Stats highlights from an unusual Ashes series in which the winning team didn’t necessarily have the better stats
S Rajesh25-Aug-2015In every way, this was a bizarre series. Out of a possible 25 days of cricket, there were only 18, making this the joint-shortest five-Test series, along with the England-West Indies series of 2000; there were only 7920 balls bowled in the entire series, the third-lowest in a five-Test series with results in all five matches; for the first time in a five-Test series, no match went into the fifth day.It wasn’t the most compelling Ashes series of recent times, though. The team which took the early initiative in each Test invariably dominated the rest of the game and won by a huge margin. The only fightback was on the opening day of the series, when Australia had reduced England to 43 for 3 and then dropped Joe Root, who led a magnificent recovery and allowed England to finish the day on 343 for 7. Through the rest of the series, neither team was able to recover from early setbacks.Even so, the matches were largely action-packed – wickets fell in a hurry, and yet both teams continued to score at a frenetic run rate: England’s series run rate was 3.74, and Australia’s 3.72. The overall series run rate of 3.73 is the third-highest in Ashes history, next only to those in 2001 and 2005. A wicket fell every 49 balls, and the average score in a full day’s play (90 overs) was 336 runs for the loss of 11 wickets.Australia lost their fourth successive Ashes campaign in England, but in two of those series – in 2009 and 2015 – they ended with a higher batting average than England. The 2015 averages were obviously influenced by the dead-rubber last Test, when Australia scored 481 for 10 wickets compared to England’s 435 for 20; after four Tests of the series, England averaged 31.63 runs per wicket to Australia’s 29.77. In 2009 Australia averaged 40.64 to England’s 34.15, despite losing the series 2-1, while in 2013 England had an advantage of only three runs despite winning by a 3-0 margin.
YearTeamRuns scoredWkts takenBat aveResult2015England23658029.193-2Australia25658132.062-32013England28568933.603-0Australia27358530.730-32009England28697134.152-1Australia28868440.641-22005England29628931.842-1Australia28109331.571-2England’s middle-order mightEngland’s average score at the fall of the second wicket was 43; Australia’s was 131. The opening partnership was one of the success stories for Australia, while Adam Lyth’s lack of runs – he had one of the poorest series for an Ashes opener – meant England always lost at least one early wicket. Rogers and Warner, on the other hand, put together 514 runs, one of only 12 instances when an opening pair has added more than 500 runs in an Ashes series.Australia’s problem, and England big advantage, was their middle and lower middle order. For wickets three to seven, England, on average, added 184; Australia managed just 115. That turned out to be the key difference between the two teams. Root got enough assistance from England’s middle and lower order to stitch together useful partnerships almost every time – Moeen Ali made useful runs down the order, while Ian Bell and Ben Stokes made a couple of vital contributions (though Bell’s overall series numbers were very ordinary). For Australia, middle-order wickets consistently fell in a heap. England’s No. 4 to No. 8 batsmen scored 1228 runs at 30.70, with two hundreds and eight fifties, while Australia managed just 737 runs at 18.89, with four half-centuries and no hundreds. Australia had more players who topped 400 runs in the series – three to England’s one – and more batsmen who averaged 40-plus, yet in the final analysis that didn’t count for much. (Click here for England’s player-wise batting and bowling averages in the series, and here for Australia’s.)
EnglandAustraliaWktInngsP’ship runsAve stand100/50p’shipInngsP’ship runsAve stand100/50p’ship1st914716.330/ 01056562.773/ 32nd923726.330/ 1961468.221/ 33rd931439.250/ 4918122.620/ 14th848560.622/ 1826933.621/ 05th831739.621/ 1814317.870/ 16th819824.750/ 1822828.500/ 27th816220.250/ 289812.250/ 08th822327.870/ 2833141.370/ 39th823529.370/ 27689.710/ 010th8476.710/ 07689.710/ 0The bowling comparisonComing into the series, Australia claimed they had the best fast-bowling attack in the world, but in this series there’s no doubt that they were second-best to England. Until Peter Siddle came into the line-up at The Oval, Australia’s pace attack consistently leaked runs at an uncomfortable rate – the combined economy rate of the two Mitchells, Starc and Johnson, and Josh Hazlewood, was 3.76 runs per over, compared to 3.24 for England’s five fast bowlers – Stuart Broad, James Anderson, Steven Finn, Mark Wood and Stokes. Both Starc and Johnson averaged more than 30, which, in the context of a low-scoring series, wasn’t quite good enough, especially when Broad’s 21 wickets came at just 20.90 each.Nathan Lyon was clearly the more skilled of the two specialist spinners on view in the series, but Moeen Ali made some vital contributions with the ball, dismissing Warner four times and Smith twice.
PaceSpinTeamWicketsAverageSRWicketsAverageSREngland6427.2349.91642.5657.4Australia6327.7446.61729.1151.2The head-to-head battlesFive-Test series allow a lot more time for batsman-bowler rivalries to develop, and there were a few interesting ones in this series as well. Root was the only batsman from either side who scored more than 100 runs against three opposition bowlers – Starc got him out three times, but against Johnson and Hazlewood he averaged more than 50, and those battles went a long way in defining the series. Cook was very good against Johnson and Hazlewood, but not quite as successful against Starc and Lyon. Moeen clearly preferred the spin of Lyon to the pace of Johnson – he may have lost the battle of offspinners, but won his personal duel against Lyon. Lyth, meanwhile, struggled against most of the bowlers he faced in the series – he was dismissed three times each by Starc and Hazlewood, and against Siddle in the last Test, Lyth faced 20 balls, didn’t score a run, and was dismissed twice.
Batsman Bowler Runs Balls Runs/over Dismissals AverageJoe Root Mitchell Johnson 115 168 4.10 2 57.50Joe Root Josh Hazlewood 104 146 4.27 2 52.00Joe Root Mitchell Starc 102 155 3.94 3 34.00Moeen Ali Nathan Lyon 89 120 4.45 0 – Alastair Cook Mitchell Johnson 83 143 3.48 1 83.00Joe Root Nathan Lyon 83 111 4.48 0 -Alastair Cook Mitchell Starc 75 137 3.28 3 25.00Alastair Cook Josh Hazlewood 68 159 2.56 0 -Moeen Ali Mitchell Johnson 63 90 4.20 4 15.75Alastair Cook Nathan Lyon 59 186 1.90 3 19.66Adam Lyth Mitchell Starc 44 94 2.80 3 14.66Adam Lyth Josh Hazlewood 28 63 2.66 3 9.33Jos Buttler Nathan Lyon 18 41 2.63 4 4.50Among the Australian batsmen, Rogers scored 100-plus runs against Anderson and Broad, but while Broad dismissed him five times, Anderson couldn’t get him out even once. On the other hand, Anderson had plenty of success against Rogers’ opening partner, Warner, but Broad failed to dismiss him all series. Broad, though, was generally superb against Australia’s top order, dismissing Smith three times and Clarke twice. In fact, Clarke fell twice each to Broad, Wood and Finn, suggesting that Broad wasn’t his only nemesis. In fact, he faced only 12 balls from Anderson in the entire series, indicating how insignificant his batting was through the summer.
Batsman Bowler Runs Balls Runs/over Dismissals AverageChris Rogers Stuart Broad 113 216 3.13 5 22.60Chris Rogers James Anderson 109 181 3.61 0 -Steven Smith Stuart Broad 77 122 3.78 3 25.66David Warner Moeen Ali 69 77 5.37 4 17.25David Warner Stuart Broad 66 134 2.95 0 – Steven Smith James Anderson 63 112 3.37 0 -Steven Smith Steven Finn 42 69 3.65 3 14.00David Warner James Anderson 32 72 2.66 3 10.66Michael Clarke Stuart Broad 29 57 3.05 2 14.50Michael Clarke Mark Wood 29 55 3.16 2 14.50Michael Clarke Steven Finn 4 33 0.72 2 2.00