How wrong was I?

Before the Ashes started, I made some outrageous predictions about how the series would pan out. Let's see how my divination skills have shaped up...

Michael Clarke will, on more than one occasion, save Australia from complete humiliation at the hands of the England bowlers (instead ensuring we only suffer slight humiliation).
This happened only once, when Clarke made his 187 at Old Trafford. Apart from that one innings, Clarke has not fired this series - one significant cause of Australia's batting woes. Is it the back problems?

Indeed, Michael Clarke will make at least two hundreds in the series. He may even make another double ton, if the old back holds out.
Well, this didn't happen. He almost made a double ton, yes, but it was his only hundred in the series. He passed 50 only twice. Despite this, Clarke averaged 47.63 for the series (accounting for his two not-outs), with 381 runs in total. He'd have averaged 27.71 if not for his 187.

Shane Watson, if he remains an opener for the duration of the series, will make a hundred. Maybe even two.
Shane Watson did make a hundred, although for the great majority of the series this looked like it might not happen at all. Remarkably, he actually averaged 41.8 for the series, making 418 runs in total; he would have averaged 26.89 if not for that 176, though. In any case, he made his 176 at no.3, not as an opener. Perhaps we've killed two birds with one stone: the no.3 dilemma and the Shane Watson dilemma.

Chris Rogers will be the second most solid Australian batsman in the series after Michael Clarke. He will certainly make a hundred.
Rogers averaged 40.78 for the series with 367 runs, although he made three scores above fifty - equal only to Steve Smith. I would actually say he was the most solid batsman, since Clarke and Watson, both of whom averaged higher than Rogers, only did so because of one great innings each.

Phil Hughes will manage to stand his ground - just - against the English pace bowlers, but will be tormented by Graham Swann.
Hughes averaged 27.67 for the series. He played four innings: 81*, 0, 1, 1. True, he showed some grit in his 81*, but I stand by my description of him as a "serial dud". The selectors seem to agree with me, since they dropped him after Lord's. And, indeed, two of his three dismissals were by Graeme Swann (both lbw).

Steve Smith will make a hundred. Or two. And will emerge from the series as the new darling of Australian cricket.
Steve Smith did indeed make a hundred. It was truly glorious to watch. But, in fairness, he did not perform as well over the series as I had originally predicted: one hundred, two fifties, at a reasonable average of 38.33. He hasn't emerged as a "darling" as such, but at least is now seen as a long-term Test batsman. The no.5 spot will be his for the foreseeable future.

David Warner, if he gets a bat, will struggle severely to hold his own against the England bowlers. This may be the beginning of the end for David Warner's Test career.
Warner played three Tests, making one score above 50 and averaging 23.00 for the series. Despite this, I very much doubt Warner is going to be dropped any time soon. His 193 on the African tour torpedoed him back into the Test side, and, unless his Test form plateaus from here, he will very likely remain in the side for a long time to come. Which is good, I think...

Jackson Bird will be the scourge of the England batsmen.
In one Test, Bird took a grand total of two wickets for 125 runs. Doesn't exactly set the world alight, that. It's strange, since his first-class figures are so freakishly good. Perhaps he had trouble adjusting to the English conditions? Or perhaps we are seeing a manifestation of the State teams' damaging and self-interested practice of preparing result-oriented pitches, and that Bird is little more than an ordinary bowler whose results are made to look extraordinary by the help of doctored pitches. Or perhaps he just had a poor match. That's my hunch. It happens. After all, that lbw dismissal of Alistair Cook was absolutely sublime. And remember his debut? I still rate him as one of the best bowlers in Australia.

So will Mitchell Starc.
Yeah, that didn't happen. Over three matches, he took 11 wickets for 357 runs (average 32.45). Not terrible, but nothing special. At The Oval all he seemed to do was leak runs, bowl wides and, yes, take the occasional wicket. Like a poor man's Mitchell Johnson.

James Faulkner will not get a bowl. Unless Ryan Harris breaks down.
Faulkner was quite a find in the The Oval. 6 wickets in the match for 98 runs - an average of 16.33. I quite underestimated him. He seems a handy bat, too. Let's see more of him.

Ryan Harris will break down.
Amazingly, Ryan Harris played four matches in a row ... before promptly breaking down. But at least he had the consideration to wait before the Ashes were finished before contracting a hamstring problem. Averaging 19.58 over four Ashes Tests (including two five-fors), Harris has shown what a class act he really is. Easily one of the best pace bowlers in the world now.

And the end scoreline? England win 3-1.
I was close, I suppose. England did win three matches. Australia had four chances to win one: one will go down as one of the great Ashes Tests in history; one will be remembered for what could have been, if not for the ruddy weather; one will be remembered for a bungled opportunity; and one will be remembered for a brave display of captaincy that unfortunately didn't pay off (#losetowin).

Now just wait for my next round of outlandish predictions for the home Ashes series in Australia.

Steve Smith comes good

I knew this would happen. Darren Lehmann had said at the press conference following the Test at Chester-le-Street that a few of the Australian players would be playing for their careers at The Oval. He didn't name names, but you knew the players whom he was talking about: Usman Khawaja, Shane Watson, Steve Smith. There was pressure on each of these batsmen to prove their worth, prove they deserved their place in the team. Khawaja was dropped before he got his chance. Shane Watson made 176. Yesterday, Steve Smith made 138*.

I knew this would happen. I knew that, faced with the prospect of, yet again, being exiled from the Australian team, Steve Smith would pull his head in and bring out his best game. Steve Smith is a very talented cricketer who shows great promise and has the capacity to go on to do great things for Australia. It was clear from when he made 92 in India, in his first innings back from a two-year exile, that it was not a matter of if, but when he would make his maiden Test century. And now it's come, and in the Ashes to boot. Now let's have more of it, please, Mr Smith.

In some ways it is better that he got his maiden hundred here than at Old Trafford. At Old Trafford, you got the sense that Smith was being babied to his hundred by Michael Clarke, who was letting Smith take it slowly and easily when Australia ought to have been trying to score quickly at that point in their innings. Here, there was no Clarke to hold Smith's hand as he toddled over the line. After Watson went, Smith became the senior partner out in the middle, and maturely and with composure, off his own bat, made his way to a hundred, and beyond.

Watson vindicated

That's my boy. What did I say? I always knew he had it in him. An Ashes 176. Raise the bat, and be proud. You deserve it, Watto.

It looked like his Test career was nosediving, but then he goes and does that. A testament to the fact that Shane Watson really is a quality batsman - he really does have the ability to flourish at Test level, as this muscular, manful innings has shown.

I doubt that will deter his detractors from insisting he be dropped, though. Watson polarises opinion among the Australian cricket-following fraternity: you either love him or hate him. And those who hate him really hate him. You get the sense that they want him to fail; you get the sense that his detractors were willing Watson to go cheaply again so they could continue in their smug denigration of him. Doubtless they'll make excuses to belittle his innings: he scored too fast, he hit too many boundaries, he was pretending to play one-day so it doesn't count, etc. Really pathetic.

Now let's see more of this, Watto, my lad.

An open letter to the Australian selectors

My dear selectors,

As I sit down to write this, it is one hour and forty-eight minutes until the beginning of the Fifth Test. I would have been marginally optimistic about our chances at The Oval, but now I'm not. This is why.

Earlier today my ever-diligent Twitter feed informed me that Usman Khawaja and Jackson Bird were to be swapped out of the side for James Faulkner and Mitchell Starc, respectively. I greeted this news with my trademark facepalm of incredulity and exhaustion. It's not that I don't rate the two players selected (in Starc's case re-re-selected); my problem is that, yet again, you feel the need to chop and change the side in a desperate bid to find the "winning combination" that will miraculously reverse Australia's decline and enable us to win Test matches again. As though the solution were that simple. As though it were even a solution at all.

I feel you have been frighted by the way this Ashes series has panned out so far. Admittedly, 3-0 does not look good, but 3-0 disguises the fact that this Ashes series has been a much more closely-fought contest than the scoreline suggests. Just as 1-0 disguised the fact that Trent Bridge could very easily have been Australia's, 3-0 disguises the fact that the tables could easily have been turned: the series could easily have been 3-0 to Australia but for a variety of turns of fortune. Had Haddin and Pattinson been able to push on to snag those last 15 runs at Trent Bridge; had the rain held off on the fifth day of Old Trafford; had Stuart Broad not inexplicably found the form of his life in Australia's second innings at Chester-le-Street: Australia could have been 3 matches up right now.

But it so happens that Australia is not. It so happens that Australia, instead, is 3-0 down on the day of the Fifth Test. Irregardless, Australia have performed better than the unflattering scoreline suggests. In the same way, England have performed worse than 3-0 suggests. Of England's main three batsmen - Cook, Trott and Pieterson - only Pieterson has performed anywhere near his best. With Root, Bairstow and Prior having proven to be lame ducks (other than Root's stellar, yet anomalous, 180), England has largely been dragged across the line by the heroic efforts of Ian Bell, their one success story this series. England have not yet posted an innings total above 400. Australia have. All of Old Trafford and most of Chester-le-Street were dominated by Australia. England have not dominated this series any more than Australia have.

That has not stopped you, the Australian selectors, from frantically cannibalising the Australian lineup after every loss. Rather than holding your nerve and being brave enough to play the same side, or largely the same side, for a whole series, you've descended into a frenzy of ritual slaughter. Ed Cowan, despite having been a regular in the Australian top order for well over a year now, was dropped after one match. His successor, Usman Khawaja, has now been dropped after only three matches. Jackson Bird was dropped after one match for, I suppose, not being as successful as his exceptional figures promised. Whether these changes were for better or for worse, I'm struggling to understand the reasoning. All I see is knee-jerk, reflexive responses to matches that haven't gone the way we wanted them to.

You see, chaps, it is one thing to always play the best performers. It is quite another to keep changing the side when our "best performers" aren't delivering the results we wanted them to. Every player goes through rough patches. You can't expect batsmen to consistently make 40+ runs every innings, or for bowlers to take 4+ wickets every innings (especially when Ryan Harris is taking them all). Moreover, you can't pluck players with little or no international experience from domestic cricket, expect them to immediately perform to form in Test cricket, and then drop them when they don't meet your lofty expectations. Nurturing quality Test cricketers takes time, commitment and, above all, patience. When a player is always aware that he is playing for his spot in the side, he will rarely perform to his best. Apprehension, nerves and doubt will enter his game, and he will play negatively and unnaturally.

So my plea to you is this: pick the XI, and a couple more, whom you want to be Australia's long-term Test players*. Stick with them. Invest in them. Commit to them. Let them develop. Let them know that their place in the side is settled. If they don't immediately perform, stick with them. If they go through rough patches, stick with them. If they don't make a hundred until their 26th Test or even pull their average above 30 until their 23rd Test, stick with them. The selectors of the '80s and '90s did for Steve Waugh, and just look how he turned out.

There is no quick-fix to take Australia back to ascendency. This is a rebuilding process that takes time and long-term investment. We may not see the fruits of our labour for years. But constantly changing the face of the Australian side at this dizzying rate is vain, damaging, and achieves nothing. Put in the hard yards to rebuild Australian cricket and you will be rewarded. I promise.

*An exception can be made for Chris Rogers.

Five things I took out of Old Trafford

Well, well, well. How frustrating was that? The first time in this series that Australia are genuinely on top of a Test match, with victory fully within reach - and the match gets rained out. I don't know if England fans reading this appreciate how incredibly frustrating this is for us Aussies, that the weather (God?) denied us even the opportunity to get back into the series, handing the Ashes to England by default, in a match in which Australia inarguably outplayed England.

But such is life. Here are some things I took out of the Third Test.

Australia's batsmen have finally come good. Four successive top-order batting collapses in the Trent Bridge and Lord's Tests had seen Australia's batsmen derided and disparaged. They were weak. Incompetent. Not Test quality. Easy pickings for the likes of Anderson and Swann. But now the weak, incompetent Pommy-fodder have finally come good. A sterling 187 by Michael Clarke - the highest individual score so far in the series - was complemented by muscular scores of 84, 89, 65 and 66 by Chris Rogers, Steve Smith, Brad Haddin and Mitchell Starc, respectively, to bring Australia's first innings total to a menacing 527. This, dear chaps, is the real Australia. This is what Australia can do when they're on song, and against the likes of Jimmy Anderson and Graeme Swann no less.

Australia aren't rubbish. Australia out-batted England and out-bowled England in this Test match. This is what Australia are capable of. If Australia play like they did in Old Trafford at Chester-le-Street and The Oval, the scoreline for the series will be 2-2. There is a good chance it would have been 3-2 if not for Day 5 of Old Trafford being washed out. Be under no delusion: Australia, when playing their best, are more than a match for England. Australia aren't rubbish. What Australia are, though, is a relatively young Test side finding their feet, with few players of genuine experience in the international arena. Chris Rogers, Usman Khawaja, Steve Smith, David Warner, Shane Watson, Phil Hughes, Ed Cowan, Brad Haddin, Michael Clarke - there are no real mugs in this batting pool; they're all good batsmen, just inexperienced. The same goes for the bowlers - Ryan Harris, Peter Siddle, Mitchell Starc, James Pattinson, Jackson Bird, James Faulkner, Nathan Lyon: no spot-fillers here (except perhaps Agar, although at 19, he shows promise for the future).

Steve Smith is rather good. Yes, The Cricket Hooligan loves talking about Steve Smith. The Cricket Hooligan was doe-eyed over Steve Smith before it was cool. The Cricket Hooligan isn't sure why he keeps talking about himself in third person. But seriously, as Russel Jackson says in The Guardian, Steve Smith is developing into a mature Test cricketer, and a genuinely exciting prospect for the future of Australian cricket. Since returning from his two-year exile from Test cricket earlier this year in India, he has continued to impress. Almost making his maiden hundred at Old Trafford, we perhaps saw a glimmer of the old Steve Smith - the one that was dropped after the 2010-11 Ashes - when he got impatient to get his century and lobbed a Swanny delivery high into the air, gifting a comfortable catch to Tim Bresnan. He won't make the same mistake next time - of that you can be assured.

Watson, Watson, Watson. One Australian batsman who didn't share in the fun at Old Trafford was Shane Watson. With an average of 14.6 for this Ashes series so far, even I, the ardent Watsonite that I am*, have to admit that my faith in Shane Watson has been sorely shaken. I thought moving him back to opening the batting would unleash his natural flair. Not so. I thought being released from the burden of vice-captaincy would take a weight off his shoulders and, consequently, free his game, à la Ian Botham. Not so. So where does that leave me, the last Watsonite standing? Give him until the end of this Ashes series, it doesn't matter where in the batting order. If he continues failing to deliver, he must be told he's to be sent back to Sheffield Shield, and won't be accepted back in the Test side until he's genuinely improved his first-class game. A two year exile might do him good; it will come as a shock, but will rightly humble him and focus him. He might return as a reformed cricketer, like Steve Smith.

There needs to be a royal commission into third umpiring. There were so many shockers in this Test that I can't remember them all. The Usman Khawaja decision by the third umpire in Australia's first innings was obviously the big one: just about everyone apart from - tragically - the third umpire seemed to know that was not out, even Kevin Rudd. Needless to say, a lot of people came out of that Test match very much disillusioned with the fallibility of third umpires and even the DRS system as a whole. I'm not suggesting that the third umpire was corrupt or that there is skulduggery afoot in the third umpiring fraternity (England got just as many shockers as Australia), just that this particular third umpire was particularly incompetent. This kind of ineptitude should really not be entertained in such high-profile international fixtures as Ashes series, where a wrong decision could potentially sway the outcome of an entire match. There must be some change in third umpiring.

*Is it because I'm a Queenslander?

My playing XI for Old Trafford

1. Shane Watson
2. Chris Rogers
3. Usman Khawaja
4. Michael Clarke
5. Steve Smith (if injured, Ed Cowan)
6. David Warner
7. Brad Haddin
8. Peter Siddle
9. Ryan Harris
10. Jackson Bird
11. Nathan Lyon

For me, this is Shane Watson's last chance at opening. Needless to say, he hasn't performed as well as I expected opening the batting. If he fails again at Trent Bridge, drop him down to six.

Khawaja stays. Despite that inexplicably stupid shot he got himself out on in the first innings at Lord's, he's shown his grit and class in the second innings. I hope he kicked himself after that first innings, and learnt from it. Otherwise, he looks a keeper.

Clarke moves up to four. Our best batsman should not hide down at five when all around him the ship is capsizing. He's better placed to put a meaningful total on the board, as he is capable of, the higher up he bats.

My preference for five is Steve Smith, but if he's injured, Cowan gets another bat. Maybe Cowan would need to swap with Khawaja in that case.

David Warner replaces Phil Hughes and comes in at six. It's hard to ignore 193, albeit 193 against a Second XI. Putting him down at six will let him play with his natural aggression, away from the moving ball and allowing him to capitalise on the fatigued bowlers.

Hughes is out because he's rubbish. End of. Okay, maybe it would be worth looking at him again once Rogers et al have been shuffled out, but this is not the time. The Ashes are much too important.

A few changes to the bowling attack. First, Pattinson is out; he's not been in form this series, and may continue to prove a liability if persisted with. Also, Agar is out; his 98 was impressive, yes, but he hasn't been doing the job he was picked for - bowling.

Jackson Bird comes in as replacement for Pattinson. Probably the most promising young bowler in Australia, he performed well in Hove, keeps a good line and length, swings the ball, and has amazing figures.

Nathan Lyon replaces Agar as the spinner. This is a bowler who came off the back of a career-best performance of 7/94 in India. He is a much superior spinner, I don't know why Agar keeps getting picked ahead of him.

Cross fingers and pray.

Is the second coming of David Warner imminent?

I've got to be honest, I thought we had seen the last of David Warner. Foundering amid scandal and lack of any good showings, the man was exiled to the Dark Continent, where I presumed he would continue to fail to impress, heralding his quiet departure from Test cricket. I presumed (hoped) the same thing would eventually happen to Phil Hughes before the blasted fellow made 86* at Trent Bridge.

But, O wondrous thing! After making 6 and 11 in succession against Zimbabwe, Warner defied all expectation and made a blazing 193 against South Africa A yesterday. This is the same David Warner whose last eight Test innings have been (going backwards): 8, 0, 2, 71, 26, 6, 23, 59, averaging at 23.50. Go figure. Yes those are his innings over the tour of India. Granted, South Africa A is not India, but any first-class 193 is a good 193, to my mind.

When it looked like David Warner was resolutely on the slow road out of the Test team, he goes and confounds us all by coming lip-smackingly close to making a first-class double century, with twenty-three fours and one six (which still leaves a respectable 71 runs made from running between the wickets). When our Test batsmen struggle to even make fifties, let alone hundreds, in the Ashes, David Warner's 193 suddenly makes him look tantalisingly attractive. Faith has been restored in the beleaguered fellow, and suddenly he isn't a liability who needs to be permanently rotated out of the team, but a prospective saviour of Australia's Ashes hopes.

Perhaps the best thing to do, after all, is stick with Warner. Invest in him, keep faith in him, develop him. The lad shows promise after all, and, eventually, he ought to come good. The same applies to Cowan, Khawaja, Smith, Watson and - dare I say it? - Hughes. Good Test sides are built on a cohort of strong, experienced, established players who know the game and, importantly, know each other. Look at the currently dominant Test sides: South Africa, India and, especially, England. All are built around a core of established, experienced players. As was Australia in our heyday. Continually chopping and changing a team in a desperate search for a better performer is no way to build a Test-winning side in the long term. Yet that is precisely what Australia is doing: groping around for new players in a wrong-headed attempt to build a strong team, rather than doing the hard yards in investing long-term in players. Stick with Warner and the rest, and be patient with them until they come good.

Australia are hoping, praying, grasping for anything - anyone - who can restore dignity to this tour, who can at the very least help Australia leave England not completely humiliated. David Warner returns to England ahead of the Third Test. It is very likely he will get a spot in the side. Let's just pray he can replicate his great feat against England.