Numbers, history favour veteran pair

Amid the stream of media conference clichés and platitudes that are guaranteed to dominate the off-field Ashes battle, the following will doubtless feature prominently.

“We don’t worry about what the opposition are doing, we just focus on our own performance and if we get that right then the result will take care of itself,” the interview subject will regurgitate by rote when asked about their rivals’ batting, bowling, fielding, gamesmanship and/or public utterances.

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It’s a media interview equivalent of a dot ball that is beloved across all sports where acknowledging the other mob is tantamount to treason, but in cricket it is also blatantly disingenuous.

As shown by the preponderance of data analysts, laptop jockeys and pitch cartographers who are now fundamental to the planning undertaken by every vaguely professional cricket and commentary team, vast amounts of time and expertise are devoted to what the opposition are doing.

The seam and wrist position of each bowler’s various variations, the contrasting strong and weak zones of batsmen, even the capabilities or otherwise of a fielder’s throwing arm is collated and crunched as coaching staff search for any incremental advantage.

And while the information collected in the digital age plumbs depth and detail never before seen, the essential premise hasn’t altered a lot since the international game began almost a century-and-a-half ago.

That is, bowlers aim to put the ball where the opposition batters want it least. And for their part, batters look to counter this strategy by pouncing on those occasions that the bowlers miss their mark and hitting the ball where the fielders ain’t.

Given this unspoken preoccupation with the other team, it would therefore seem logical that the fallibility of opponents to individual personnel might well be taken into account when finalising a starting XI.

If that is the case, then it doesn’t require too many algorithms nor a doctorate in Fibonacci sequences to identify the two Australian bowlers that England’s batsmen would least like to encounter in the Test series that begins in Cardiff on July 8.

In more than 950 Test matches that England have played across more than 138 years, only three Australian bowlers (and eight in total of those to have captured a minimum 25 English wickets) have managed to record a strike rate of a scalp in fewer than every 44 deliveries bowled.

The fact that Ashes legends Shane Warne, Glenn McGrath, Dennis Lillee, Ray Lindwall, Fred ‘The Demon’ Spofforth and Charlie ‘Terror’ Turner are not among that trio is noteworthy.

To find that two of the three – Mitchell Johnson and Ryan Harris – are part of Australia’s current 18-man Ashes touring party (the third, John ‘JJ’ Ferris played the last of his eight Tests against England in 1890) adds extra spice to the debate as to which of Australia’s in-form quicks will get the nod in Cardiff.

Johnson, who his former Australia and Western Australia teammate Marcus North has suggested might struggle to find a place in the Test XI given recent performances, boasts the second-highest strike rate against England in history – 72 wickets coming with a frequency of every 40.61 deliveries.

Only South Africa seamer George Bisset, who played his only four Tests against England on their 1927-28 tour to South Africa, can boast better with his 25 scalps coming at 39.56.

Harris, who has not played competitive cricket since this year’s New Year Test against India in Sydney following a lengthy absence from the game due to knee surgery, sits eighth on that list with 57 England wickets at a strike rate of 43.39.

And it’s not only the realisation that the 35-year-old has knocked over England batsmen at a quicker clip than acknowledged bowling royalty the calibre of West Indians Malcolm Marshall (45.59), Michael Holding (46.73) and Joel Garner (48.13), and South Africa’s Allan Donald (45.59).

That he has amassed that tally at a lower average (20.63) than famed Ashes tormentors McGrath (20.93), Lillee (21.00), Warne (23.26) and even Terry Alderman (21.17) underscores why Warne believes the veteran should be picked ahead of impressive youngster Josh Hazlewood for the opening Test.

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Starc and Hazlewood are both in superb form // Getty Images

“Hazlewood has bowled beautifully and is a perfect new-ball bowler for English conditions but, for me, Ryan Harris is one of the greatest fast bowlers Australia have had,” Warne said last week.

“(England have) got a few budgies against Mitchell Johnson and (fellow left-arm seamer Mitchell) Starc is probably the best fast bowler in the world (at present), so Hazlewood might be unlucky to miss out.”

In his recent blog for cricket.com.au, Australia coach Darren Lehmann conceded the surfeit of quality fast-bowling talent that also includes Peter Siddle meant he and his fellow selectors (Chair Rod Marsh, Trevor Hohns and Mark Waugh) faced a “massive headache” in settling on a Test attack.

With five Tests scheduled in the space of seven weeks, it’s likely that bowler attrition as well as local conditions will play a decisive role in which quicks are earmarked for specific matches.

But while the “we won’t be discussing the opposition” response remains safely packed in the kit of each current Ashes protagonist, it clearly (and mercifully) no longer applies once a player walks away from the game.

That’s why former England spinner Graeme Swann, the leading wicket-taker in the last Ashes series played in the UK two years ago, was able to exhort the current crop of England batsmen to go after Australia’s spinner Nathan Lyon who he identified as the “weakest link” in the tourists’ attack.

“I’m not saying Lyon is a weak spinner,” Swann told reporters at a charity event at a Nottingham school on Friday when discussing the most successful Test off-spinner Australia has produced.

“But he’s probably their weakest (bowler).

“Australia have a similar team to New Zealand, they’ve got good seam bowlers and aggressive batting but their spinner is their weakest link.

“I think you should always attack the spinner, especially when he (first) comes on.

“I used to love it when teams didn’t attack me because then you can bowl all day.

“England players throughout history have been tentative against spin and it’s not the way to play against finger spin – you attack them.

“Lyon has the off-spinner and the arm ball.

“There is no mystery, but if you let guys bowl they’ll take wickets.

“So don’t let them bowl.”