Ashes to Ashes

The third Ashes test ended yesterday, and with it any hopes that England might retain the urn. Played three, lost three, only two to go. We’ve lost the series.

The warnings were there at the end of the summer. England won that series 3-0 on home grounds, but that’s not a fair indication. Australia finished stronger and if it wasn’t for a few days of bad weather and at least one generous declaration by Michael Clarke, the scoreline would have reflected that.

Noone expected a 5-0 England whitewash this winter, but there were hopes for a close and exciting series. Certainly the two teams were better matched than the last Australian series in 2010 which ended in a humiliating destruction of the Aussies. But we at least expected England to put up some resistance.

I’m far from an expert in cricket so I can’t offer reasons why we lost, but I am quite good at maths. Here are the scores so far this winter:

 

First test:
Australia 295 and 401-7 declared
England 136 and 179

Second test:
Australia 570-9 declared and 132-3 declared
England 172 and 312

Third test:
Australia 385 and 369-6 declared
England 251 and 353

 

You don’t have to know anything about cricket to see they scored more runs than us. And they did so consistently. To only pass 300 twice in six innings shows a failure by the batsmen, who dug their own graves with astonishing collapses. That the Aussies declared four times shows that we failed to bowl them out in two thirds of the innings. Not a good performance by the bowlers either, or those fielding. Of course these are not three completely separate groups, some players bowl but they all bat and field. And they did so poorly.

There are two more matches to play this winter, maybe we will win one (or at least draw) but it won’t change the result. We have lost the Ashes again, and England are a dispirited, poor team. Exactly how it used to be in the 80s when Bowie released the song of this post’s title and England were routinely humiliated by every team they played.