Clueless Australia wilt under England onslaught

Stokes and Co made it their day with an impressive display of aggressive batting but Australia, it might be argued, weren't at their tactical best

As Joe Root and Jonny Bairstow were in the middle of putting together another blistering partnership for England on Day 3 of the fifth and final Ashes Test at The Oval, the television screen suddenly flashed images of former Aussie pacer Glenn McGrath and former Aussie skipper Ricky Ponting having a conversation.

England's Joe Root plays a shot on day three of the fifth Ashes Test (AFP)

It immediately made one wonder if the Aussie teams led by Ponting or one in which McGrath, Jason Gillespie and Shane Warne made up the bowling attack, would have allowed England to just hammer away.

At close of play, England were 389/9, a lead of 377 runs. Joe Root’s 91 was the top-score as the hosts took control, and they will now be eyeing a win that will allow them to level the series up at 2-2.

The home side started the day 12 runs behind but they wiped that deficit off with little fuss and a lot of flair. The openers, Ben Duckett and Zak Crawley, put on 79 off 104 balls. Then, Crawley and Ben Stokes (batting at No.3) strung together 61 off 57 balls. Stokes and Joe Root put on 73 off 79. Root and Harry Brook 9 (8). Root and Bairstow added 110 of 148 balls. It was the kind of batting card we would see in an old-school ODI.

And you get it. At one level, you get it. England’s ‘Bazball’ strategy means they want to go hard at the bowling. And they have the right batters to do that as well. But does Australia have to play along?

Would McGrath have allowed the batters to just keep going after him or would he have taken a step back and tried to figure how he could make things difficult for them? Would Warne have tried to go around the wicket and pack the leg-side field?

Tactical lethargy

This isn’t being defensive. This is simply being smart. The great Aussie teams would mind giving a session to the opposition. Sometimes, you do get outplayed. Sometimes, you lose a Test or even a series. The point, though, is the tactical lethargy that has been on display.

In commentary, Ponting kept advocating a fifth-stump line to Crawley (73 off 76). Australia didn’t bowl that for the longest time and when they did, they finally got him. It wasn’t just guess work from Ponting though for that is the line that has dismissed the England opener most times in the summer. So, why not do that more?

Australia did nothing out of the ordinary. They had started the series off by employing a short-ball strategy but that is nowhere in sight. The runs were being scored on both sides of the wicket. It almost felt that Australia’s strategy was to wait for England’s batters to make a mistake. And, at the highest level, that often isn’t good enough.

Australia’s inability to create pressure (either by taking wickets or keeping the runs down) meant England’s batters never had to try anything different. There wasn’t much swing in the first session but it did get better in the second. However, the runs kept flowing and the visitors were backed into a corner — one from where they could easily lose the Test.

This isn’t just about what McGrath and Warne would have done though. In November 2008, India were taking Australia on in the final Test of the series at Nagpur.

At the end of Day 2, Australia were 189/2 (49 overs). So come Day 3, India decided to do things differently. They employed 8-1 fields, bowled wide off the off-stump, frustrated the batters and Australia only managed to score 166 runs in 86.4 overs before being bowled out.

In this series, Australia have often tried to fight fire with fire. But that isn’t the only way to go about this. India’s plan in Nagpur was defensive but the entire point was to frustrate the batters. By keeping the runs to a minimum, they didn’t allow the game to get away from them. If you have five days, you might as well make full use of them.

India won the Test by 172 runs. It only showed that the target of any bowling side is to make the opposition uncomfortable and there are plenty of ways to do that. Australia, in that aspect at least, have appeared to be clueless.

This was the same wicket where Australia had struggled to get their run-rate going on Day 2. But as the lead kept growing, the response from Cummins and Co kept getting flatter. They still ran in hard but the sense of purpose seemed to have gone missing.

A few quick wickets at the end of the day lessened the damage but Australia have left their batters with a lot of work to do in the second innings.

The urn will stay with the Aussies but as things stand, they won’t quite feel like they’ve won it.