Let's Be Reasonable

Ten reasons why Australia regained the Ashes (in no particular order of importance):

• Darren Lehmann - the concept of coach has morphed in the last twenty five years. Fine tuning playing skills was a role but a minor one. The most important role of the coach pre 1990 was a mixture of mentor, friend, stirrer of urges and life guidance. If you had a great dad - if you still do - then a coach was a lot like him. He bought you unity when your life was disheveled; clarity when the trees and woods were doing their thing; a reminder to you to kick yourself up your own backside when you let others down; the best person to celebrate with; the man you wanted sitting on the bench beside you when you tried to understand loss. Old school stuff which was about reminding you who you were in the scheme of things and who you could be. The good coach instilled always, always, always the importance of the top down heirachy the game, the club, the team, the player. Think Wayne Bennett. Think Jack Gibson. Think Ric Charlsworth. Notice when their players describe them they don't speak of playing skills and tactics? No, they talk of their compassion, their leadership, their strength, their care, their mateship. They talk about their personal qualities as men. These are blokes in a blokes world that players freely hug and openly show affection for. In a world where cricket has been broken down and analysed into the smallest component parts, each one run by a specialist with a degree, a laptop and access to the team shirt ... think Darren Lehmann.
• Michael Clarke's Gabba moment - the turning point of the series and the moment when thecricketragics knew Australia would win the Ashes. In the dying minutes of a 1st Test in which Clarke rebuffed everyone's concept of his frailty against the short ball with an aggressive second innings hundred, James Anderson was mouthing off and making threats to an always smiling George Bailey. Up steps Clarke, right into the serial sledger's face and invites him to face up to Johnson and receive a broken arm. Thanks to the ineptitude of a television director, the comment went to air. Clarke was fined and talk back was full of bleeding hearts for a few days. This stroke of luck and the fine which followed it, achieved several things at once: it finally galvanized the sporting public behind their captain; it was a loud rallying cry to his team; it was statement of intent to the Englishmen; it gave a transparency to the cultured diplomat that Clarke is prepared to be and exposed the steel underneath; and it sat on the back foot one of England's leading bullies. It's what Ian Chappell would have done. It's what Steve Waugh would have done. It's what Ricky Ponting would have done. It's what Michael Clarke did.
  
• Brad Haddin - surely, but for the game's love affair with fast, aggressive bowling, Brad Haddin would have been the man of the series. Haddin stood head and shoulders above the lot, not for the amount of runs he scored but for when and how consistently he scored them. Australia's first innings were always in crisis until Haddin batted. He caught well behind the stumps and set the high standard of fielding that the best keepers have always done. Beyond all of that, he was aggressive to the opposition, colouring in the outline his skipper drew in Brisbane, for this was not blatant uncontrolled aggression. There is nothing more unsettling to an opposition batsman to be sharing a joke one minute and feeling the heat the next. Haddin, in the past, lacked subtly in the art of mental disintegration. That changed this series but then he is a changed man. Perhaps the the altered reality that nursing a sick daughter would bring to anyone is the change of perspective which has created this better Brad Haddin. He plays with more joy now and with the knowledge that Lehmann's statements - about there being other things in life than cricket - are painfully true.
• Mitchell Johnson - whilst weeks spent with Dennis Lillee certainly helped his bowling technique and permission from John Inverarity, Darren Lehmann and Michael Clarke to follow in the footsteps of Thommo and "just go out there and go wang" they are not the main reason for the rebirth of Mitchell Johnson. This is not the man who left with injury, written off by all - including thecricketragic - as never to return. The difference is maturity. Johnson was always fast and always aggressive but he has a better tool now which refines the ore into gold. He is controlled. He plays with the sure knowledge he is good enough. He enters the field calm and he stays that way. England knew to rattle him was to gain the upper hand. It never happened. Instead, he paid it forward. He talked after the SCG match of his new ability to ignore things said to rattle him but when the chance came to respond on the boundary to his tormentors, the Barmy Army, he did so with directness and good humour. Johnson has beaten more things than injury, overcoming issues at the core of his closest family and a mental brittleness that both enhances his natural skills and impedes them. He is the flip side to the sadness of Jonathan Trott's departure. Beware the man who smiles and winks.
  
• the culture of team - its an old sporting adage but a champion team will eventually triumph over a team of champions. As England crumbled like Michael Carberry's bat, breaking down into a rabble of individuals, Australia hunted as a pack. The Australians had weaknesses in the batting lineup born of a failure to consistently escape the twenties - think Bailey, Smith, Watson and Clark after Adelaide - but "the team" nursed and nourished each other. This performance marked a better summer than the 5-0 drubbing of England in 2006-07. Then, a side of established champions won comfortably. Here, having only just been beaten by the same England side, they played a brand of team sport which hasn't been seen on this country's green fields for a very long time. Perhaps it boils down to what Shane Watson has said, that playing Test cricket has become fun again.
• targeting - its been done before but never with such ruthlessness. England's best three batsmen (Alastair Cook, Ian Bell & Kevin Pietersen) and her best bowler (Graeme Swann) were subjected to relentless plans to break them. Its one thing to attack a man's weakness - he always knows he has his strength to fall back on - but when you attack his strengths and beat him, doubt follows. Once doubt has worked its way in, it goes out to bat/bowl with you. Confidence works for you, doubt for your opponent. Cook, Bell and Pietersen were all attacked on their points of strength ... the shots they liked to play. Clarke already had Cook's measure in England, with the England captain unsure of where his off stump was until it was on the ground behind him. Harris has tormented Cook, removing him seven times in fourteen innings in the two series. Its a wonderful thing when an opposition batsman's best asset becomes a technical flaw over the course of a series. Swann left for good after three Tests, smashed to all parts and with nothing left as Warner, Haddin and Clarke came down the wicket at him to intimidate. It worked.
• Trott's departure - apart from the obvious compassion one feels for Jonathan Trott (We Are All Clapping For Trotty) and the plaudits which he deserves for his honesty, had he been fit, this series may have been much closer. Its an odd thing that the state of complete resignation that mental illness can bring, often has a flipside of immense determination and strength. It was the latter which had rebuffed Australian sides in the last five years and without Trott at three, England lost their lynch pin. There was no replacement and the best of what was left, Bell, wasn't used until it was too late. Trott has that rare ability to stoically refute the best bowling and then take them apart. His batting technique very similar to Ponting in the way he moves across to off stump and plays with power and deftness to leg. He also has a sparkling cover drive. In his best mood, he would have been the best equipped to blunt Johnson and Harris. For his own sake, let's hope he comes back strong but double that for England.
• Ryan Harris - at the post match presentation, Harris was cheeky enough to remind the press that he hadn't just lasted the five Tests of the summer but had played nine consecutive Tests. Overshadowed by the fast and furious performances of Johnson, Harris has taken 46 wickets at 19 in those nine Tests. Five wickets a match is as good as it gets at Test standard. Regularly bowling in the low 140km/h range, he has kept the ball up, moved it off the straight and has comeback better than any of the Australian bowlers on the few occasions when attacked. His dismissals of Ben Stokes and Stuart Broad on the last day in Sydney are typical of the change to Harris. Where once a four would have drawn a bouncer, now its on a better length and attacking the stumps. Just like there would have been no Thommo or Alderman without Lillee, so Johnson would have been less effective without Harris.
  
• the retirement of Andrew Strauss - it may seem strange to site an event which happened 18 months ago but the England which fell apart so badly this summer has many of the same players and many of them have personalities which require good management. Strauss was a great man manager and its becoming obvious that Cook is not. Whilst many are now questioning Cook's on field captaincy for its blandness and its predictability, its off the field where this Ashes series has culminated in the final descent into the abyss. Men like Pietersen, Anderson, Swann, Prior and Trott require a specific skill set which can't be learned. Strauss took the time to get in close to his men and for the most part it worked. This didn't mean he was afraid to make a stand and hence the very public falling out with Pietersen over texting - something that should have been done to Shane Warne years ago. After Strauss retired, Cook won a famous series victory in India, after losing the first Test but it was on the back of three personal hundreds but there have been none of those in 14 Tests. He's won and drawn against New Zealand and beat Australia in the northern summer. His team has fallen apart because he doesn't know how to work with his men and his coach won't.
• no more rotation - the selectors may have ignored cricket fans for the last four years but they apparently listened to Darren Lehmann. Australia played the same eleven players for all five Tests, built a team culture that will launch them against the South Africans and had a great summer. Okay, it might not have happened if the team hadn't been winning but it proved the point that players should be trusted to know if they are fit and that only form should decide the starting line up. Harris may have had knees like a hat on a stick, Siddle may have robbing food from monkeys, Bailey may have looked below the standard but finally our selection panel understood that age shall not weary them with Lyon, Smith, Siddle and Watson the only players under 32.