(posted 7895 days ago)The Times
September 08, 2002Simon Wilde: England face testing time
When England arrive in Australia for their winter tour they will find that their hosts are now even strongerNasser Hussain has a busy month coming up. Once he has fulfilled his duties in Kennington, which comprise not only completing the Oval Test but selecting an Ashes squad, the England captain jets off for the Champions Trophy in Sri Lanka for what could be two weeks of cricket but may well be three if India and Zimbabwe are overcome in the group stage.
When he gets back, he must settle into his new home, prepare for the birth of his second child, take part in a couple of spurious one-day games in Cardiff, and in all probability, take a call from the chairman of selectors, David Graveney, informing him that Darren Gough will not be fit to make the Ashes tour. Hussain will not request a replacement, because he and coach Duncan Fletcher are preparing for Gough’s expected absence by announcing five other specialist fast bowlers in a squad of 17 on Tuesday morning.
At some point, Hussain will settle down on his sofa in front of the television and either watch videos of the nine Tests that Australia have played since England met them last September, or watch coverage of the world champions playing three Tests against Pakistan in Colombo and Sharjah. Or both. For Hussain, this constitutes relaxation.
He may want to keep a cushion handy to cover his eyes, for what he will discover is that Australia are — deep breath, please — a better side now than they were when they mashed his team to a pulp at The Oval 12 months ago. Australia scored 2,300 for three. Actually, that may not be right. But that’s what it felt like.
Australia are stronger on several counts, although the main one was already in place at The Oval in the shape of the opening partnership of Justin Langer and Matthew Hayden. It was the first time they had opened together, and they shared a stand of 158 that set the tone for the match.
They have not looked back since, and a string of monumental partnerships against New Zealand and South Africa, scored at breathless pace, squeezed the life out of the opposition like an impatient python. Three of their four double- century stands were achieved on the opening days of matches that Australia went on to dominate.
England’s openers, Michael Vaughan and Marcus Trescothick, are no slouches, and it could be argued that the Ashes series which opens in Brisbane on November 7 will be won by the side whose openers score more heavily.
But good though Vaughan and Trescothick are, they would have to turn themselves into Batman and Robin to treat Glenn McGrath and Jason Gillespie with the kind of disdain that Langer and Hayden have been showing the world's new-ball bowlers.
Gillespie’s improved fitness is another reason for England anxiety. His impact on the series in England last year was relatively mute: he broke Hussain’s hand in the first Test and dismissed Trescothick five times, but his 19 wickets at 34 apiece were dwarfed by the carnage wreaked by McGrath and Shane Warne, and his influence subsided as the series went on. He promises to be an even greater threat now.
Warne, too, heaven help us, is leaner and meaner, and Stuart MacGill, who last faced England during the 1998-99 series in Australia, lurks in the wings, ready to link up with Warne in deadly partnership in Sydney.
Australia’s run-scoring potential in the middle order might be strengthened by Jimmy Maher and Simon Katich coming in for the Waugh twins, although nothing would give England a bigger lift than for Steve Waugh not to be glowering at them from close quarters. His mere presence would remind them of their past impotence.
The other thing Australia have in their favour is history. Beating them in their own back yard just does not look like a starter. They have won 12 series out of 14 at home since going down to West Indies nine years ago, and this sequence includes 15 wins in 18 matches since their last defeat — to England in Melbourne four years ago. England scraped home by 12 runs, one of only two wins achieved in Australia in three Ashes tours. The other, in Adelaide in 1994-95, was almost equally improbable.
Hussain is astute enough not to encumber himself with talk of winning the series. His plea for England to keep the series alive going into the final Test at the Sydney Cricket Ground in January is ambitious enough.
England have two pressing concerns. Gough’s fitness is the first. There is a growing fear that he is not even going to be able to join the tour with a view to working himself towards full fitness in time for, say, the third Test in Perth in late November. He will be given a date by which to prove his fitness, but nobody, other than Gough, seems optimistic that he can satisfy the medics that he is capable of withstanding a demanding tour.
Gough, of course, will say he can, but then he has been adamant about a lot this summer, and all he has to show for it is a handful of one-day games and newspaper pictures of him drinking beer at Trent Bridge.
If he does not make it, England should remain upbeat. They have coped, if not exactly thrived, without him (they have won four and lost three since he last played) and should not forget that Australia more or less broke his spirit with their calculated assaults last year; the punishment meted out by Hayden and Langer at The Oval was the final act in a sobering personal drama. His absence would create openings for Simon Jones and also Steve Harmison, one-cap wonders whom England are keen to get back into the side as soon as the opportunity arises. It may come down to a straight contest between the two for one place at venues where England seek to play all-pace attacks, notably Perth, but before that can happen, Hussain and Fletcher will want to work on them in the nets.
It would be fantasy to believe that either could inflict the kind of shock that Frank Tyson administered in 1954-55, but they could pose problems and help England to a consolation victory somewhere. Jones, who fancies himself, is the more exciting prospect than the self-effacing Harmison, but the competition will be good for both of them.
The other issue is the availability of Graham Thorpe. The selectors have spoken with him by phone but have yet to hold the face-to-face meeting that will surely decide whether he joins the tour, although they are sending out positive signals.
Taking him could prove a horrible mistake, but, unlike with Gough, the management is still taking Thorpe’s assurances at face value, and he believes he is over the worst in his domestic crisis. Not taking him would be the harder but perhaps safer course of action, though the vision of Thorpe punching boundaries either side of the wicket is as seductive as a distant oasis in a desert.
The selectors may also be keenly aware that they are set to select a middle-order quartet of Hussain, Mark Butcher, John Crawley and Alec Stewart, who all saw service on the last unsuccessful Ashes tour, and may be fearful of the defeatist vibes that reappointing them all might create. Hussain is a tougher campaigner, Butcher technically better, but Stewart has possibly lost 10% and Crawley has had less to say the more the temperature has risen in the current India series.
Thus, the presence of Thorpe, even though he is an experienced fighter, would inject an element of fresh blood. He was a member of the last Ashes tour but returned home with a back injury after the first Test and missed the three defeats that followed in the next four matches. He also played only once in last year’s series.
Oh, and one other thing. England should break with recent tradition and appoint a vice- captain for the tour in Vaughan and thereby anoint him as Hussain’s heir apparent.