Dilapidated England left to heal old Ashes wounds
For the third time in four Ashes series in Australia, the hosts are 3-0 up with England looking hapless. In the latest of them, in 2017-18, all of the home team's gambles have worked while none of the visitors' moves has paid off.
The build-up to the series began with England announcing a squad full of “unknowns” - that was the word the local media used to describe their guests – and Australia themselves investing in debatable choices of Shaun Marsh and Tim Paine – and some even questioned the presence of Cameron Bancroft – in their squad for the first two Tests.
But nearly a month later, England find themselves having surrendered the urn in distasteful fashion with needless memories of three previous catastrophic tours in this century haunting them again: it was 3-0 after Perth each time in 2002-03, 2006-07 and 2013-14 and 5-0 on the latter two occasions – exactly where this series seems to now be inevitably heading.
In a probable playing eleven where England would surely field Mark Stoneman at the top and two out of James Vince, Dawid Malan and Gary Ballance, their eventual numbers three and five – Vince and Malan, respectively – meant that the tournament commenced with sufficiently threatening inexperience in the batting line-up.
But England's troubles had begun much before they even stepped out for the first Test at the Gabba: their impactful all-rounder Ben Stokes' involvement in a brawl outside a Bristol bar had him withdrawn from the squad, Steven Finn flew back home courtesy of a knee injury, Moeen Ali suffered a side train enough to rule him out of all three warm-up games before the series and Jake Ball was let down by a sprained ankle in the second warm-up before making it to the first Test and then getting dropped for the following two.
All that resulted in tremendous responsibility falling to seniors Alastair Cook, Joe Root, James Anderson and Stuart Broad. But unfortunately for England, history repeated itself – at least partly. While Root was certainly no senior in the previous Ashes Down Under and Broad was third on the list of wicket-takers with 21 at 27.52, Cook reproduced his failures to deliver on tracks with innate qualities of pace and bounce.
As the captain in 2013-14, he managed only 246 runs at 24.60 – even his new opening partner Micheal Carberry and the then unknown Stokes had more runs to show – and four years later, Cook has somehow only got 83 runs in six innings so far.
He may be less than three hundred away from 12,000 Test runs while still not 33, but it seems a far cry when he last crossed fifty in the knock of 243 against West Indies at Edgbaston and since then, has had issues encountering pace as well as spin with feet not moving forward with the alertness of the past and hands stretching to reach out to away-moving deliveries.
As for Root, not only a senior now but also the captain, a continuing to be appalling conversion rate - he has 13 Test hundreds and 34 fifties - and an inability to stand the persistent accuracy of the opposition bowlers have resulted in a difficult maiden tour as captain. In fact, all three of Stoneman, Vince and Malan have gathered more runs than Root on the current trip after the first three Tests.
There are concerns regarding the gradually fragile-growing Anderson too. Though he was a below-par performer in 2013-14 as well with 14 wickets at 43.92 – again, Stokes was ahead of a far more experienced teammate – he has fared better with 12 at 25.83 thus far. But despite those pleasing numbers, it is his dearth of pace in recent times which has hurt England.
Too often a victim of injuries since the 2015 Ashes at home, an advancing age and a tiring body have resulted in the loss of the power of his heyday, despite his enjoying a home season this summer where he eclipsed 500 Test wickets.
And it is not Anderson alone who seems to fade away from his glorious days. His new ball partner Broad, often found bowling a harmless line and length on Australian tracks not meant to assist swing and lateral movement off the seam – things he thoroughly enjoys at home – have yielded him just five scalps at a bewildering average of 61.80 when even Craig Overton has done much better, having bowled a bit over half as many overs.
The last time Broad took five in an innings was in January 2016 at Johannesburg and since then, his best figures remain 4/21 against Sri Lanka four months after that 6/17 against South Africa.
On to spin now. While England's first-choice off-spinner Moeen Ali first fell to a side strain and then bruised fingers as a result of the unfriendly Kookaburra ball, his counterpart Nathan Lyon's reputation as one of the world's most improved bowlers has further enhanced. Not adjusting to the pace of the wicket in Australia – in fact, the Gabba was much slower than expected – and not adapting to the right trajectory has cost Moeen dear. Lyon, contrastingly, sits six places above him on the wicket-takers' list and ironically, has accounted for Moeen on five out of six occasions.
Overall, England's campaign seems to be in shambles with calls to induct young leg-spinner Mason Crane in place of Moeen growing louder and a hairline fracture keeping Overton in doubt for the series.
They first let go a position of strength at Brisbane when they slipped from 127/1 to 163/4 in the first innings and when Australia were 76/4, conservative captaincy and loose bowling allowed Australia to crawl back and obtain a 26-run lead. In the next Test, Root faulted by bowling first after which Shaun Marsh showed what would have been had he batted; and after Anderson finally got his first five-for in Australia in the second innings, England lost all the momentum they had gained by losing early wickets on day five.
They found no answers to Steven Smith's resilience in Brisbane and Perth – not to forget Mitchell Marsh's 181 – and the fact that Pat Cummins, proven to be difficult to remove as a tailender, has more runs in the series than Cook has summed up the tour for them.
Perhaps the only consolation that England can take to Melbourne can be the courageous knocks by Malan and Jonny Bairstow at Perth, while hoping that their “unknowns” find reasonable success to cement their respective spots for the future.