Australia are the deserved Ashes holders for at least another 18 months and England have earned nothing but derision for the way they have presented the urn to their rivals on a platter.
Both teams will be making key changes for the Boxing Day Test after the Aussies completed their third straight triumph with their 82-run win at Adelaide.
Again, the Aussies were depleted and just like in Brisbane and Perth, it didn’t particularly matter.
This time around it was their batting supremo, Steve Smith, who was sidelined and Usman Khawaja earned a belated call-up a day after being told he was not in the XI despite getting over the back injury that kept him out of his home Test at the Gabba.
Despite scoring a duck and one from his previous two Test innings at four, the 39-year-old opener turned back the clock with 82 and 40, regrettably gifting his wicket to Will Jacks on each occasion, firstly with an injudicious aerial sweep to the deep then a clumsy snick to a benign half-tracker.
Unlike in Perth when he was a passenger, Khawaja looked decent in the field and most importantly, he filled his role by contributing with the bat.
Smith is set to return from his untimely vertigo diversion for the fourth Test on Boxing Day (Friday for those who have already lost track of what day it is after entering holiday mode).
A batter will need to be squeezed out – Cameron Green and Josh Inglis are in the firing line but the best option would be for Khawaja to go out on an unexpected high.
What better way would there be for him than to pull up stumps with the urn safely in Australia’s keeping so that either of these younger teammates can get another chance to show they can cement a spot in the middle order?
Former Test captain Ricky Ponting on Seven said he thinks the selectors will stand by Inglis, meaning Khawaja will be surplus to requirements.
Josh Inglis. (AP Photo/James Elsby)
Despite his middling form, Green won’t be punted even if there is a like-for-like replacement waiting in the wings in the form of Beau Webster, who has been unlucky not to get a start this series.
The selectors have already shown their hand by declaring Travis Head and Jake Weatherald are the opening duo they want to see establish themselves long term so it makes no sense to give Khawaja a couple more matches in the middle order when they need to see if Inglis can find his feet in the longest format.
And if he is not going to succeed in the red-ball international arena as he’s done in the white-ball formats, then it’s time to give Nathan McSweeney a crack in a spot where he specialises after he was burnt at the altar of Jasprit Bumrah in his Test baptism of fire last summer.
Rocchiccioli should get a turn
In the spirit of looking to the future, the selectors should be bringing Western Australia’s Corey Rocchiccioli into the line-up for the MCG Test ahead of Matt Kuhnemann and Todd Murphy.
Nathan Lyon’s 38-year-old hamstring going pop means the Aussies have two dead rubbers on home soil to gather intel on who will be his long-term successor.
The last time Lyon was not the sole designated spinner for a Test in Australia was the SCG Test of 2011 when Michael Beer was chosen for the final humiliation of the 3-1 Ashes series loss, making his debut alongside none other than Khawaja.
Murphy and Kuhnemann have had promising starts to their Test careers on foreign turf but they have been leapfrogged on current form by Rocchiccioli.
Corey Rocchiccioli. (Photo by Paul Kane/Getty Images)
The 28-year-old WA offie has taken 20 wickets at 28.2 from six Sheffield Shield outings season while Murphy has bagged 10 wickets from four games for Victoria at 23.7 while Kuhnemann (four wickets from two runs for Tasmania at 36) was hampered by a side strain at the start of the summer.
Rocchiccioli was also the leading spinner at first-class level last summer, snaring 38 in nine matches at 27.71 to be third overall among all bowlers.
With a tour to Bangladesh for two Tests next August and a five-match tour of India a little more than 12 months away, these two upcoming fixtures are the last chance for the selectors to audition a sidekick (or two) for Lyon.
Rocchiccioli is the closest to Lyon in terms of the bounce he extracts, which is the best option in Australian conditions, and if you can consistently snare wickets as a spinner in the west, then you should be able to do likewise over east.
With Pat Cummins indicating he is likely to hand the reins back over to Smith for the next Test at least to manage his back injury, Brendan Doggett did enough in his first two Tests to get the gig ahead of Michael Neser, who at 35, is also not a long-term investment.
Xavier Bartlett or, if his fragile frame is up to the task, Jhye Richardson could also be worth a look at the MCG.
Bazball cleanout on the cards
It is funny to see the English media already turn on the Bazballers they had been feting for the past three years before the third Test and, in turn, the Ashes had been lost.
Now that they have surrendered any hope of getting the urn back for the first time since their 3-2 series win in 2015, expect the calls for ECB managing director Rob Key, coach Brendon McCullum and captain Ben Stokes to intensify.
It is unlikely that any of the trio will get the punt because this triumvirate’s time in charge has for the most part been successful.
The problem is they have turned a mediocre team into a decent one but not the kind of world-beaters that they have talked themselves up as being.
And the ongoing protection of the players from being accountable for their actions has created complacency.
England’s captain Ben Stokes and head coach Brendon McCullum. (AP Photo/Ajit Solanki)
During the Adelaide Test, the Poms sent their assistant coach, bowling coach and then spin bowling coach to the first three post-stumps media conferences rather than a player.
That is soft. And it only exacerbates the perception that the players are molly-coddled, safe in the knowledge that they are unlikely to be dropped.
And that kind of environment leads to situations like Harry Brook playing a horrendous shot like the scoop he attempted on Scott Boland while still early in his innings that Ponting described as the “worst batting I’ve seen”.
Brook then threw away his innings once and for all when England were starting to sense a chance to pull off an improbable run-chase with his reckless reverse-sweep on 30 which resulted in Lyon rearranging his stumps with a stock standard off break.
England’s “that’s OK, as long as you’re playing entertaining cricket mantra” then spreads throughout the dressing room, prompting Jamie Smith on day five, when the target was starting to become within striking distance, to try to belt Mitchell Starc into the nearest cathedral after already hitting the two previous deliveries to the boundary.
Australia’s players celebrate after winning the third Ashes Test. (AP Photo/James Elsby)
“Dopey, dopey, dopey” (Ponting again) was the polite way of summing up such sheer stupidity which is permitted under McCullum.
Ollie Pope must surely get dropped for the MCG Test, Smith is worth persisting with (mainly because the alternative as keeper is Pope) while Jacks can only play as a batter because his spin is barely up to first-class standard, let alone Test level.
Zak Crawley should be allowed to play out the series but no longer after 60-plus Tests of flattering to deceive, Mark Wood needs to focus on the shorter formats and Ben Duckett needs to be told that he can’t keep his place if he is going to insist on playing at every delivery at the top of the order.
The fact that in a 16-man touring squad, the England “brains trust” only found room for one spare batter for the top six sums up the devil may care attitude which has brought them undone.
And that player, Jacob Bethell, is a 22-year-old with zero centuries and an average of 28.27 from 26 first-class matches suggests that there is something seriously rotten in the state of Bazball.
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