Mitchell Johnson is not a feared name in England. Yet, in England’s last three Ashes Test defeats, the Western Australia paceman has taken 24 wickets at 11.8, including a five wicket haul each time. At Headingley in 2009, Johnson took a five wicket haul to bowl England out in their second innings. Australia won by an innings. At Perth in early 2011, Johnson put on a hostile display for a haul of 6/38 in the first innings as England were shot out for 187. He followed this up with 3/44 in the final innings of that match. England lost by 267 runs. He returned to his home ground from his formative years to put his extra pace to great effect to dismiss 9 Australians, 5 of them specialist batsmen, to give Australia a lead in the 2013-14 home Ashes.
Johnson has had an erratic career for Australia. At times he looks like a hopeless slinger, uncertain about where his deliveries are aimed. He always had the ability to do justice to the Left Arm Fast classification, but often seemed to try and bowl within himself in search of Left Arm Fast Medium control and length. It never quite worked. His best spells in Test Cricket have invariably come when he’s bowled flat out. Michael Clarke and Darren Lehmann seem to have given Johnson the license to bowl quick.
England’s batsmen felt the extra pace. Johnson had England’s top order batsmen, especially Jonathan Trott hopping in his crease, shuffling across his stumps. All the elaborate rituals and trigger movements that make a specialist top order batsman were disrupted by Johnson’s extra speed. Batsmen were prodding way from the body, hopping across their crease, playing off balance, on the move. Johnson disturbed England’s equanimity at the crease.
This suggests to me that, more than anything else, England were genuinely surprised by Johnson’s pace off the wicket. Harris’s subtlety, Lyon’s steadiness and Siddles relentlessness, they must have expected and prepared for. They probably saw Johnson as the weak link in the attack – the erratic bowler who could be taken for runs.
The Gabba wicket that was not slow by any reasonable standard. Johnson will not be as potent on the slower wickets that are sure to follow in at least 2 of the remaining Tests. But the challenge for England will lie not only in how they play on the forthcoming pitches, but also on how well they recover from this hammering. The Gabba Test was a rout. A number of the dismissals were poor. England’s batsmen fell to bat pad catches playing off the back foot to the spinner. They fell to the most elementary leg traps. The storms in Brisbane did not save England like the Manchester rain did.
England’s batsmen have batsmen have struggled since the tour to India in late 2012. Only Bell averages over 40. All the others average in the 30s. Nick Compton and Jonny Bairstow, the two fringe players, barely averaged 30. The bowlers have done better. But what has been notable among the bowlers has been England’s failure to find a 4th bowler. Panesar, Bresnan and Finn had to be dropped, the spinner on account of the conditions, and the pacemen on account of their ineffectiveness. Stuart Broad has been the stand out performer. James Anderson has bowled well, but like Zaheer Khan he seems to have lost some pace recently. In 5 Tests since his 10 wicket haul at Trent Bridge in July, Anderson has taken 14 wickets at 45. But the more telling statistic is that it has taken him nearly 14 overs to take one wicket in these Tests. More generally, over the last 18 months or so, Anderson has gone from being a bowler who took his wickets at 25 a piece (as he did in his prime years) to a bowler who takes his wickets at 30 apiece. From the start of the 2009 English summer to the end of the 2011 English summer, Anderson took 123 wickets at 26, a wicket every 52 balls over 28 Tests. Since then in 25 Tests, he has taken 91 wickets at 30, one wicket every 65 balls.
The core of this English Ashes XI is the same as the 2010-11 side. 8 of the 11 who played in Brisbane in 2010 were in the 2013 side. The three changes are Tremlett, Carberry and Root. Tremlett was part of the 2010-11 squad and played at Perth, Melbourne and Sydney. On the one hand, this signifies admirable continuity and success. But it also suggests that there has not been much competition for spots. Over his last 30 Tests, Jonathan Trott has made 1960 runs at 36. Against the three best attacks in the world – Australia, Pakistan and South Africa, he averages 30 in the period since the 2010-11 Ashes. These are the type of figures which put pressure on Sachin Tendulkar in India in the mid-2000s, let alone a player who has played for only 4 years in all. When Rahul Dravid produced comparable numbers, there was pressure on him to move down the batting order and allow VVS Laxman to take his spot. These are troubling signs for a number 3 Test player, let alone a number 3 Test player in the number one team.
Since the 2010-11 Ashes, Alastair Cook’s opening partners have scored 1801 runs at 31.6, while Cook has managed 2749 at 48.2. In the middle order, the spot vacated by Paul Collingwood has been occupied in fits and starts by Jonny Bairstow, Joe Root, Eoin Morgan, Samit Patel, Ravi Bopara and James Taylor. Between them, these batsmen have produced 1670 runs at 29.3. This in itself is not alarming. Most teams have one weak link in the their middle order, even successful teams. Joe Root appears to be a long term prospect. England’s inability to fill this slot suggests that the batting bench is not brimming with quality. When it is seen alongside the modest returns from Cook’s opening partner and Trott at 3, it appears to be part of a more troubling pattern.
England are blessed to have a genius like Kevin Pietersen in their ranks. Pietersen has played match winning innings as well as match saving ones, without which England’s record over the previous 3 years would have looked decidedly mid-table. Matt Prior’s runs in the wicket keeper’s slot have helped too. But as with Adam Gilchrist for Australia, and Virender Sehwag for India, KP cannot be the engine room of the batting. Apart from Cook, and to some extent Bell, England have not found consistent run accumulators who will leave Pietersen to do his thing. The depth of their fast bowling bench and the quality that Graeme Swann adds to the attack have given England a cushion against this modest run production. Against modest bowling sides, these batting cracks can be papered over. Even so, England have revealed themselves to be ill equipped to deal with surprises. In all the myth making around England 2005 Ashes series, it is often forgotten that they had two unorthodox batsmen at the heart of that side – Marcus Trescothick and Kevin Pietersen – in addition to the clean striking and simple defense of Andrew Flintoff. All other English batsmen failed in that 2005 Ashes series – Andrew Strauss and Michael Vaughan had their moments, but series are not won by solitary centuries amidst a sea of failures.
England have a lot on their plate. Mitchell Johnson’s pace has exposed the limitations of their batting order. Following the Ashes series in England this year, I couldn’t help but feel that the 3-0 result flattered England. This could be a long series for England. Their opponents are still rebuilding, but the promise shown by Steven Smith and Shane Watson towards the end of the English summer, and in David Warner’s impressive century at Brisbane makes me believe that Australia are improving, while England, having crested a summit, are playing from memory.
It would be a mistake to count Graeme Swann out on the more helpful pitches later in the series, especially given how poor Australia were against Ashwin and Ojha earlier this year. But even so, Brisbane was a Test England have threatened to play for a while now. Given how brittle Australia’s bowlers – especially the impressive Ryan Harris – have been in recent seasons, it is difficult to say how this series will go. This Brisbane defeat is a far cry from Len Hutton’s disastrous beginning in the 1954-55 series. Given consistency of personnel, England will have to play out of their skins to retain the Ashes after Brisbane.