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| July 16, 2005 | Saturday | Jumadi-us-Sani 8, 1426 |
History favours Australia in Ashes battle
LONDON, July 15: History is on Australia’s side, whether Michael Vaughan looks back two decades or a single week. It is hard to argue with eight successive Ashes series wins and it is hard to argue with the one-day lessons handed out to England by the world champions in the past few days at Lord’s and The Oval.
Vaughan’s job, however, is not to raise doubts but to instil belief. Hence his unflinching mantra before the start of the Ashes next week: “I certainly don’t believe the momentum has swung to Australia. History suggests the one-dayers don’t have any impact on the five-day game.”
Ricky Ponting, not surprisingly, does not quite agree. His side’s 2-1 victory in the one-day series, he says, “will give us a bit of confidence. It gives you a nice feeling around the place”.
The Australians, after a slow start to their tour, are now looking super-slick and living up to their world number one ranking. Everyone, bar perhaps Matthew Hayden, seems to be smiling and running into form just at the right time.
Ponting and Adam Gilchrist have just scored sparkling centuries, Glenn McGrath is back to his miserly best, Brett Lee looks certain to win a Test spot for the first time in 18 months.
Even Jason Gillespie is rediscovering his rhythm before the opening day of the series at Lord’s next Thursday.
Shane Warne, determined to put his separation from his wife behind him, joined the squad this week with his world-record 583 wickets, many of them English, in his kit bag as well as what he calls “a little bit of the X-factor”.
When Australia contrived to lose consecutive one-day games to Bangladesh and England last month, all the talk was of an ageing team heading downhill. At The Oval on Tuesday, in winning by eight wickets, they bowled, batted and fielded like teenagers.
Their test form has not been too shabby either. Since winning in India last year, Australia have won eight tests out of nine. Only the weather in Wellington deprived them of a full set.
And yet, and yet...
It was almost 20 years ago, back in 1986-7 when Chris Broad was not yet a match referee nor David Gower and Ian Botham not yet broadcasters, that England last won the urn.
For the first time in several series, however, they are armed with a fighting chance rather than wishful thoughts. For the first time for a while, they are injury free and have a bowling attack capable of taking 20 wickets per game.
Steve Harmison and Andrew Flintoff are the main difference between present and past. Flintoff has yet to play a single Test against Australia — struggling to recover from a hernia operation, he missed the entire 2002-3 Ashes — while Harmison was a novice then, and began his tour by bowling eight wides in an over in a warm-up game.
The Durham strike bowler has progressed quickly since.
Coincidentally, it was Australia opening batsman Justin Langer who first spoke out loudly about Harmison’s promise while playing on the English county circuit.
Ranked the world’s best bowler last year, Harmison helped England to eight successive test wins.
Flintoff, too, has been a revelation as the fulcrum of the side.—Reuters
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