England's Bowlers

[Spark]

Yep exactly.

Even at Perth, as BB has been at real pains to point out, that was a case of two monumental performances and two good ones covering up for seven inadequate (or worse) ones. You can't go around relying that on a team for very long.

 

[Uppercut]

Just because a player gets out doesn't mean they are out of form. In form players can get out early as well, just as out of form players can sometimes still score centuries.

The evidence for Ponting being out of form is not that the English bowlers keep getting him out, it's the manner in which he is playing (which happens to be conducive to getting out) - i.e. his extremely fidgety style of batting these days.

Yeah, and that wasn't the case against India a month previously. It's the quality of an attack that does that to a batsman.

I do see your point, but no one ever says of a batsmen who's averaged under twenty in a five-match series, "he was actually in pretty good nick there, the bowling was just too good for him." It's as though it's entirely impossible for a bowling attack to be good enough to frequently dismiss an in-form batsman for low scores, and obviously that isn't the case. You're using circular logic if you claim a batsman was out of form as a means of demeaning the achievements of a bowling attack that repeatedly dismissed him for low scores when the only evidence you have for that batsman being out of form comes from his performances against that bowling attack.

 

[Spark]

He does look like he has some technical glitches though (never seen him so squared up), which for whatever reason I hadn't noticed before.

 

[Redbacks]

That's circular logic, the only evidence you have that Ponting was out of form is that England kept getting him out.

Hasn't he averaged 20 below his best for a couple years now?

 

[Ruckus]

Yeah, and that wasn't the case against India a month previously. It's the quality of an attack that does that to a batsman.

I do see your point, but no one ever says of a batsmen who's averaged under twenty in a five-match series, "he was actually in pretty good nick there, the bowling was just too good for him." It's as though it's entirely impossible for a bowling attack to be good enough to frequently dismiss an in-form batsman for low scores, and obviously that isn't the case. You're using circular logic if you claim a batsman was out of form as a means of demeaning the achievements of a bowling attack that repeatedly dismissed him for low scores when the only evidence you have for that batsman being out of form comes from his performances against that bowling attack.

I'm not sure he even looked that much better in India. As you said the quality of the attack wasn't as good, and that, with a bit of luck, probably allowed his technical issues to be less of a hindrance.

On the other point, Chappell actually pretty much said that exact thing about Ponting - he said, paraphrasing, "Ponting's foot movement suggests he is actually in really good nick. He has just been out of luck this series and getting good balls early on". I don't disagree with that idea, but in the case of Ponting he really just didn't look in good nick for the most part. I don't think it's circular logic either; Ponting's technical problems are independant of the bowling he is facing - e.g. he might get stuck in the crease and play the wrong line. The bowling can exploit those weaknessess, but it doesn't really elicit them. I.e. going back to the example of India, I'm sure many of his technical problems were still there, but the bowling simply didn't take advantage of them.

 

[Teja.]

Kumble - WAFG. 8 wickets a game in the 3 games he played in 2003/04 with ****all support, epically flat pitches and an ATG batting-lineup to boot.

 

[GIMH]

Think we need to dig up a few pre-Ashes posts on this subject because people have only started calling the Watto/Katich/Ponting/Clarke/Hussey/xx/Haddin top seven "pissweak" since England owned their poor little souls. If anyone had used that label before the series everyone would have laughed and called them a bell-end. The exact same batsmen had been taking visiting attacks apart in Australia for years. But I guess that's what a world-class attack does to reputations.

Cracking post from the Irishman

 

[Furball]

Over the 5 tests yes the gap was wider ,but over the first 3 tests it was not.
Infact,Australia were the better side at Perth.

I.e my point that it unfair to compare the two series and call one closer ,specially far closer than the other specially when at 3 tests it was probably more closer.

And i am over with this debate.

Why do you keep going on about the first 3 Tests? Surely it's more relevant to look at the most recent results first?

 

[Woodster]

Why do you keep going on about the first 3 Tests? Surely it's more relevant to look at the most recent results first?

By doing so though would weaken his point considerably. There is an obsession from the posts I've read on here at comparing the first three Tests of this Ashes series ? Why, when it was a five-match series and everyone knew it was and so game plans were hatched with the five matches in mind, so you cannot just pick out part of the series to suit an argument.

On the subject of the England bowlers, it is difficult to differentiate between how well England have bowled and how badly Australia have batted, and it is clearly a combination of the two. I suppose Australian fans will want to discredit England's performance a little by placing the blame on their batsmen, while us England fans will wish to brag about how good our bowlers are regardless of how Australia batted.

The truth is somewhere in between, but as the thread title is England bowlers, I'd like to focus on that. The performance of Jimmy Anderson was fantastic, I personally had concerns over his areas when the ball was doing next to nothing. It's fair to say the conditions were more favourable than on his last trip here, there was more grass around on the pitches which helped him to get some movement for large portions of the innings. His ability to get reverse swing, as said in an earlier post - along with the rest of the bowlers, was genuine skill. He remained a constant threat, even in Brisbane when Hussey and Haddin were surviving, then flourishing, during their monster partnership.

There will be much spoken about Swann's role this Ashes. He'll naturally be disappointed that he's not taken more wickets at a healthier average, mainly down to the lack of assistance in the pitches, but the holding role he did was vital also. He got one pitch, at Adelaide, that gave him something to smile about, and he duly produced five wickets in the second innings to help us win the Test. The fact Australia have been reluctant to produce the dry turning tracks shows how highly they rate him.

Tim Bresnan and Chris Tremlett exceeded most people's expectations. We have all known the capabilities of Tremlett, but for him to come in and be so consistent and threatening was a real bonus. He should have made a starting XI place his own for Sri Lanka in May. The control Bresnan gave England was key. The lines he bowled, always at the batsman, were consistent and he's another excellent exponent of reverse swing.

Steve Finn for me has much work to do on his consistency, and while he was the leading wicket-taker in the series at the time, the decision to leave him out was completely justified. I'm sure he'll be back, and hopefully a better bowler. He'll have learnt much form this Ashes trip, and he didn't let himself down.

We will never know how effective Stuart Broad would have been had he played a full part, but I'm sure he'd have done a similarly effective job.

My marks for the England attack for this series are -

1) J. Anderson - 9.5 out of 10
2). C. Tremlett 9 out of 10
3). T. Bresnan 8.5 out of 10
4). G. Swann 8 out of 10
5). S. Broad 7.5 out of 10
6). S. Finn 7 out of 10
7). P. Collingwood 10 out of 10, for that wicket of Hussey.

 

[Spark]

He bowled something like 22 overs for 23 runs at one point in Melbourne did Swann. Only picked up one wicket IIRC (Clarke) but it was a fine, fine spell and perfectly epitomized what his job was this series.

 

[Uppercut]

Haha he was bowling to a 400-run first innings lead! Economical bowling was just worthless and easy for a spinner to attain because Australia didn't care for runs.

I'd give him a lot of credit for getting the job done at Adelaide though because that pitch was flat enough for the seamers that England could realistically have not won the game. The rest of the time he just wasn't really required. And he was one of the poorer performers in the two matches England didn't win.

 

[Cevno]

Why do you keep going on about the first 3 Tests? Surely it's more relevant to look at the most recent results first?

Because someone was comparing it with a 2 test series.

 

[Woodster]

Haha he was bowling to a 400-run first innings lead! Economical bowling was just worthless and easy for a spinner to attain because Australia didn't care for runs.

I'd give him a lot of credit for getting the job done at Adelaide though because that pitch was flat enough for the seamers that England could realistically have not won the game. The rest of the time he just wasn't really required. And he was one of the poorer performers in the two matches England didn't win.

Regardless of run deficits, it was a clear plan prior to the series starting that England were going to suffocate Australia of runs. That's obvious in some of the slightly defensive fields set by Strauss despite having very healthy leads. Their thinking was that Australia loved seeing the board ticking and so would be frustration if the runs were dried up sufficiently. So for these plans to be executed, tight accurate and economical bowling was crucial, which Swann produced, if not through wickets at his end, then his spells of bowling contributed to wickets for the other bowlers.