



England's 'Indian' summer plan cost it the Ashes in Australia

Illustration: Joe Benke.

Illustration: Joe Benke.

I had a dream the other night that broadcaster Jim Maxwell, at his present age and fitness level, wearing dark slacks and a blue ABC long-sleeved shirt, reached the final of the Australian Open tennis. He beat Djokovic and Murray and was about to deal with Nadal when I woke up. Headlines called it ''The Miracle on (Rebound) Ace''.

As sporting dreams go, it was an improvement on the usual recurrence, which is to find myself on a Test cricket field for Australia despite not having played for 25 years, as if that would help. The selectors and captain ignore my pleas to leave me out. To be Piers Morgan is my dream come true. I'm way too old, and I'm in the middle. And I don't have any pants on.

Scarcely more believable is the scenario in which the real Australian team finds itself striving for a 5-0 Ashes win. The words ''This is a dream come true'' have been uttered by more than one player this summer, and it's possible, given the inherent bizarreness of sporting dreams, that a 5-0 scoreline did awaken Michael Clarke from his sleep a couple of months ago. Just not like this.

Where it all went wrong for England seems, in retrospect, clear. The pitches prepared for its home Ashes series resulted from a short-term, defensive, and ultimately self-defeating mentality. Having won a series in India and seen Australia crushed there, England's leadership decided to bring the subcontinent home. On dry, crusty wickets, James Anderson and Graeme Swann could exploit Australia's proven batting weakness against reverse swing and spin. If difficult surfaces meant the effective sacrifice of England's own batting to neutralise Australia's, this was the price to pay for a home win, which it duly achieved.

The shortcomings of this approach were incipient even in that series. Aside from Ian Bell, the English batsmen became short on runs and confidence. Matt Prior, their linchpin, was struggling with bat and gloves on pitches that were a keeper's nightmare. Their defensive attitude, once ahead in the series, was auto-asphyxiating.

Rather than attack Australia when it was down, England played in fear of yielding. Its batting at Old Trafford, Chester-le-Street and the Oval, apart from Bell and occasionally Kevin Pietersen, was as lacking in enterprise as anything seen since. Alastair Cook's captaincy was, as usual, behind the curve. His tactics, which Shane Warne correctly described as an absence of tactics, were justified by the end: a 3-0 series scoreline. But that satisfaction was based on perceptions of an Australian team that were already out of date.

This was the key takeaway from that series: strangely, the Australians came out of it talking and strutting like winners. Touring teams that lose a series 3-0 usually deteriorate to the point where they are barely on speaking terms by the time they fly to their various homes. The 2013 Australians, against the grain, improved in performance and morale as the tour went on. England's timidity let this happen.

There was another misjudgment. Consciously or not, England misread Clarke's character. They saw the surfaces and the ephemera, not the essence.

Distracted by irrelevant press and outdated rumour, they thought Australia would fragment under his leadership. They underestimated his fanatical competitiveness and didn't appreciate how united the Australians were.

Unsurprisingly in a team led by the likeable Cook, they mistook popularity for leadership. Clarke doesn't lead by being everyone's close friend; he leads by his fanaticism. Cricket teams are not football teams. They belong to the captain.

Clarke was assisted by Darren Lehmann - whose role has been significant in improving off-field mood, but overstated more outside the team than within it - and a large support staff who share a professionalised hatred of losing. The return of Craig McDermott and Mike Young has borne fruit, and if runs are a batting coach's KPI, Mike Di Venuto has earned his salary.

Still, seeing is believing, and until Brisbane, Australia had not won anything. That first Test match was the most remarkable event of a remarkable summer. At the Gabba, England was met by a wave of aggression from which it has not recovered.

The verbal assault was led by Clarke and henchmen Brad Haddin, Shane Watson and David Warner. The physical assault was led by Mitchell Johnson. Clearly Johnson's revival, starting with his IPL season at the Mumbai Indians, owed something to the upheaval in Mohali. Since being stood down for not doing his homework, Johnson has transformed himself as a cricketer. There have been other changes in his preparation, and only he can know how they all fit together.

To acknowledge Mickey Arthur's role in all this would seem like another of those weird upside-down dreams, but the Australians' steady improvement has been a long time in the making. Johnson's revival, the most obvious if not the only difference between the teams, has come from an extended and late apprenticeship in the game.

Still, England brought much of this on. Had it prepared normal wickets at home, most likely it would have beaten Australia without shredding its own batsmen's confidence. By reverting to defensive plans and lacking killer instinct, England's leadership betrayed a lack of belief in its stars.

Where it won was where it lost. In extending its possession of the Ashes by two months, it gave them up for two years.

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