Wickman's Ashes Review

Match reports are as rare as rocking horse shit at the moment. Tongy's too busy looking like a Chester-based soap star, Benno Stephens has lost his keyboard, Saycey hasn't had much to write home about save that 10 wicket destruction of the league leaders and for some reason no one thinks 180* is worth a few words on Mackie's behalf. Content is king they say... so here's a review of the Ashes series to date.

The first thing to say is that - controversially - both sides have been rubbish for most of the time. This  Australian side is about as poor as they come - only in the Packer era has England found it so easy in living memory to take down the Baggy Greens. But England has mostly mis-fired too and the players are not living up to their reputations.

Until the first innings here the Australians had not managed to avoid collapsing. Their two abject performances at Trent Bridge must have had all the greats that Darren Lehman had brought in to the dressing room to inject some spine shivvering with horror. Only a freak innnings from Ashton Agar kept them in the game there. At Lords they were never in the game and that was despite visits to the dressing room from almost the entire 2007 whitewash side.

But England have been similarly abysmal. There have been some individual performances of note but  the batting unit has failed to fire. In fact it has been a while since they have put together a truly dominating performance. Sure they have won a bunch of tests but Wickman would argue that they owe the bowlers plenty of beers...

England should be killing this Australian side. Clarke is the only batsman they have. Watson and Warner are one day players. Rogers looked good on a flat deck but is at the end of his career. Hughes, Cowan and Khawaja don't have the technique. Smith... please. Wickman has a lot of time for Haddin who is a gritty competitor. But surely this is the worst batting line up the old enemy have put out for 35 years.

England have looked curiously impotent with the ball from time to time in this series. When Agar was batting at Trent Bridge, bowling at tail enders in general and for two days of this test they didn't have a clue what to do next. England have relied on Swann and Anderson to the point where Broad and Bresnan are being praised for individual wickets or balls - because their performances in general would have a rhubarb wielding Geoff Boycott salivating at the prospect of easy runs.

And before the series Wickman was telling anyone who would listen that that was where the series would be won and lost. The seamers on both sides are equally competent. Harris is quality. If he could have stayed fit he'd be a modern legend by now. Siddle would be first on my team sheet. Starc makes Mitchell Johnson look like our old friend Muzzy (Billy). Actually Johnson does that on his own but you catch my drift. Only in the difference between the Aussies and us is that Swann is head and shoulders ahead of Smith / Agar / Lyon - but Lyon deserved a better crack frankly.

Individual knocks have bailed England out. Bell's TB innings was the difference and it was a scandal that he wasn't MOM there. Bell again at Lords was magnificent. And once Root had been let off in the second innings at Lords he too was wonderful. KP here stood up and was counted.

Really England have been so, well, average... that it's only because even this limited Australian side have been in disarray that the series is over already. Lehmann's rather odd decision to play Agar was poor. No idea what he has against Lyon. And who knows what's going through his mind about Cowan, Hughes and why Jackson Bird is on this tour. Wickman worries that Boof - who he thought was the Messiah when Mickey Jaapie was sacked - is getting all his ideas from the Sky commentators. We all know no one has taken a blind bit of notice to Beefy since about 1992. So perhaps he's got the earpiece in to listen to what Warney thinks he should do next...

Wickman would really like to see a big performance from England at Durham. But he has a sneaking suspicion that it's going to be a sporty deck by Test standards and we'll be none the happier at the end of it. Australia will be shot out twice. England will be almost shot out twice. And that will be the series sown up.

In 2009 it went to day 4 of the Oval. And what a series it was. By day 4 of The Oval test this time round it will be all about whether the stewards will let the crowd make a record beer snake...