Ashes Betting: Cometh the hour, Cometh the veteran

Bat and ball / Andrew Hughes / 16 August 2009 / Leave a Comment

Will Trott thrive where Bopara failed?

"With so many new faces around, it has been the old hands, the grizzled professionals who have come to the fore in this series."

An unusual feature of this absorbing series is the high number of Ashes virgins thrown into the fray. At Cardiff, half of the twenty-two players had never experienced an Ashes Test match and most of those had been playing Test cricket for less than a year. With so many new faces around, pundits and punters alike did their best pre-series to pick out those most likely to succeed. The same names kept cropping up as men to watch: Philip Hughes and Mitchell Johnson for Australia, Ravi Bopara and Graeme Swann for England.

But for this talented quartet, things have not quite gone to plan. Hughes and Bopara have both been dropped, Johnson has clung onto his place by his fingernails and Swann, aside from one wonder ball to Ricky Ponting, has picked up only a handful of wickets and languishes at sixth in the England bowling averages. So why have these talented young cricketers not lived up to the hype?

Much is made of the step-up from domestic cricket to international cricket. But perhaps there is another giant leap to be made when it comes to Ashes cricket. Only Pakistan versus India comes close to the intensity of an Ashes series. Every ground is sold out for every day of every Test and there is no escape from the smothering attention of the media. For a short time, these players get a taste of what it is like to be an A List celebrity, their every move scrutinised, analysed and criticised. It takes time for players to learn the trick of shutting it all out, of developing a thicker skin.

Even for Australians, brought up in a tougher sporting culture, it cannot be easy. Johnson and Hughes are still young men who came of age on that eyebrow raising series victory in South Africa earlier this year. It would be a distortion to say there was no pressure on that tour. But Australia went as underdogs and were greeted with near-disinterest. For the most part, the stadiums were half-full.

But how then do we explain the relative success of the other Australian newcomers, Peter Siddle, Ben Hilfenhaus, Nathan Hauritz and Marcus North? Well, Hughes and Johnson differ from those four in an important respect, something they have in common with Bopara. They both have flawed techniques. These days, technical flaws are soon identified and exploited. The dual burden of trying to be mentally strong, to shut out the crowd and to cope with that horrible sinking feeling that your opponents have worked you out must be horrendous.

And on the subject of technique, Bopara and Swann have been discovering that what worked against those reluctant tourists from the Caribbean does not necessarily cut it against the Aussies. They have had to scratch around for new weapons; new strategies and they have had to do it mid-series.

With so many new faces around, it has been the old hands, the grizzled professionals who have come to the fore in this series. For Australia, Ricky Ponting and Michael Clarke have led the way. For England, Andrew Strauss and Andrew Flintoff top the batting averages. Those four names may be very different characters, they may be at different points on the arc of their Test careers, but what they have in common is experience; experience of the unique pressure of an Ashes series.

They have strategies to cope with expectation, with the stifling goldfish-bowl atmosphere of the Ashes. They have techniques robust enough to survive a searching examination and, when found wanting, have developed the strength of mind to find a way to succeed regardless. Flintoff has looked flat-footed at times and Ponting has once again shown his weakness against off-spin. But both have battled through. Like Strauss and Clarke, they have been here before and have memories they can draw upon, a store of confidence built up during the successful times to tide them over.

There will be another new face taking the field at the Oval. Jonathan Trott will begin his Test career in the biggest game an English cricketer can be involved in: an Ashes decider. The market says England are big outsiders, [5.5] to win the match, with the Aussies on [2.66] and those who watched the Headingley debacle may concur. But being on the verge of victory brings pressure of a different kind. Will the likes of Siddle, Johnson and North stumble at the final fence? The Ashes 2009 is not over yet.