The Reverse Sweep

The Boundary View: Harris burst speeds England's demise - Perth, Day Four

 
England's Achilles Heel?

So Perth 2010 joins Johannesburg 2010 and Headingley 2009 as stains on the record of the otherwise excellent Strauss-Flower axis at the helm of the England cricket side. Worryingly, all three pitches offered the bowlers pace and bounce, and England’s batsmen succumbed each time. Has England’s Achilles Heel been found? Ricky Ponting thought so before the match and his hopes were emphatically confirmed here. Hardly a surprise then that rumours abound of a late change to the pitch that will be used for the Boxing Day Test at the MCG. One thing’s for sure – it won’t be a raging turner.

Happy Birthday

His broken digit may have kept him off the field, but Ponting got the perfect 36^th birthday present as his bowlers mopped up the rest of the English wickets with lightning speed. Ponting said afterwards that he got the XI he wanted here with four quicks, but if he is fit for Melbourne will he and the selectors make the same mistake they did at The Oval last summer – or will Australia’s best spinner Nathan Hauritz (who hit another hundred for New South Wales today) finally get a call? If so and facing what would seem to be a well-balanced and newly confident attack, England may find Australia’s momentum difficult to stop.

Time for a promotion for Bell

He may have only made 16 today, but yet again Ian Bell looked in prime form. Despite the top four all having scored at least one hundred in the series, none of them have looked in better touch than England’s number six. Paul Collingwood on the other hand has a top score of 42 in the series and is in the midst of a poor run. As David Lloyd commented on Sky, it’s not a sign of panic to promote Bell to five and drop Colly to six. Indeed, it is just common sense.

Player of the day

Ryan Harris – He bowled well with little reward or support at Adelaide, but his four wickets today gave him six in the innings and nine in the match. Talk about a late bloomer.

Zero of the day

Matt Prior – There wasn’t much time for a definitive zero as things were over in just a flash, but Prior confirmed the impression from his first innings knock that he is struggling with the bat at the moment. Brad Haddin is winning the battle of the keeper-batsmen hands down so far.

Prospects for Melbourne

It’s all set up nicely at 1-1 with two tests to go. England’s supporters were kidding themselves if they thought this series was going to be a cakewalk – and we’ve been as guilty of that as anyone. Australia now have the momentum, but Ponting and Clarke are still out of touch so this series threatens to go right down to the wire. Our pre-series prediction of 2-2 is suddenly looking good again.

Where next?

Perth: Day 1 - Tremlett's Sinatraesque Comeback

Perth: Day 2 - Johnson's rendition of I Am the Resurrection reduces England to rubble

Perth: Day 3 - Hussey & bowlers put England to the sword

Read all the latest from our Ashes 2010/11 coverage

Check out all our Reverse Sweep heroes and zeroes

Perth Heroes & Zeroes: Adam Gilchrist,  Alex Tudor and Chris Broad

Exclusive: Read KP's 2010 Ashes Diary

If you like this, follow us on Twitter @thereversesweep

Ashes 100-1: 73 - David Lloyd gets castrated by Jeff Thomson

Whilst researching yesterday's post for our Ashes 100-1 countdown on the 1974/75 Ashes series (see story here - If Lillee Don't Get You, Thommo Must), we came across this excellent video, which warrants a post all of its own.

The video tells the story of how David 'Bumble' Lloyd (see also Heroes: David Lloyd) had the misfortune to get one in his 'appendage' from the extremely rapid Jeff Thomson. As you would expect Bumble relays the story in his inimitably amusing way and we find out that cricket boxes in the seventies weren't really built for purpose...

 

Ashes 100-1: 74 - If Lillee Don't Get You, Thommo Must

In 1976, the Sex Pistols appeared on the Today show hosted by Bill Grundy and the juggernaut that was Punk Rock revolutionised the music scene across the world and especially in the UK forever. However, a couple of years before, a very different revolution took place in the 1974/75 Ashes series in Australia.

A confident and experienced England team arrived expecting to successfully defend the Ashes, but their balloon of optimism was soon burst by an Australian side that more closely resembled a rock band (just look at the footage, if you don't believe me) than a cricket team. Ian Chappell's team could certainly play cricket however and they did it in a ruthless and unforgiving fashion. They were fronted by a couple of tearaway fast bowlers in Dennis Lillee and Jeff Thomson.

"Ashes to ashes, dust to dust; if Lillee don't get you Thommo must!"

So read one of the banners adorning cricket grounds down under that summer. And boy was it accurate as Thomson took 33 wickets and Lillee 25 as England were simply blown away. Just over 40 years after Douglas Jardine's masterly strategy of directing the ball at the Australian batsmen during the Bodyline series, Lillee and Thomson did something remarkably similar even if Chappell didn't resort to Jardine's now outlawed leg theory fields.

Actually more English batsmen suffered broken bones during this series, which was still in the days before helmets, than had their Australian counterparts 40 years before. There was no outcry this time of course, partly due to the jingoistic and baying nature of the Australian crowds, but also because of the 'win at all costs' mentality was now inbred into the game.

This new method of attack was certainly too much for England's frail batting line-up, which included David 'Bumble' Lloyd. In the 1st test at Brisbane despite a courageous hundred from Tony Grieg, Australia won by a convincing margin of 166 runs with Thomson taking six for 46 and breaking the hands of Amiss and Edrich. This prompted England to recall the 42 year old veteran Colin Cowdrey for the second test. On arriving at the crease, Cowdrey went up to Thomson with his hand outstretched and said:

"I don't believe we've met. My name's Cowdrey"

Wonderful stuff and he duly played the two lightningly quick Australian bowlers as well as anyone in making 22 and 41, but England still lost heavily by nine wickets. The third test at Melbourne was in contrast a very close match, which ended on the fifth day with Australia just eight runs short of victory with two wickets in hand. The out of form England captain Mike Denness dropped himself for the fourth test but it didn't help England's slide as Australia won easily by 171 runs to secure the return of the Ashes. The script of the summer continued in the next test at Adelaide as despite 11 wickets for Derek Underwood, Australia cantered to a 163 run win.

England did manage to win the final test at Melbourne with Denness, having recaptured his form during the state matches, hitting 188 as England won by an innings. But just like England's habit of winning dead rubber matches in the Australian dominated series' of the nineties, this was a hollow victory given that Thomson didn't play due to injury and Lillee only bowled six overs.

Australia's team of larrikins went on to dominate briefly - even beating the West Indies 5-1 in Australia the following summer, before the World Series Cricket schism led to the premature break-up of the side. But make no mistake, the Australian team of 1974-75 was a seriously good side as the video below demonstrates.

 

Heroes: David 'Bumble' Lloyd

Come on be honest, we've all laughed at David 'Bumble' Lloyd's unique brand of cricket commentary at least once over the years. He brings an old school irreverent Test Match Special style to the Sky Sports team that both John Arlott and Brain Johnston would probably have approved of.

But behind the familiar soundbites like 'start the car', lurks a shrewd cricket brain honed as a player, coach and umpire. Bumble knows what he is talking about and he makes watching cricket for the armchair fan both enjoyable and interesting.

Lloyd wasn't a bad cricketer either scoring over 19,000 first-class runs and taking 237 wickets with his slow left arm bowling. He played nine tests for England, averaging over 42 with a top score of 214 not out in his second test against India. As an opener on the ill-fated 1974-75 Ashes tour, Bumble just about survived intact from the Thomson and Lillee onslaught, although he never played another test after that series.

He also started the process of professionalising the England team during his stint as coach from 1996-99. Results weren't always great and Lloyd was at the helm during the World Cup of 1999, where the home team went out in the group stages. But he was never short of a quote with his "we flipping murdered 'em" analysis of a drawn series in Zimbabwe perhaps being the best.

But it is as a cricket commentator and Tweeter extraordinaire where Bumble excels and for what he is almost universally loved. Unpredictable? Yes, you never know what he is going to come up with next (and nor do his colleagues in the commentary box), but beneath the humour and the irreverence there is normally a sharp and incisive point.

Winston Churchill once said that his motto during World War II was to "keep buggering on", well we hope that Lloyd keeps bumbling on for as long as possible.