The impression is not borne out by fact, but it feels like a long time since Australia last played in England. So intense was the 2023 Ashes period, with both men’s and women’s series condensed into June and July, that the 13 months since have sensorily expanded in the mind. An unusual feeling given that international cricket now revolves around Australia, England and India playing one another on an endless carousel, though granted, those teams managed to meet in two different flavors of men’s World Cup in the interim.
Australia-England encounters both came in the pool stage and ended up suitably damp. A full series of three T20s and five one-day matches has more carry especially when Australia and England clash with each other . Bilateral contests these days get criticized as pointless money-makers, meaningless without context. The World Cup Super League qualifiers created context for one-day cricket but was abandoned after a few short years. T20s have only ever been for exhibition.
With the five match ODI series alongside 3 T20Is were announced between the famous arch rivals, both Australia and England decided this series to be the building phase of their cricketing future with white ball in place. This led to some failures by the Dominant Australian side by the hands of the English newly built team and a recent drubbing of 186 runs really set the focus on what went wrong for Australian Men Team’s during the much hyped England- Australia series.
Multiple Changes In playing 11 for Australia hampered their progress throughout the series
These sides have each hosted the other for three one-dayers and three T20s since 2018. Six games each in six years. The most recent five-match series goes back to Tim Paine and Justin Langer’s first post-sandpaper assignment, when their new team channeled the deer while England played the headlights.
More resistant to skepticism in the current series might be the presence of upcoming players on both sides. Two quite aged teams are becoming two sides in transition. Whatever the context, it will be useful and productive to see what happens with players given the bigger canvas of a tour spanning a month, testing how they cope with high-profile contests and extended time on the road.
With David Warner retired, Matthew Wade dispensed with, and rest ordered for Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc, and Glenn Maxwell, there are spots aplenty across 20 overs.
Most of the attention will be on Jake Fraser-McGurk, a batting destruction derby at 22 years old. After tearing up the IPL earlier this year and touring as a T20 World Cup reserve, he went nowhere against Scotland with scores of 0, 16, 0, while his teammates pillaged. Australia might as well give him all eight games at the top against England. If he clicks in one, anything might happen. Lastly for Australia, it’s a formal change in leadership, with Mitchell Marsh in charge for the whole tour.
Poor Captaincy By Mitchell Marsh hampers Australia’s chances
The Australian captain Mitchell Marsh showed promising signs with the bat after a disappointing T20 World Cup campaign in the Caribbean. Mitchell Marsh offered a glimpse of his destructive best in the series opener, but didn’t convert either of his starts at The Grange into fifties. However when England series started a lot was expected from the senior statesman now skipper in form of Mitchell Marsh an allrounder to shine with bat and ball.
But to contrast, Mitchell Marsh performance on England tour is below par given his credentials . A sole fifty in the entire series does not underlines Mitchell Marsh credential as an able batter in the top order. Also his captainship in longer white ball format is under scrutiny due to weird decisions taken during team selections and on field placements where he seems all but lost shows that how much Australia is missing a leader in Pat Cummins at the moment.
Pat Cummins has no replacement till date in the Australia team
Australia’s Test and ODI captain Pat Cummins has shared a video of himself bowling in the nets as he prepares for an important summer. Cummins is not part of the ongoing white-ball tour against England; he was rested as part of a pre-planned, long-term load management strategy.
The 31-year-old was last seen competing in Major League Cricket, where he played for the San Francisco Unicorns, who lost to Washington Freedom by 96 runs in the final. Australia will host Pakistan for a three-match ODI and T20I series beginning November 4, ahead of the important five-match Border-Gavaskar Test series against India. The first Test is scheduled to start on November 22 in Perth.
Now in absence of Pat Cummins, Australia’s fast bowling department looks bleak and less promising .Cooper Connolly, the lefty with the blond mane, won a Sheffield Shield final in his first game for Western Australia and a Big Bash final in his fourth game for Perth. He bowls left-arm spin, has just turned 21, and debuted last week against Scotland but didn’t get a hit.
Xavier Bartlett can open the bowling with height and swing, while the rapid Riley Meredith is floating around as injury cover. Either could be added to the one-day squad, with Spencer Johnson and Nathan Ellis both injured playing English domestic cricket. Aaron Hardie is in both squads, the seaming all-rounder a chance to ignite his handful of matches. The same even goes for Cameron Green: anointed in the Test side, but fringe in one-dayers, and whose games against Scotland were his first T20s for Australia since 2022.
There is less space in the one-day team for players to stake their claim: Marcus Stoinis and Tim David will be cut after the T20s, but Maxwell and Starc return along with the middle-order craft adhesive of Steve Smith and Marnus Labuschagne. Even older players like Alex Carey and Matthew Short may be stuck on the sidelines hoping for a hit, Carey given the blazing batting of his keeping rival Josh Inglis, Short never having been given a proper tilt.
Also Australia lacked the resilience Pat Cummins bring in as a captain which the stand in white ball ODI skipper Mitchell Marsh clearly lacks atleast on the English tour.
Poor form of Steve Smith and Marnus Labuschagne a major factor of Australia’s downfall in England series
Known for scoring big runs, the two Steve Smith and Marnus Labuschagne have been guilty of throwing away ‘starts’ in recent times. It is same like the stars whose first season together is a masterpiece, the next two seasons weren’t too bad, but it was always going to be extremely tough to match the standards set by the first season. And this is exactly what the problem has been with Steve Smith and Marnus Labuschagne.
Steve Smith started 2023 with a century against South Africa in Sydney and got two more in his first eight Tests of the last year. Every time he went past 40, the right-hander converted it into a hundred, something he hasn’t done in his last 11 innings. 38, 26, 50, 31, 45, 71, 54, 41, 17, 22 and 2 – these are Smith’s scores in those 11 innings. These are not the numbers that would suggest he is in bad form, and Smith knows it. In 2024, especially in white ball cricket Steve Smith is usually struggling to learn to adapt the conditions and score big runs.
From 2014 to 2022, around 30 percent of his dismissals came in the 31-90 balls range, which has now gone up to around 50 percent since 2023. He doesn’t have a particular weakness but has often fallen to traps set by the opponents, be it hitting straight to the fielders at the leg side or finding someone at the cover region. A short-ball ploy has also worked a couple of times against Steve Smith. Then there is Labuschagne, who is having his first lean period since cracking the Test code in 2019.
For someone who amassed 2990 runs in 30 Tests @ 62.29 between 2019 and 2022, Labuschagne hasn’t done justice to his potential in the last 12 months. 863 runs in 26 innings at an average of 35.96, with five fifties and one century, Labuschagne has been quite mediocre if you compare it with what he has done in the past.
In this period, Labuschagne has failed to reach double figures in only five of his 26 innings. In fact, the No. 3 batter has been dismissed below 30 in 12 of those 26 innings, but only has one century to his name. 20 of these innings have come in England and India, where batting isn’t too easy.
Marnus Labuschagne could only manage three 50-plus scores in those 10 games. However, his average at home also reads just 37.33. Nothing has changed in 2024 as Marnus Labuschagne who is not a regular part of ODI set up has a OK England series with 72 runs in the 1st ODI being his highest.
For all the criticism of the scheduling of this series, victory on Sunday would seal a unique achievement for any England cricket team: coming from 2-0 down to beat Australia 3-2 and Australia would really need to pull the rabbit out of the hat to pull out the series win against motivating English side.