Aussies In Excelsis - Day Four at Perth

If Jimmy Greaves were a cricket commentator which, mercifully, he isn’t, he would doubtless have plenty to say along the lines of ‘It’s a funny old game’. For once it would be difficult to argue with him, for I don’t think that anyone expected the shambles that was Australia at Adelaide to turn things round quite so spectacularly at Perth.

England were abject this morning – some of the more moronic of the media are trying to blame the arrival of the players’ families for the turnaround in fortune but the bottom line is that Australia bowled exceptionally well in conditions that could have been designed for their attack. Once England had closed five wickets down on the third evening there was only going to be one winner – with no prospect either of batting out for the draw or of chasing down the target it is perhaps no wonder that they capitulated. England have had a habit of collapsing horribly in one test a series of late, so they will feel that they can bounce back but the series now has a very different look to it.

That said, I would still rather be in England’s shoes in Australia’s. The betting is very reliant on Hussey, with able support from Watson and Haddin, and the bowling attack won’t find conditions quite so much to their liking again. There will be points in this series where they will need a spinner and the feeling persists that England are more likely to take wickets in good batting conditions. As for England, the selectors won’t panic – they’ve been exceptionally good at bouncing back from poor performances over the last couple of years and they are still only one win away from retaining the Ashes. They will almost certainly persist with the policy of playing four bowlers, but they might well consider resting Steven Finn at Melbourne and giving either Bresnan or Shahzad, both of whom would also improve the lower order, a game. They might also be looking at Paul Collingwood – for all of the brilliance of his fielding his batting in test cricket has been extremely moderate of late and they may think about bringing in Morgan and moving Bell up to number five.

It’s game on again. Bring on Melbourne.