The real reason Australia lost the First Test

The real reason Australia lost the First Test
11 HOURS AGO JULY 13, 2015 10:07AM

Steve Smith opens up about the Ashes
THERE’S been no shortage of finger-pointing after Australia’s defeat in the first Ashes Test: the team is too old; the selectors committed the greatest crime in the history of cricket by starting Shane Watson ahead of Mitch Marsh; and Brad Haddin has lost his reflexes.

Please.
All of the over-30s in the Aussie line-up — Chris Rogers, Michael Clarke, Adam Voges, Shane Watson, Brad Haddin and Mitchell Johnson — have played quality Test cricket in the past 12 months and haven’t mysteriously lost all their ability overnight.
It might be Mitch Marsh’s time and you’ll get no argument from these parts if he replaces Watson for the second Test but it’s unlikely to be a huge upgrade in this series. Hopefully down the track Marsh will develop into a world-class batsman but it’s hard to argue he is one right now.

Haddin dropped one very important catch. If he hung on to it we wouldn’t be having this discussion. Shelve it for the rest of the series.
So what really cost us?
It might not create the same headlines but there was one major reason Australia failed in the first Test and it has nothing to do with the action on the field.
You won’t hear the Australian team talk about it because sportsmen are brainwashed to focus only on the factors they can control.
But England was always in the boxseat for victory when Alastair Cook won the toss.

It sounds overly simple and detracts meaning from what happened in four days of Test cricket afterwards, but teams batting second hardly ever win in England.
In the past three Ashes series in the UK there has been just one game won by the team batting second: Australia’s innings victory in the fourth Test at Headingley in 2009. That’s 14 of 15 Test matches where winning the toss has been enough to ensure either a draw or better.

So when deciding how to react ahead of Thursday’s second Test at Lord’s, Australia and its fans could benefit from a history lesson.
In 2005, Australia won the toss, England grassed seven chances — including a Kevin Pietersen drop which cost them 70 extra Michael Clarke runs — and the Aussies cruised to a 239-run victory.
Following the match there was huge pressure on English coach Duncan Fletcher to make changes, in particular the removal of spinner Ashley Giles, fast bowler Simon Jones and wicketkeeper Geraint Jones.

He made none, Glenn McGrath trod on a cricket ball and the Poms recovered to win the series 2-1. England was no doubt helped by one important factor in the rest of the series: Michael Vaughan won the toss in three of the four remaining Tests and Ricky Ponting sent him in the only time he didn’t.