Ashes Diary / Ed Hawkins / 12 December 2010 /

Ed Hawkins believes Ryan Harris could prove to be the best of a bad Aussie bunch

The action away from the pitch in this Ashes series is fast becoming more interesting than what happens on it. A phoney war when the two sides cross the white line - please Lord let Australia be competitive in Perth from Wednesday night - has at least been appeased by hilarity in the break between play.

Australia are doing a rather good comic turn. From Bollinger to Beer neatly sums up their decline into a pit of despair. They once used to sip the nectar at cricket's top table, now they have to make do with the humdrum beverage of the workaday hoi polloi. By the end of the series they could be on something very hard indeed.

If you can laugh at the selection of Beer, make the most of it. But between the guffaws, sniggers and snorts spare a thought for the punters who decided to place their hard-earned on the home side to win the Ashes series. They must also be turning to drink.

It is an astonishingly bad pick by Andrew Hilditch, the chief selector, who seems to be using his duties as an application for the Magic Circle given his desperation to pull a rabbit from the hat. Beer has never taken more than three first-class wickets in an innings at Perth, has only played there three times and has appeared, in total, in five first-class matches.

The real shame is that Nathan Hauritz, a perfectly solid Test cricketer, continues to be ignored, not on the basis of ability but some sort of personal vendetta. Hilditch, Ricky Ponting, or whoever else has it in for the New South Welshman, now cannot stomach admitting they got it wrong.

Shane Warne would pick Hauritz. And given the leg-spinner's status Down Under now appears to have reached the heights of demi God after recent newspaper allegations, perhaps he should turn his sweet talking skills onto the selectors. They seem to be working pretty well.

Hauritz is [36.00] to be Australia's top series wicket-taker - he should probably be that big to get a game - but it is an interesting market given the in-out-in selection policy Australia are deploying. Peter Siddle, with six wickets, is the [2.24] favourite and he could be well worth a lay given that it might only take one more Test for the powers that be to realise that his hat-trick was a bit of hocus pocus that would have left aspiring conjuror Hilditch envious.

The returned Mitchell Johnson, who has zero victims, is [7.40] and will be most punters' idea of value, especially as he looks set to stay for the series. Johnson, woeful in Brisbane, has a fine record in Tests in Australia and has been working with Troy Cooley, the bowling coach, to try to sort out his problems.

Johnson will be key at the Waca if the pitch is the quickest so far. He will have to bowl accurately and fast, though. Kevin Pietersen and Paul Collingwood, key in the middle order, are not great on fast wickets. KP does not have much of a back foot game and Collingwood's bat grip makes it difficult for him to get on top of the ball. Don't count on Johnson overcoming his temperament problems, though.

Ryan Harris, however, has no such foibles and we should bet him at prices from [5.60] to [5.80] to beat a desperately bad bunch. Harris, who is 100% fit after a scare, has strength, stamina and no little smarts. He also has two more wickets than Johnson which should make us feel confident that following the fifth Test we will be cracking open the bollinger. Or should that be the beer?

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