Fourth Test review: England won by and innings and 78 runs and lead the 5-match series 3-1 with one match left to play
After another great performance, the England men's cricket team have won back the Ashes from Australia following a remarkable win in Nottingham.
Reports
http://www.espncricinfo.com/the-ashes-2015/content/story/907771.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/cricket/33833833
http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/content/video_audio/907963.html
Scorecard
http://www.espncricinfo.com/the-ashes-2015/engine/match/743969.html
Twitter reaction
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/cricket/33836020
Magnificent England complete Ashes victory with Trent Bridge rout
With helpful, overcast bowling conditions on the first morning, captain Cook won the toss and put the Aussies in first. They were soon in trouble, unable to cope with the lateral movement of the ball, both swing and seam, that the England opening bowlers Broad and Wood generated.
The innings, which amounted to just 60, set a series of records. See here for a list of them!
It was remarkable to follow live. Almost the whole country was hooked! Broad finished with the best Ashes figures for any fast bowler, a truly remarkable 8-15. He bowled with pace and great accuracy, moving the ball enough to find the edge with regularity. Almost every ball he bowled looked like creating a chance for a wicket, and England let nothing slip in the field. There were some great catches, including a seemingly impossible one from Ben Stokes that seemed to already have gone past him when he grabbed it.
The amount of movement we generated was not overwhelming. As well as Broad performed, was this also a big failing from the Australian batting order? It was telling though that only Broad, Wood and Finn actually bowled in the first innings: Stokes , Ali and Root did not even get a look-in. And the former players did so well because there was no weak link, no let up in the pressure - they supported each other, bowled a lot of wicket-taking deliveries, helped by the conditions, and gave away next to no bad balls. Although some of the Aussies did let themselves down in the first innings, they did not play as poorly as 60 all out would suggest.
From that point on it was always going to be a big struggle for Australia to get back into the game. And they didn't quite bowl well enough. Cook (43) played a solid role at the top of the England innings, ably supported by Joe Root (widely known as Joe Rooooooooooooooooooot!) who played a masterful hand, going about his innings in just the right way as he so often does, and scoring at a good clip to get 130 off 176 balls, including 19 fours and a bludgeoning six off spinner Lyon. Jonny Bairstow (74) came to the party in capable fashion, forming a good Yorkie partnership with Root. Wood did a decent job as Nightwatchman, and later, Ali and Broad carved some useful late runs to get us to 391-9 when the declaration came.
Both Australian openers made a good start to their second innings but their side were so far behind by this point that there was not much chance of them coming back into the game unless something truly special happened. But England persisted, and after Rogers went for 52 the middle order stuttered again. Only Warner (64) and Voges (51*) offered much resistance to the England victory charge. Stokes bowled superbly this time, getting the ball to swing and seam both ways at a fast pace, and claiming 6 victims. When No.11 Nathan Lyon played on to Mark Wood, and had his leg stump uprooted, Australia were still 78 runs away from making England bat again. Wood had 3-69, Stokes had 6-36 and England had won the Ashes!
The biggest problem for Australia in this series has been their inability to adapt to English conditions - no great pace or bounce, but plenty of swing, and somewhat grassed pitches that offered movement off the seam. Their batsmen tended to play too hard at the ball, with firm grips that made the ball fly off the edge so fast, it carried to fielders. Good players of English conditions know that it's often a good idea to do as little as possible until you get in - leave the ball whenever you can, and play late, with soft hands to give yourself the best chance to read any movement and cause any edges to not carry.
"T20 gone horribly wrong"
This was not just a failure to adapt to foreign environs though. We see increasingly in Test cricket, and this is something that's been noticeable for at least the last couple of years, that the influence of T20 is starting to make batsmen impatient. There is often a lack of application, the need to hit runs all the time, and the generation of a false sense of run-rate pressure which the Australian batsmen showed in their sub-20 over first innings. It was, in effect, a T20 innings gone horribly wrong, masquerading as a Test innings. Or, as ESPNCricinfo put it, "Australia slashed their Ashes away in a 93-minute video nasty"
England set another record in this series - they are the only side to have 4 different bowlers take 5-fors (actually, 6 or more wickets) in 4 successive innings - Anderson, Finn, Broad and Stokes. It's now 4 consecutive home Ashes series wins - this is getting to be a habit! 2005, 2009, 2013 and now 2015. And all this just 19 months after we were hammered 5-0 in the last Ashes series down under. It seem that whenever England get a winning result on the board, we go on to win the series! And this was a better-feeling win than the 2013 one, followed up so quickly as it was by the bad reversal down under.
I would like to think that England can take this opportunity which presents itself with the last match at the Oval, to get some spin practice in. This is before a winter away which features matches in the Middle East, on tracks which will no doubt be slow, but very responsive to spin. The only real aspect of their game lacking over the summer was the spin option. Even if we persist with Moeen Ali's bowling (and he is at least useful to have for his bowling) I'd like to see at least one more attacking spin option, such as Rashid, given some more time with the ball.
As much as this was was a wondrous day, and as magnanimous as most of the Australian players were in defeat (Clarke's post match interviews were remarkable for their emotional content as well as being very respectful and candid) you can always find a sour note amongst the glory.
Ian Healy - Really?
The one I found was provided by none other than ex-Aussies keeper Ian Healy, who blamed the Aussies' poor performances on "the WAGS". Tut, tut. I could almost want Australia to win the women's Ashes (not quite though - I'm not that generous) just to show how misguided Ian Healy was with these remarks.
Misogyny like this has no place in the sport no matter how loosely connected. Healy is behaving like an arrogant and inconsiderate antipodean lout. The bloke seems to have forgotten his own niece Alyssa, who is not too bad a player herself (showing more application that some of her male compatriots) and has been ripping up the England attack in the women's ashes (turning this all around, her own HAB, Mitchell Stark must be "along for the ride" I suppose!)
More on the Women's Ashes later. And also a photo update from Northampton as I am going to day 2 of the match against the Australians! Where I totally won't make any comments about them having just lost the Ashes!
:-)
Team ratings
Ratings Explained: 1-3 very poor, 4 poor, 5 average, 6 OK, 7 good, 8 very good, 9 excellent, 10 unbelievable
England - Overall rating: 9
Cook*- 8
Lyth - 6
Bell - 6.5
Root - 9
Bairstow - 8
Stokes - 9
Buttler+ - 6.5
Moeen Ali - 7.5
Broad - 10
Wood - 8
Finn - 7.5
Australia team rating - 4
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