Has Ricky Ponting’s Australia lost it?
They might have been the World Champions for more than a decade but every rise has a fall. The way the mighty Australians have fallen against the arch-rivals England during the ongoing one day series is nothing short of surprising. The team that has won the World Cup on most occasions - 1987, 1999, 2003 and 2007 - has not only been unable to defend their score in the three matches, they have not been able to bowl England out in three attempts, a fact that exposes Australia’s weak bowling attack.
On the other hand, Andrew Strauss has celebrated his return as one day skipper by piling up runs against the best of the best, and leading a pack of determined men who managed to win their first series against Australia in 13 years.
Why have the Australian players shown no interest in the ODI against England? It is a million dollar question if one looks at it from the Australian perspective, but English fans will disagree since it is their team that has played better. While both the teams have had little luck with batsmen tearing apart the opposition, the one to bat according to the situation has succeeded in the three matches.
In the 1st match, the Aussies posted 267 runs on the board due to Michael Clarke’s masterful innings of 87 not out, yet they didn’t end up as victors. Why? Because none of the other batsmen applied themselves with James Hopes as he was coming out as the second highest scorer of the innings with 34. England achieved the target in 46 overs due to Eoin Morgan’s 85-ball century that saw him steer the hosts from 97 for 4 to ’won by 4 wickets’. All-rounders Luke Wright and Tim Bresnan did what no Aussie could do in the match, and added 95 and 71 runs for the fifth and sixth wicket with Morgan, who took the man of the match award for his unbeaten 103.
In the second one dayer, Australia were off to a whirlwind start with Shane Watson scoring 57, Cameroon White managing unbeaten 86 and Steven Smith blasting quick fire 41. Their efforts helped the tourist reach 239 runs for the loss of 7 wickets, which is by no means that difficult a target to achieve in 50 overs. Stuart Broad was the man of the hour for England, finishing with 4 wickets for just 44 runs. Chasing less than 250 in 50 overs was always going to be easy for the in-form hosts who did so for the loss of 6 wickets. Notable contributions from Eoin Morgan, skipper Andrew Strauss and Paul Collingwood helped England take a 2-nil lead against their opponents. No Australian bowler besides Doug Bollinger troubled the hosts as they all went for more than 5 runs an over, when they should have been containing the runs.
In what proved to be the series clinching victory for the hosts, England would remain in debt to Tim Bresnan for showing maturity and striking the right balls for runs, after the Aussies fought back to take the battle to one last wicket, one last over. Chasing 213 to win, after Graeme Swann and James Anderson decimated the Australian lower and middle order, England was at one time cruising towards victory. However the sudden loss of wickets gave Australia an outside chance to come back and take the match. This is where Ricky Ponting lost it, and bowled all his regular bowlers before the final over. The ‘dis’ honour of bowling the last over went to James Hopes who is rarely used at the death. His first ball strayed outside the off stump and Tim Bresnan edged it past the clueless wicketkeeper to clinch the match and the series.
Pundits might agree that Hopes was the only choice for Ponting, he could have gambled by bowling Steven Smith, who gave away 34 runs in his 9 overs for less than 4 runs per over unlike Hopes whose 6 previous overs cost his side 44 runs without a wicket. Australian skippers have always been termed as courageous and risk taking but it seems Ricky Ponting has lost the instinct. If that is the case, then he might unceremoniously sacked as skipper and player like his predecessor Steve Waugh who was far better as a skipper than Ponting in his final days.
Australia needs to improve their bowling and use the bench strength because the current lot doesn’t click as world beaters. While Stuart Broad, James Anderson and Graeme Swann have devastated the Aussies with 7, 6 and 4 wickets in 3 matches so far, the visitors haven’t been that lucky. Only Doug Bollinger has managed 6 wickets for them, and it must be remembered that he was not part of the T20 World Cup in the West Indies. May be that’s what the Aussies need - a fresh pair of legs instead of worn and beaten cricketers.
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