s not the best bowling attack in the world (unless South Africa has been voted off the planet). But it’s really good.

Peter Siddle has improved virtually every part of his bowling. He is a leader and a worker, who never gives up. Nathan Lyon was the boy no one wanted. Considering the menagerie of misfits used as spinners before (and during) his time, surely only a mad scientist selector would change him now. If Johnson keeps bowling the way he is, he may actually explode, as will most batsmen who face him. He could also lose form and confidence and end up sitting on the bench for an IPL franchise. It’s all possible. Ryan Harris may not be long for this game. Then again, who really thought he’d play nine straight Test matches against England.

Harris is the only one for who age is a concern. Australia also have James Pattinson (Test average of 26), Pat Cummins (pace like fire, body like paper) and Nathan Coulter-Nile (pace – tick, swing – tick) hanging around.

So it may not be the best on earth, but it’s a pretty damn scary attack to bump into on a dark night. With Johnson in this form, it’s nuclear.

—

India and South Africa are the No.1 and No. 2-ranked sides in the world. Even if India had won in South Africa, their first overseas series since they were in Australia two years ago, they were too many points behind to go top.

India look good right now, but may be a bowler short away from home. R Ashwin is averaging more than five wickets a Test and was just dropped against South Africa. Pakistan were ranked fourth before this series. In recent times they drew with South Africa, and before that they drew with Zimbabwe. Essentially they play in the same manner Saeed Ajmal does press conferences.

England are so bad right now, the hashtag #pomnishambles has been invented.

So, that only leaves South Africa. They are the best team on earth. They have beaten or drawn all their series since losing, to the then-No. 1 side, Australia in ’09. In their last seven series, they have won six and drawn once. After Gary Kirsten took over, they became the team that they flirted with being at most times since readmission.

To beat them, you have to shove Graeme Smith aside. Confuse Hashim Amla. Hope AB de Villiers is tired. Then survive the bowling attack. And do it all quickly in a shortened series.

—

If Australia do win 5-0, in the history of cricket it will probably be the worst batting line-up to have ever swept such a long series.

Coming into Melbourne, Chris Rogers was a 36-year-old with a Test average of 31.88 – pretty much the same average that Ed Cowan had when he lost his place. Then England dropped Rogers at the MCG and he made his second hundred and cemented his place for South Africa. He’s obviously not rubbish, but at his age, he doesn’t need balls bouncing back through his legs on to the stumps. Chances are, no matter how good his career goes, at his age, he’ll be a batting coach or commentator by the next time Australia are No. 1 in Tests.

David Warner’s form has been amazing, in the second innings when Australia have been smashing the ball everywhere against a Mitch Johnson-ed England. His first innings have shown promise, but he’s never gone through. He still has no overseas Test hundreds and in the one second innings when the pressure was on, he failed. After being dropped. His footwork is always going to get negative feedback but he’s never going to fix it. In South Africa it will be tested every day.

Shane Watson is batting at No. 3 for Australia, with a Test average of 36.56, and you can see why Darren Lehmann may not have backed him completely as a batsman. It still makes more sense for Watson to bat at No. 5 or No. 6, but then Australia would have no one to bat at three. In the first innings of this series, he has been woeful, but he made a happy slap hundred in Perth, and guided Australia home at Melbourne. Still important, still frustrating, and still a massive lbw candidate.

Michael Clarke has a bad back, and a sensational home record. If he can recreate that away from home, and his back stays good, he’ll be a good player to ride to No. 1.

Steven Smith is one of three Trent Woodhill (a see ball, hit ball batting coach) disciples who have made hundreds this series. He made another in England, and gave another way. In India, as his team-mates cried into their cornflakes, he came in and showed guts and feet. Here was another hundred that proved how tough he is. But he’s still only averaging 37.41 in Test cricket. It’s because Smith either makes runs, or fails. There is no in between. His bowling, and fielding are both useful but, at No. 5, he needs to make it as a batsman. He is probably a six, and maybe so is Watson, and it looks like Bailey might be as well.

George Bailey may not even make it to South Africa. Or Clarke could retire and he becomes captain. One is more likely than the other.

—

There was no shock as Australia lost early wickets. It was green, Australia had been put in, and throughout this Ashes (and the entire mega Ashes) Australia have struggled to score in the first innings. There was no shock that Haddin saved them either. It may have been moving around, and in his bad times he would have nicked off playing a shocking shot, but that wouldn’t have felt natural in this series. It all happened exactly as it has for five Tests.

Australia failed, England failed harder. Haddin prevailed.

Australia are old, have a frail batting line up and are relying on a 36-year-old wicketkeeper more than any team should. They shouldn’t get to No. 1, but then they shouldn’t have won this series without a fully functioning top six. Even with a fully functioning Brad Haddin behind it.

Alternate Ashes timeline

In another timeline, Alastair Cook just pushed a single to get Jonathan Trott on strike. Then Trott tickled a leg-side ball from Jon Holland around the corner, taking another one, as England won the series 3-1. Michael Clarke looks lost. Shane Watson is not there.

On this timeline, Watson burped a ball to deep square from Monty Panesar to move Australia ever closer to 5-0. Watson and Clarke embrace like brothers. Cook looks lost. Trott is not there.

It might seem completely inconceivable right now that Australia could have ever lost this series but, considering how much has gone right for them this series, it is not exactly science fiction.

Things have consistently not gone wrong for Australia.

For instance, they might not have picked Mitchell Johnson. Despite good white-ball form, and even with Kevin Pietersen and Trott flinching in the UK, Johnson might not have played had Mitchell Starc or James Pattinson been fit. Johnson was suspended on the Test tour of India earlier in the year, didn’t fit Australia’s plan of pressure through subtle movement. His batting is handy, but Australia’s tail did okay without him. So, had there been other options, or if Australia decided to move on, Johnson wouldn’t have played at the Gabba.

Without Johnson, Australia would not be 4-0.

Brad Haddin also could have been dropped. While he kept well in the UK, he also averaged 22. He is 36, it was his first real series back in the team, and he struggled to make an impact. The major reason he was brought back was to calm relations in the team but Darren Lehmann handled that quite well himself. Australia could have looked at it and decided that, with Wade averaging roughly the same and a better conversion rate for hundreds, it was time to bring him back in and let him take more of a leadership role.

Without Haddin, Australia would not be 4-0.

David Warner has made a lot of runs in second-innings knocks with little pressure. Peter Siddle and Ryan Harris have been good but have not really been tested in fifth and sixth spells. Nathan Lyon has been serviceable, but that’s easier to do with Johnson decapitating people at the other end. Watson has only passed 22 once in the first innings. George Bailey has barely played a proper Test innings yet and Chris Rogers would have been in far more pressure coming into this Test had it not been for the scoreline.

And none of that even takes into account the possibility of an injury befalling Harris, or Watson, or even Clarke.

Instead Trott went home. Graeme Swann retired. Matt Prior was dropped. And Cook looks under pressure.

James Anderson looks tired and beaten. Stuart Broad hasn’t bowled another great spell since the Gabba. Ian Bell has lost the magic he had in the home Ashes. Pietersen can’t seem to please anyone. Michael Carberry hasn’t gone on to make any real impact on the series despite looking okay most of the time. Joe Root’s constant travels around the batting order and his propensity to waft have had him in trouble. Tim Bresnan is not the same bowler he was three years ago.

And whether real or imagined, it seemed like every single decision that Alastair Cook made in this Test went against him. Whereas Michael Clarke probably made a mistake at the toss, ended up with a 51-run deficit, and still won by eight wickets.

In another timeline Prior takes the first catch, Cook takes the second and England win comfortably. But that never ever looked possible today. Just like all series, if something could go right for England, they made a mistake to ensure it didn’t.

And Australia have ridden the many gift horses into the sunset.

Final MCG #politeenquiries