ENGLAND MUST RISE FROM THE ASHES

By David Kenworthy

When Nasser Hussain left Heathrow with the England team for the ill-fated Ashes tour, he said he genuinely believed his side stood a chance of competing with the Australians. However, he did qualify that optimism with a couple of phases that may now haunt him. “For us to beat Australia a few things have to go right on and off the field,” he said. “If we can get the bowlers fit I think we’ve got a really good chance.”

It is now obvious that things neither went right off the field or on it, and England failed to get their bowlers fit. He summed it all up at the end of the Perth test when the Ashes had been conceded once again. “We let everyone down - we were embarrassingly poor. We’ve not really performed and have been left beaten, battered and bruised by this. We have been carrying a lot of injuries and we were just not good enough”.

Hussain's words summed it all up pretty well and the inevitable recriminations and post mortems have already begun, even though, after only nine days of cricket in the first three Test matches, it appears as though the series only just got underway. Down three to nil after suffering humiliating and devastating defeats at the merciless hands of the mighty Aussies England may well feel that they have already been laid to rest. Nonetheless, there ARE two Tests still to go and all England can do now is to tell themselves that there is no way they are going down 5-0, accept the fact that they will go out yet again with an injury-depleted side, and ENJOY these last two games of cricket.

In a strange way, the fact that the Ashes have been lost, may well allow them to adopt this attitude, to play with a sense of freedom, instead of allowing themselves to be intimidated by the relentless Australians. At least if they do not lose the finals two Tests, they may still be able to make a fight of it, to give the Barmy Army something to shout about, to extend the playing time to the allotted five days and to salvage some of their badly battered pride.

It was unlikely that England were ever going to be a match for the Aussies in this series, even with a full-strength side, but they can at least tell themselves, though it is little comfort, that they were terribly unlucky with some of their later injuries, incurred whilst on tour, though the inclusion of Gough and Flintoff at the outset were big gambles which simply backfired. After all, the England selectors must have had in mind an attack in Perth consisting of Darren Gough, Andrew Caddick, Simon Jones, Andrew Flintoff and Ashley Giles. In fact, none of these were fit to start the match, and one replacement, Chris Silverwood, lasted only four overs before he pulled up lame. Another, Alex Tudor, finished up in hospital, albeit with an injury sustained whilst batting. Going into any Test match with these omissions would be difficult to deal with, but against the might of the Australians, it was obviously going to be a one-sided contest. The Aussies would have won the Ashes even England had been able to field their best side, but it is unlikely that they would have kept the urn with such ease.

This is not the fault of Nasser Hussain, who along with coach, Duncan Fletcher, has done a good job in the rebuilding of a poor England side, transforming them into a very competitive one. These two gentlemen now have the difficult task of pulling up the England players by their bootstraps, so that they might rise from the ashes of an Ashes defeat and perform well in the final two Tests and the triangular One-Day Series which includes Sri Lanka. This MUST be done, and if it happens, England will surely be able to put these final defeats behind them, rebuild the fitness of their injured players and with it the confidence of the team.

With a good performance at the triangular series they can still go into the World Cup as one of the teams to beat.