England return to Perth for series-opening ODI against Australia, a year on from host of mistakes in the city setting the tone for dismal 4-1 Ashes thrashing; now it is Australia with the problems after Usman Khawaja’s explosive claims about the 2018 ball-tampering scandal in South Africa Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player As Australia dredge up the past, England seem determined to learn from theirs. The build-up to this run of white-ball matches between the Ashes rivals, which starts with the first ODI in Perth on Friday, has been dominated by Usman Khawaja’s claims in his autobiography about the 2018 Australia ball-tampering scandal in South Africa. Khawaja says every member of the Baggy Greens team back then knew in advance about the plot to alter the condition of the ball in Cape Town and that sandpaper had even been used in the previous Test of that series against the Proteas, in Gqeberha. Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player Mitchell Starc, one of the Australia bowlers eight years ago and still going strong now, disputes, as he always has, that he was aware of the scheme.
This who-knew-what-and-who-didn’t affair could rumble on for a while. There may never be a resolution. Watching this unfold, presumably with more than a hint of glee, are England, who have returned to the scene of their own cricketing crime last winter. Not ball-tampering, of course, but a complete lack of acceptable preparation for a series as big as The Ashes.
Brendon McCullum was Test coach at that point – not now, having being sacked in July as the 4-1 Ashes debacle was followed by a 2-1 series defeat at home to his native New Zealand – and presided over a shabby lead-in to the first Test. The sole warm-up was an intra-squad fixture on a docile deck at Lilac Hill which in no way teed the team up for the bouncy nature of the Optus Stadium surface they came up against across Perth in the Ashes opener. The result? England went down in flames.
A game they looked destined to win they ended up losing inside two days after a remarkable batting collapse induced by the unwise decision to continually drive on the up. Even more unwise was not talking about dismissals driving on the up in between their defeat in Perth and the loss in the day-night game in Brisbane that followed. After a pink-ball pummelling at The Gabba, the series was almost beyond them. When they retuned from a beach break in Noosa, which some observers claim was drink-laden, and they then lost in Adelaide, the series was beyond them.
Ashes over. This, though, might be a new England – with the same guy as coach in Brendon McCullum and a white-ball captain in Harry Book eager to bounce back from the chastening trip a year ago. Michael Atherton told the Sky Sports Cricket Podcast: “I think the Ashes was a bit of a wake-up call for players like Brook so he will come to this tour now a bit older and a bit wiser – and hopefully hurting to a degree where England are motivated to put on a show.” The laid-back McCullum was kept on as limited-overs head coach after losing the Test job and, bar a sticky tri-series in the subcontinent when they fluffed their lines with the ball in run chases versus Pakistan and Sri Lanka, things have been going swimmingly. Three straight bilateral 50-over series wins and also top spot in the T20 rankings, first after routing India 4-0 in July and then again by sweeping Sri Lanka 3-0 in September.
England are, in the main, making shrewd calls on the field through Brook and shrewd calls off them, too, including the choice to play a proper warm-up ahead of the Australia ODIs – last Saturday’s 92-run win over Western Australia at The WACA. That tune-up match is something that will be replicated ahead of the three-Test series in South Africa from December 17 as Joe Root’s red-ball squad play a Cricket South Africa XI in Durban, while a practice game is also pencilled in when they return to Australia in March for the 150th anniversary Test in Melbourne. On how better prepared they are for Friday’s outing at the Optus than they were last November, captain Brook said: “The conditions [at the WACA] always feel a lot closer than Lilac Hill. The bounce, the carry, the pace of the pitch – it’s miles away from what Lilac Hill offered us.
Thankfully we got the opportunity to play there. “The key is to try and be one of the fittest and strongest sides in the world. You can never guarantee [winning] but you can guarantee the off-field preparation can be a lot better.” Australia’s off-field preparations have surely been disrupted by Khawaja’s blockbuster declarations, even if all but one of the men who played for the Baggy Greens in that Cape Town Test eight years ago are not involved in the three ODIs and five T20s. Mitchell Marsh is the sole figure from the Newlands drama who will be around.
He is captaining Australia against England and will no doubt be heavily quizzed on what he did or did not know about Cameron Bancroft’s use of sandpaper on the ball. Starc and fellow seam-bowling stalwarts (and fellow ‘Sandpapergate’ Test players, for that matter) Josh Hazlewood and Pat Cummins have been rested from the England white-ball contests – Starc has already retired from international T20s anyway. Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player You sense Australia will miss them in the ODIs against a strong touring team, with the pace bowling attack looking a little raw in their absence. You also sense that their names will be mentioned a lot in the wake of Khawaja’s headline-making claims.
Starc, Hazlewood and Cummins, along with spin bowler Nathan Lyon, issued a joint statement in 2021 denying any prior knowledge of the ball-tampering. Will they feel compelled to release another official one, either as a group or individually, or has all their talking been done? What is clear is that England have a chance to make a statement in the ODIs, by proverbially kicking Australia when they are down. Down because of the 2-1 Test series defeat in South Africa and down because of ‘Sandpapergate’ rearing its head again.
Atherton added: “When England arrived a year ago, all the guns were trained on them, the classic Pommie-bashing. “Average Joe” Root, never got a Test hundred here. Pictures of the ‘New Zealand-born, whining’ Ben Stokes coming through the airport. All the usual focus on England.
“Now the focus is on the home team – and for an Englishman there is no better time to be in Australia than when the Australian team are tearing themselves apart, as they seem to be doing right now.” ODIs 3.30am UK time, with T20s 8.15am UK time
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