Allan Massie: Good old collapse shows up hosts' lack of authority

Published on Friday 7 August 2009 22:35

WRITING at lunch on the first day of the Fourth Test is like old times: England collapse.

Some of the chaps in the commentary box – David Gower, Michael Atherton and Nasser Hussain, for instance – must be thinking "we've been here in our time and we didn't enjoy it then".

Earlier in the day I'd been about to write that the series was evenly balanced. Well, England are now on the wrong end of the see-saw. It just goes to demonstrate that cricket, perhaps even more than other games, has a way of making forecasters look silly.

It's little more than a month since I suggested that Philip Hughes and Mitchell Johnson were the young Australian stars to watch, and, hey-ho, poor Hughes has been dropped, his precocious talent dimmed, and weaknesses found in his game to be exploited by England's bowlers, while Johnson's bowling has been mostly wayward. Nevertheless he has continued to pick up wickets, if costly ones. He showed a return to something like his best form in the second innings at Edgbaston and the ball with which he dismissed Ian Bell yesterday morning was a brute. All the same Bell would have escaped if he had dropped his hands to let the ball pass. Easier said than to do when it is fired in at more than 90mph.

Without Kevin Pietersen and Andrew Flintoff England look not only fragile, but lacking in authority. The five specialist batsmen are all talented, but they are not players to frighten or daunt the opposition. All are more inclined to respond to the bowlers than to take charge of them. So there will be plenty to say this was a collapse waiting to happen. There are better batsmen who for one reason or another are not playing: Pietersen, Marcus Trescothick, Mark Ramprakash.

Coming into this game, the series looked evenly balanced. England are one up, but have only occasionally seemed the better side. Australia have taken more wickets and scored more runs, with six centuries to England's one, but they failed to win at Cardiff when they should have done so, whereas England managed to press home their advantage at Lord's. Neither is a great side; neither indeed as good as both were in 2005.

Yet, despite the deplorably docile pitches that chief executives (one assumes) have till now demanded that groundsmen produce to ensure that the match lasts to a fifth day, the series has been compelling.

This, however, looks like a result pitch – or at least conditions in the first two hours of play have been such as to make a result probable. At the moment of writing Australia are so completely on top that they look likely to win. If they do so, it would be a surprise if they don't go on to retain the Ashes. But a turnaround is always possible. That's part of the beauty of cricket.

Not everything in the series has been agreeable. The booing directed at Ricky Ponting has been deplorable. Ponting is a great batsmen, one of the best ever. True cricket-lovers appreciate him, just as they have appreciated Michael Clarke's beautiful batting in the last two Tests. Sport is degraded if its followers become mere fans, incapable of applauding good play by the opposition. Cricket crowds used to know this, just as on the whole rugby crowds still do. Would Murrayfield or Twickenham boo Brian O'Driscoll or Richie McCaw?

The first Test match I ever attended was at The Oval in 1956. We all knew it was the last time we would see two of Australia's greatest players, Keith Miller and Ray Lindwall, in a Test in England. Both had given English batsmen a good many nasty moments in the past, but each was clapped all the way to the wicket, with the crowd rising to honour them.

Eight years previously in his last Test Don Bradman had been given a like reception; indeed Norman Yardley, the England captain, even called for three cheers from his team as The Don reached the wicket. Emotion ran high, quite possibly contributing to Bradman's second ball duck.

It would have been quite unthinkable for an English crowd to have booed Bradman. Well, Ponting is not The Don, but he is possibly Australia's greatest batsman since him, and he should be greeted with generosity and gratitude. It's a privilege to be allowed to watch a batsman of his quality.

No doubt England's batsmen will be subjected to harsh criticism after this first-innings performance. Some of this will be justified, some of it, sadly, will be plain nasty. I've read remarks about Ian Bell on websites and, regrettably, in some sections of the Press which have been very unpleasant, directed as much at his character as his batting.

Well, he may not yet have fulfilled his undoubted talent, but other artist-batsmen have been in the same position before. I can recall when Tom Graveney was dropped because he lacked "a Test match temperament". He came right in the end. Bell may do so likewise. The second innings at Headingley would be a good time to start doing so; a necessary one indeed.