The Ashes: Australian Bowlers
December 24th, 2013 by G WaldorfIt’s amazing the difference pace makes. If you’ve been watching any of the Ashes coverage, you will have seen at least one analyst’s segment on just how that extra bit of pace on the ball has been affecting the English batsmen. You don’t need to be too technical: the hurry-up has forced them to make bad decisions, and it has swung the momentum of the series all the way towards Australia. That’s how Mitchell Johnson’s pace has affected the top order. The tail has just been blown away in every game – only in the second innings of the Perth Test have the English lower middle order made any sort of meaningful contribution, and that was in a lost cause.
But it’s a simplistic approach to say that it has just been the Midge factor that has put Australia so dramatically on top, and resulted in the Ashes coming back to Australia. The batsmen have to take some credit, of course, but the truth of the matter is that Australia’s bowling attack have hunted as a pack right from the start. Harris has offered real threat every time he’s had the ball in hand, Siddle has made Kevin Pietersen his bunny, Nathan Lyon has taken some vital wickets, and both he and Shane Watson have given Michael Clarke real control when he’s needed it.
But at the moment there’s only one man who’s on course to take the top series wicket-taker plaudits, and that’s Mitchell Johnson – he’s a $1.02 bet to take the biggest haul. But the Boxing Day Test at the MCG offers some interesting bets for the Aussie bowlers: not least of all on that first innings lead that has been so important in the series so far. Australia’s bowlers are a $1.51 bet to restrict the English batsmen to fewer runs that their own batsmen manage. Mitchell Johnson predictably leads the odds for the most wickets in the Test, at $2.75, but there might be value in Ryan Harris at $3.60 and in Peter Siddle at $3.75…
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