All this talk of 5-0 is not very helpful. But it is understandable. In two of the past three Ashes tours England have been whitewashed. Once the Aussie juggernaut is on a roll there can be no stopping it, especially since the refuge of a draw has just about disappeared from Test cricket.
It now behoves England to forget about the long campaign. Every match must be viewed as their last chance so any thoughts about Melbourne and Sydney must be banished. Somehow, they must find a way to win in Perth or, at the very least, to draw in order to have any hope of retaining the Ashes.
It does not help much looking at the history books. England have played at the Waca 13 times since the first match here in 1970 when Geoffrey Boycott was stumped for the second and last time in his Test career. They have won once – in 1978 – and that was against a Packered Australia side missing almost all of its best players. It gets worse. England have been thrashed on their past seven visits to the west: even Andrew Strauss’s 2010-11 tourists were well beaten.
Moreover, it is tough to see how England can reshuffle their pack. Most of the batsmen have flickered, though some rather dimly, and the only spares are Gary Ballance, whose left-handedness is a hindrance with Nathan Lyon on song, and Ben Foakes. Foakes has never played for England and is primarily the reserve wicketkeeper, but his stock is rising fast, partly because of his right-handedness and partly because he did not fail in Brisbane and Adelaide. One thread of hope is that Lyon, like many spinners, has struggled at the Waca. In four Tests he has taken 12 wickets at 50 apiece.
There will be talk of Mark Wood, who has the capacity to bowl fast, though he has not been fit enough to do so for 20 overs per innings for some time. There may even be the wildcard suggestion of elevating Mason Crane from those who believe that rabbits really can be plucked from hats and who ignore the fact that Shane Warne, the greatest wrist spinner ever, struggled at the Waca (37 wickets in 12 matches at 36, since you ask). The likelihood is that England will play the same team as they did at Adelaide.
So why has the Waca been such a barren venue for England? It is different, traditionally because of the steep and generous bounce from a rock-hard surface. Recently, however, the pace of the pitch has diminished and many runs have been scored. Mitchell Starc, understandably, has expressed the hope that for the ground’s final Test one last pitch of great pace can be produced. The curator, Matt Page, who is heading off to Melbourne soon after the Test, would like to deliver but there are no guarantees.
Yet there is unlikely to be any change to the other critical factor in Perth: the wind. As Wood discovered when invited to bowl into it for the Lions in a white-ball game last week, that remains as strong and influential as ever. On the Swan River, just behind the Waca, the white horses are still jumping up and down furiously when the Doctor calls every day sometime around noon. This may have been why the England Lions’ opponents were happy to let them bat first, so they could avoid bowling much when the wind was up. At least that is now Wood’s theory.
The sea breeze is known as the Fremantle Doctor because it can bring relief from stifling heat. I may have pontificated about the Doctor at some length before but it still has the capacity to have a great impact on matches at the Waca. Perth is often regarded as the second windiest city in the old Commonwealth – after Wellington – and even though you can’t see it, the wind can dictate how the game is played.
A brief passage of play in the 2006 Ashes Test demonstrates that vividly. England were already struggling when the captain, Andrew Flintoff, tossed the ball to Monty Panesar in Australia’s second innings. Adam Gilchrist was batting and he probably could not believe his eyes – or his luck – when Panesar was told to bowl from the Prindiville Stand End. The sea breeze was buffeting off the river at several knots towards wide long-on/deep midwicket when Panesar was bowling to a left-handed batsman. Unfortunately, Flintoff did not recognise the implications of his bowling change. Gilchrist did.
Twenty-four runs came from a Panesar over. Gilchrist had licence because he knew that he only had to make reasonable contact: get the ball airborne and a six was on the cards and he hit three of them in one over on his way to a 57-ball century. Had Panesar been bowling at the other end Gilchrist would never have cleared the long-on boundary. He would not have been able to defeat the wind, but Gilchrist would not have tried because, unlike the Poms, he knew about the Waca. He played for Western Australia for most of his career.
This is an extreme and cruel example of how difficult it can be to bowl into the wind. Sometimes, as it blows from long-leg to wide mid-off, it can assist the skilful away-swing bowler even if he has to bound in against its invisible force. And the off-spinner can use the breeze to help drift the ball away from right-hander, thereby bringing first slip into play. But it is a tricky operation.
Batsmen must be on their guard as well. They must be aware of the likelihood of drift and swing being exaggerated by the breeze and they should also adjust their running between the wickets. The Waca has huge square boundaries. If a fielder is hurling the ball into the breeze there is always one run for the throw. Conversely, if he is throwing with the wind, even though he appears to be in the middle distance, watch out.
As for the playing surface, it was unique: it once provided the fastest, bounciest pitch in the world, which had keepers such as Jeffrey Dujon and Rodney Marsh standing 35 yards or more behind the stumps. We wait to see what the curator can produce this time. Hopefully, the pitch will have some of the pace of old, which so often seduced visiting bowlers, who salivated at the prodigious bounce. Consequently, they pitched too short so that they could enjoy the macho pleasure of seeing the keeper soaring in the air to take the ball. If that ball is swinging it is important to pitch it up because those nicks should carry.
For batsmen, the ability to leave the ball is crucial. In the past at the Waca it has always been possible to do that as much on length as width. The bounce was usually so reliable and so high that many deliveries could be allowed to sail over the top of the stumps. Mark Taylor was especially adept at this and eventually the oohs and aahs from the slip cordon would die down. It is also important to be able to play the horizontal bat shots well. There may be the chance to drive when the bowlers seek to swing the ball but when they pitch shorter the pull and the cut shot are essential, as Marsh always used to counsel.
Finally, there are the flies. They are bigger and more obstinate in WA than anywhere else in this country. The Western Australian salute is an angry and repeated wave of the right arm that would not satisfy a sergeant major and it rarely disperses the flies.
They say that Don Bradman, in his last innings at The Oval, discovered that “it’s hard to score runs with tears in your eyes”. Well, at the Waca it is hard to score runs when swallowing flies. It helps bowlers, as well as batsmen, to go about their business with their mouths shut – though in this series there seems little chance of that happening.
