A Convenient Way to Win

So in the end England beat the rain by 30 odd overs and Australia by an innings and 71. Those of us that watched it live will have seen something strangely familiar but not been quite able to put our fingers on why.

Here we were, watching the final day of an Ashes test match and seeing a side crumble into dust like a vampire exposed to the light at the denouement of one of those great 70s Christopher Lee classics that used to scare the bejasus out of us as kids (well, those of us of Wickman's *ahem* vintage). It felt good. But hell's teeth it was Australia doing the crumbling and not us!

Mike Hussey's pull shot from a Finn short ball that barely got above waist height was criminally badly executed and poorly thought through. It might have been prompted by him feathering an edge off Swanny that got too big on Matt Prior, but it was the wrong shot for the circumstances.

Brad Haddin - so good up until now in this series - played down the wrong line as he had so many times in Brisbane - but this time got an edge. The rest were simply execrable. A tail? Wickman has seen illustrations of Brontosauri with shorter ones. Harris was simply cleaned up and the rest fumbled and groped at Swann like men who had consumed a vat of strong whisky the night before and were blearily fumbling for the alarm clock.

For some reason the presentations seemed to take an age to organise and a stream of delighted Englishmen (some naturalised, naturally) spoke to Athers and the underlying emotion was one of, well, joy. This was a really excellent performance from the first over right the way through the game. 20 wickets vs 5. The first innings defeat in Australia for Australia since 1993 by any team. An imperious century from KP and another chanceless knock from Cook. And then some very disciplined bowling all round, topped off by Swann using a wearing deck to perfection.

Make no bones about it (and you won't even find Australians doing that) they were totally outplayed in every area of the game in a way that we didn't even manage in 2005 and 2009. They were put on the rack, stretched and then broken. The question everyone is going to be asking is can Australia come back from this?

And Athers asked it of everyone he interviewed including Ponting. The message coming from the England spinners (media handlers, not Swanny and KP) was that this is a funny game that will turn round and bite you. Australia didn't become a bad side overnight and we need to stay focussed and not get ahead of ourselves. It seems clear that no one in the England camp wants to give the Australians any reason to get motivated. The Australian rugby team used to say of Matt Dawson era England that we were "pricks to lose to". Our cricketers are leaving nothing to chance.

Australia do have quite a bit going for them. At some point Watson will score a ton. Ponting is due too. Hussey is clearly seeing it like a space hopper. Haddin is very handy. And Clarke too is showing signs that he is still the heir apparent to Ponting at 3. It's in the bowling department that they are struggling to find a combination and a strategy. Siddle was okay. And Harris was the most effective. But the rest at the moment look like so many English strugglers of the 1990s and that's where they need to really improve. Is there anything out there apart from Johnson and Hauritz? The team for the Perth test will tell us if Australia have anything left in the tank.

Wickman can ask nothing more right now. Not only are we winning, we are winning big. And best of all, we're doing it before lunch. Which means those of us watching on this side of the globe can stay up just long enough to spam up facebook and twitter with magnanimous "never minds" for our unusually quiet Australian friends. Now that's a convenient way to win.