There is an imperative for England to keep the foot on the pedal and close out the series with another win. Not once in any of the previous 27 Ashes series in this country that have involved four or more Tests have England won more than three.
Alastair Cook, who already stands alongside WG Grace and Mike Brearley as the only England captains to have won two home Ashes series, is looking to create a unique slice of England history. His impassioned round of phone calls to his players a week ago tells as much.
Under the circumstances, then, the likelihood of them going in with anything other than an unchanged side, given the doubts still surrounding the return to full fitness of Jimmy Anderson, were remote. As it transpires, Anderson has recovered partially from the side strain he suffered at Edgbaston so that he was able to bowl only at an estimated 70% in practice, and so will miss what might have been, given his age, nature of his occupation and the fact that the next Ashes series is not until the winter of 2017-18, his final Ashes Test match. He is said to be “ gutted”, as well he might be, for his bowling this summer has been a thing of beauty and a torment for the Australia batsmen.
But it has meant that a decision as to which pace bowler to omit were he to have returned has been avoided. It probably would have been Mark Wood, whose last delivery uprooted the stumps of Nathan Lyon to secure the Ashes for a fourth consecutive time at home. It would have been a comedown for him but against that both Steve Finn and Ben Stokes, as well as Anderson and Stuart Broad, have taken five-wicket hauls in the series.
However, he will be aware, as the management of the impingement in his ankle continues, that he is an important part of a bowling group, and, given the robust explosive nature of his method, one who is likely to be used sparingly in future.
Cook and the head coach Trevor Bayliss have also avoided the expedient temptation to fit Adil Rashid into the side to see whether he sinks or swims in a challenging environment. When England go to the UAE in little more than a month’s time for a three-Test series against Pakistan they will do so knowing that they will have to play two, preferably contrasting, spinners.
On the last tour there – a disaster as far as batting was concerned – Anderson and Broad bowled superbly, as did Graeme Swann, but it was not until Monty Panesar came in for the last two Tests that the attack looked properly balanced. In the absence of any credible challenge Rashid, present in the squads all year, has a virtual monopoly on the second-spinner place, although this is based on his prolific performances for Yorkshire and reasonable ones in white-ball international cricket.
There is, though, a considerable difference between bowling to players where there is an imperative to score at seven runs per over and beyond, with men out, and to Test match batsmen who have time to play the good ball and just wait for the bad one. The ease with which the New Zealanders Kane Williamson and Ross Taylor played him, and the time they had to do so, was instructive. Perhaps, if he is pencilled in already for the first Test in Abu Dhabi in any case, there would have been little to be gained, and only the potential for waters to be muddied, by playing him now.
It does mean Adam Lyth will have played through the complete series. Had Rashid played now the chances are that in order to accommodate him Moeen Ali would have switched from being one of the world’s most proficient tailenders to being an international opener, as will almost certainly happen in the UAE. So Lyth gets one more chance against Australia. This has not been an easy series for opening batsmen, with the new ball in particular moving around dramatically at times, so the value of the role is not necessarily registered in the quantity of runs: Cook’s 45 at Trent Bridge was worth any hundred on a shirt-front.
There is something sparky about Lyth too, the sort of thing that manifests itself away from the matches but within the team environment: they like his approach, and he has a fine century against New Zealand and a better performing attack than Australia have managed in this series, to put his account in credit.
Goodness only knows which Australia will turn up at the Kia Oval. They were broken at Edgbaston, and at Trent Bridge they were kicked when they were down. The team for the fourth Test was a shambolic mishmash of selection and performance to the point of embarrassment. The idea of bringing in Shaun Marsh to replace his brother Mitchell, and bat him at No4, was incomprehensible, not least because it deprived Michael Clarke of an all-rounder and so reduced his bowling options that he had to flog Mitchell Starc.
For once, Clarke’s perpetual moan that he is not a selector had some justification. They must play either Mitchell Marsh or, with no Anderson, Shane Watson . They have also jettisoned the disappointing seamer Josh Hazlewood, something that had been in the pipeline since the Trent Bridge defeat but has now been dressed up slightly as some niggles to be managed.
Hazlewood arrived with a glowing reputation as a relentless purveyor of line and length, and has failed to live up to it. At Edgbaston possibly, and certainly at Trent Bridge, Australia would have benefitted from the presence of an experienced old stager in Peter Siddle. There is nothing to be gained by that now and it could be that Pat Cummins is Hazlewood’s replacement.
For two Australians this will be their international swansong, and there may be others. Chris Rogers has had a late-flowering career but has shown experience can count as much as flair. He has never been pretty to watch but his effectiveness, especially as a counterpoint to David Warner, is not in dispute: they will miss him.
This is Clarke’s last match too, and whatever the ambiguity surrounding his relationships within the team and with management and administration, he has been a mighty batsman and an innovative and at times brilliant captain. If Don Bradman arrived at The Oval in 1948 for his final Test needing four runs to average 100, then Clarke does so needing 218 more than that to average precisely half that, still the benchmark for a brilliant career.
If, like Bradman, he is bowled by a googly to fall short, then it really will have been time to pack it in.
