Australia were ripe for the picking. England failed to lay a glove on them

2 months ago 20

Opinion

December 23, 2025 — 11.30am

Let’s go back a couple of months and lay out some doomsday Ashes scenarios for the first three Tests.

Let’s say that Australia’s two best players, Pat Cummins and Steve Smith, won’t appear together in any of them. Let’s add that another cornerstone player, Josh Hazlewood, won’t play in the series at all. Let’s imagine that neither Cummins nor Nathan Lyon takes a wicket in the rubber until the third Test and then do not play again in the series. Let’s imagine that Smith, so often the bane of England, is withdrawn from the pivotal third Test at half-past the 11th hour.

Pat Cummins hugs injured teammate Nathan Lyon while Travis Head waits to do the same after Australia’s win in the third Ashes Test in Adelaide.

Let’s posit that Australia’s top scorer after three Tests is not Travis Head, the gung-ho No.5, but Travis Head, the emergency opener with all the responsibility that position asks. Let’s make it that Australia’s next highest scorer is the wicketkeeper.

Let’s consider that the first two Tests are played on grounds that should suit England’s hyper-charged gameplan and the third on a deck tailor-made for a team with accomplished batting down to No.10. Let’s say that Joe Root already has a century in the series, his first in this country, and Zak Crawley has made some good runs, and Jofra Archer has a five-for, and Ben Stokes has a five-for and a few runs, too.

Then let’s record with wide eyes that somehow, Australia are 3-0 ahead and the Ashes are snugly in their safekeeping again. Let’s agree that this has been a deceptively brilliant performance by a patchwork Australian team that few expected to achieve their mission so soon and some wondered if at all.

Because we’re still so England-centric, we accepted Bazball and British bellicosity setting the terms for the series. Go back and listen again as their sabres rattle. Because of that, judgment now tends to dwell on England’s failure yet again to lay a glove on Australia in Australia.

This is human nature. It’s always easier to identify what went wrong than what worked, and it feeds a human inclination to schadenfreude, too. We love a loser as much a winner, as long as it is the right loser. We abide in a sporting culture in which every outcome is defined by shortcomings of the loser, not the excellence of the winner. It’s not just sport; refer the Australian federal election in May.

So let’s pay proper tribute where it is due. The Ashes previews weren’t necessarily amiss. Australia were ripe for the picking, if picked judiciously. The bowling could be depended upon, but was in the veteran class and perceptibly lacked a layer without Cummins. The omission of Lyon in Brisbane to accommodate a fourth seamer betrayed this. Despite the result, it still looks like a mistake.

The batting was fallible. This also was betrayed by the selection of an extra in this match, to bat behind the wicketkeeper. The fact is that for various reasons, Australia made more changes than England between the second and third Tests, and it may be so again on Boxing Day. None of Jake Weatherald, the haunted-looking Cam Green and Josh Inglis can be sure of his place, and Usman Khawaja, successfully repatriated from the retirement home, has created another ticklish poser. It’s kind of what Khawaja does.

And yet, and yet, Australia lead 3-0. At all the important junctures, they have outplayed England, simple as that.

Bazball has failed not just on its own account, but because Australia have not allowed it to succeed. The extravagantly wrong shots at the wrong times, the indiscipline in bowling, the sometimes slipshod fielding: these do not happen in isolation.

In the swaggering prelude, England said Bazball was already inside Australia’s head, but in a kind of John Malkovich inversion, Australia are inside the heads of the Bazballers. They’ve been too good. Characteristic of England in Australia, they’ve played their way into and sometimes on top of matches, but can’t play them out. They play their best cricket after the fact.

Mitch Starc, Alex Carey and Head have been exceptional. A less dwelled upon feature of Starc’s long Indian summer is his reliability. He’s always been a wicket-taker, but in the early part of his career was often wild and sometimes a liability. Now he scarcely wastes a ball. Ageing has its virtues.

Carey’s batting and keeping have developed in tandem and apace. Measured against the best of his type, in all ways he stands up. Playing predominantly from outside the line of the ball was once Test match batting heresy, but Head has made it the very thing. He has seen Bazball and raised it one. In passing, here’s a nod to the low-key, light-touch Australian team management, helmed rather than commanded by coach Andrew McDonald.

In certain sections can be heard a lament about the lack of a contest. This is more than a little patronising. The objective is to win as often and well as possible. Closely considered, England have been archly competitive for stretches in this series, but not in the clutch. That is to Australia’s credit. Besides, can you imagine the hand-wringing if England had succeeded in their fourth innings mission improbable in Adelaide?

One rationale for Bazball is that sport is meant to be entertainment. Irrefutably, Bazball is entertaining. England’s home series against India was a beauty of its kind. But, let’s face it, nothing is more entertaining than winning, and nothing is less appealing than losing.

For the former, no explanation is needed – which is why Australia’s ascendancy has been taken somewhat for granted. For the latter, no alibi can be proffered. Ask England right now. They’ve lost their past four Tests. The first cost them a series win against India. The most recent condemns them to an Ashes defeat here.

One notional downside of Australia’s march is that it has made the Melbourne Boxing Day-Sydney New Year swing dead – again. Australia’s cricket authorities might have to deal with this one day, but its cricketers need make no apology, nor will the country grieve. Given the choice between a contest and rout, we will always take the rout. Three-nil is end of story.

News, results and expert analysis from the weekend of sport are sent every Monday. Sign up for our Sport newsletter.