Has An Ashes Urn Caused England To Have A Funny Turn?

Well if that was the starter cooked up by the English and Australian Cricket teams these past few days blog readers, we are most definitely in for a fun Summer and Winter, or Winter and Summer if you are an Australian.  That Test Match had more drama and incidents than you probably get in an entire TV Detective Series if the truth be told.  The odd thing is though, as an England fan I can't say I was entirely convinced by their performance as a team at times, and if I was an Australian fan, even though they lost the Test Match, there is quite a bit they can take encouragement from.

Now don't get me wrong, based on quality of players, stats, recent history, team experience, opinions of cricket pundits in the know, England should most definitely win the Ashes Series on both sides of the equator.  Some have been saying however, there could be a 10-0 whitewash across the two series.  Having seen England's performance over the past few days, I'm not entirely sure many members of the public or pundits alike would be utterly convinced by that prediction.

I recall in my youth when Australia were a team in their pomp with the likes of McGrath, Warne, the Waugh Brothers etc, you got the feeling when they predicted they would more or less slaughter England during an Ashes Series, you didn't need convincing of the fact.  Usually they had won the required number of Test Matches by huge margins in a very short space of time, without drawing a sweat from brows of any player.

On the evidence of the first Test Match of this Ashes Series however, you feel England need to improve vastly if they wish to reach the equivalent of the Ashes Summit and leave the Aussies firmly at base camp, or else they may well be sweating buckets for several months to come as they did the past few days.

Areas of Improvment.  I can think of a few straight off:

1) When you have your opponents 117 - 9 in their first innings, you  really should not be letting smiley faced assasin 19 year no.11 batsmen by the name of Ashton Agar score 98 runs against you.
2) Similarly you would hope on a last day of a test match if you have your opponents 6 down and they still require over 150 runs to win a test match, you can get the job done by 12 and settle down to  a pleasant lunchtime celebration with a glass of the amber nectar.  Noooooooo not England.  They have to drag it out past lunchtime and let the Aussies get a tad too close to achieving the remarkable.
3) Slightly worrying was the fact Cook had to work Jimmy Anderson into the ground bowling wise in order to achieve the victory, and Anderson did respond magnificently with 10 wickets.  He did appear at times to be suffering from cramp during today however which does not bode well if Anderson's fellow bowlers do not improve their performances with the ball toute suite.  England need a fit and healthy Anderson if 10-0 is a goal to be achieved.
4) The English batting line-up had its moments as well.  Just 215 in the first innings.  Cook and Pietersen going at an absolute snails pace during their the second innings.  The loss of wickets in clusters.  In the end Bell and Broad's partnership proved to be the most significant of the game.  There needs to be better partnerships at the top of the order though. I 10-0 winning team needs to be scoring 400 odd in their first innings to help achieve the 10-0 goal.

And the Aussies. Well the reasons I believe they won't be too disheartened by the Test loss are mainly to do with the following.

1) Mr Ashton Agar - As I say the 19 year old Smiley Faced Assassin caused England a lot of problems this Test Match both with bat and ball.  It was a joy to watch a young man playing cricket with not a care in the world and having a blooming good time doing it.
2) Australia fought till the bitter end of this Test Match, an ability that seemed to be entirely lost during the Micky Arthur regime.  The last Test series they played in India they collapsed in heap virtually every innings.
3) The employment of Darren Lehmann as the Australian coach appears to have removed the shackles from the players that were tied down during the Arthur regime. Australia are back to playing cricket instead of having corporate ideas imposed on them. They work out issues on a cricket pitch, not using a Powerpoint presentation.  We all know this was never going to be the greatest Australian team ever, but most importantly they now resemble a team as opposed to a complete and utter shambles.
4) One of the biggest lessons Michael Clarke would have learnt from this Test is to employ the DRS reviews wisely.  As a result of using up both of the Australian Reviews in England's second innings, he could do nothing about the howler by Aleem Dar when he didn't give Broad out.  I mean even I could have given that one out.  Ultimately it may well have proved costly to Australia, especially as they only finished 14 runs behind England's total in the end.

So will England overcome their initial nerves and prove to be a Test Superpower or will Aussies become a brick wall and block all thoughts of a 10-0 whitewash.  Who knows!  Going to have great fun finding out though.