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England began the ashes series having toured South Africa in January for a victory that had saw them overtake South Africa to claim second place in the ratings.� However, England was still a distant second to the Australians with 1136 rating points.� Australia began the series holding the all time record highest rating by any nation of 1252 points.� With a 116-point advantage over England, Australia had been expected to win the series reasonably comfortably.
The Australian Test caravan rolled into Lord's and left with a comfortable 239 run win.� However, the magnitude of the victory hid some problems that would Australia for the rest of the series.� Apart from McGrath, Warne and to a lesser extent Lee, the bowling attack did not look to be able to put pressure on the batsmen.� Clearly, Gillespie and Kasprowicz were badly out of form.� Additionally, the recognised batsmen largely struggled and the tail enders made an unusually stronger contribution with the bat than usual.
England's selectors, to their credit, refused the temptation to change their team for the second Test.� At Edgebaston, McGrath injured his ankle in the warm up just before the match began.� McGrath's absence immediately magnified the weakness of the back up seam bowlers.� Between them, Gillespie and Kasprowicz took 5 for 224 while England made almost 600 runs in the match.
England dominated the series from the second Test onwards.� Australia began, what would become, a succession of thrusting their hands into a hat seeking to extract an elusive rabbit:
*� in the second Test, Australia, against all the odds, got within three runs of victory thanks to a substantial contribution by the tail enders;
*� in the third Test, the Australians managed to bat through the final day with the tail again saving the day for a draw;
*� in the fourth Test, England needed only 129 runs in their final innings and the Australians managed seven wickets but again could not get a firm grip on the rabbit to get the final three wickets; and
*� in the final Test, Australia again needed to grasp the rabbit on the final day after hours of play had been lost over the first four days to bad light and rain.� Again, the rabbit was almost grasped but proved elusive.
England's approach to the series showed that they had put in the hours of detailed preparation that has characterised Australia's approach to the game.� England had developed a strong bowling attack based around Jones' ability to swing the ball in any direction - which clearly confounded the Australian batsmen - and Flintoff's ability to explode during short spells - frequently picking up key wickets.
England was able to bowl to a specific plan that involved specific field settings for each individual batsman.� England's field placings were also deliberately designed to prevent the Australians from picking up the usual number of boundaries they have been accustomed to.� All of this combined to put pressure on the Australians that they have rarely faced in the last decade.�
In response, the Australian batsmen broadly ignored the changed conditions and kept on playing in the style that had made them successful.� The best example of this was Hayden, who took until the final Test to change his approach.� Of the recognised batsmen, only Langer and to a lesser extent Ponting and Clarke can really hold their heads high at the end of the series.�
England's series victory sees them remain in second place with a rating of 1160 points, which is their third highest rating of all time.� England is now only six points below their highest rating of 1166 points, set in February 1979.� However, the win has also allowed England to slice 40 per cent off Australia's lead, which now stands at 72 points - the smallest lead Australia has had over the rest of the field since March 2004.
Australia's rating has plummeted to 1232 points, which is their lowest rating in the last year.� Australia is now twenty rating points below the highest rating in history that they set in March in New Zealand of 1252 points.� While it may be possible for the Australians to recover those lost points, history would suggest that possibility is unlikely.�
Post mortems and reviews will be followed by changes over the next twelve months.� The measure of Australia will be their reaction to this setback.� Clearly, McGrath and Warne are broadly irreplaceable and this Ashes series has shown that the bowling attack would have been massacred by England without both of these players.� Their retirement will have parallels with Walsh and Ambrose retiring from West Indies.�
Australia has suffered the consequences of having too many weak opponents in the Test cricket arena - specifically Bangladesh, Zimbabwe, West Indies and perhaps New Zealand and Sri Lanka.� In the last five years, Australia has effectively only played their nearest competitor (over that period), South Africa, on one occasion - six Tests in total spread over two 'back to back' series in early 2002.� On that occasion, Australia effectively won five to one.� Since that time, Australia has only ever been truly tested by India.� In those Indian series, Australia showed a level of preparation that it seemed to lack in the Ashes series.
As a result of the lack of real opposition, the weakness of Australia's aging line up against top quality opposition has been hidden.� Continued good results against largely poor opposition have not placed the usual pressure on the selectors.� The selectors have resisted the temptation to change a winning combination after being burnt by the public reaction to their ending of Stephen Waugh's career.
That lack of resolve may cost Australia over the next two years as they face a tougher schedule of opponents than they have become accustomed to over the last three years.� Australia next face a World XI in October, then have a break against West Indies before six Tests against South Africa followed by hosting England the following summer.
Maintaining a rating above 1200 points over that period will prove to be very challenging, let alone attempting to recover the rating points lost in England.
�
The latest Test cricket ratings are: 1. Australia (1232); 2. England (1160); 3. South Africa (1124); 4. India (1077); 5. Pakistan (1063) ; 6. Sri Lanka (1049); 7. New Zealand (1036); 8. West Indies (956); 9. Zimbabwe (855); 10. Bangladesh (794).
