From England’s point of view, let’s hope that is the one and only time Pat Cummins lifts a trophy at The Oval this summer.
For the first two days in particular, Australia were awesome, giving a demonstration of just how terrifyingly good they can be at their best.
Steve Smith and Travis Head gorged on some below-par bowling before the Aussie pace bowlers thundered into a shell-shocked India top order. The off-spin of Nathan Lyon came to the fore late in the game and the Aussies caught flies in the slips.
But anyone thinking that what Australia have done over five days at The Oval makes them more dangerous in the Ashes hasn’t been paying attention. Australia were already by far the most significant threat posed to England in the Ben Stokes era. Red alert reached long ago, warning lights flashing and sirens blaring.
Australia wiped the floor with England down under 18 months ago. Their Test Championship schedule had them on subcontinental tours of Sri Lanka, Pakistan and India, but they still reached the final and won it. They should have won on their last tour of England four years ago.
They possess the world’s number one Test batter in Marnus Labuschagne and, in Smith, a player who could well end his career as the most prolific Ashes run-scorer since Don Bradman. Since the beginning of the last Ashes, Head and opener Usman Khawaja average more than both Labuschagne and Smith.
Captain Cummins leads a potent pace attack that has unearthed Scott Boland, a man seemingly born to bowl in England. Lyon is still perhaps the most under-rated bowler in the world, even if he has got nearly 500 Test wickets to his name.
To top it all off, all-rounder Cameron Green, with a hulking body and a baby face, looks like the result of a scientific experiment to produce the perfect cricketing specimen. He plays like it, too.
England coach Brendon McCullum was right to call Australia “formidable”. They are Test cricket’s end-of-level bosses, the kind you spend hours and days trying to defeat, only to throw the video game out of the window.
And yet, despite all of that, they have the weight of history on their shoulders. No Australian team has succeeded in an Ashes series in this country for 22 years for one very good reason: winning a Test series as a visiting team against England is incredibly difficult to do.
Smith, Warner, Lyon and Mitchell Starc are on their fourth Ashes tours and are still to taste victory. Realistically for all except possibly Smith, it is their last opportunity.
The likes of Mike Hussey, Michael Clarke, Brad Haddin, Mitchell Johnson and Shane Watson, legends of Australian cricket, went through entire careers without winning the Ashes here. That barren run was inconceivable in the 1990s, when Australia could have picked 11 surfers off Bondi Beach and still pounded the Poms.
Yes, the class of 2023 in the best Australia squad to pitch up on these shores since 2005 (they lost then too, remember), but there are plenty of weaknesses for England to exploit.
Both Warner and Khawaja have poor recent records in the UK. In 2019, Warner averaged just 9.50 as Stuart Broad put him in a hutch and kept him as a bunny. Khawaja averages less than 18 in the seven Tests he has played here.
Not since 1926 have Australia fielded two openers aged north of 36 in a Test. Their potential replacements, Marcus Harris and Matt Renshaw, who was born in Middlesbrough, both have Test averages under 30.
Head has been prolific since the last Ashes and his 163 earned him the player of the match award in the Test Championship final. However, he looked as comfortable against the short ball as a man at the back of a pantomime horse. England are never shy of employing leg theory and Head shouldn’t expect many in his own half.
Left-arm pacer Starc has more than 300 Test wickets, but often leaks like a broken tap. He went at more than five runs an over in both innings of the final and looks prime for a Bazballing if and when selected for the Ashes.
In reality, Starc is probably behind Josh Hazlewood in the pecking order, but the latter has completed only three first-class matches since the first Test down under in December 2021.
More broadly, there are questions of how Australia will respond as a collective when put in certain situations.
This is the team that fell apart in the face of Stokes’ legendary blitz at Headingley in 2019 and again when India pulled off an epic run chase at the Gabba in 2021, admittedly when Tim Paine was still captain.
On the third morning of the world final, India’s Ajinkya Rahane and Shardul Thakur counterpunched at a rate of five runs an over – pretty pedestrian by England’s standards – and Australia were ruffled, going on the defensive with their field settings.
Three catches went down, Cummins frittered away a review then had Thakur lbw off a no-ball (the skipper overstepped a lot at The Oval). At the end of the session, Cummins booted the ball away.
How will the Aussies cope if Harry Brook and Jonny Bairstow get going in the first Test in front of an Edgbaston crowd that will pounce on any sign of baggy green weakness?
The following day, Australia found themselves under pressure with the bat. Their lead was in excess of 300, but there was an opportunity for India to run through the lower order and keep their chase to something manageable. Batting was difficult.
In that scenario, England would have attacked, trying to extend their advantage as quickly as possible to negate any threat carried by the conditions. Australia did the exact opposite, going into their shell and bringing the game to a standstill.
It ultimately worked, but was far from England’s “run towards the danger” mantra. If, later in the summer, a Test is in the balance, with the stakes high and pressure turned up, which team will blink first?
Whether England have noticed these potential Australian vulnerabilities is debatable. The final was played in prime golfing hours and little drags Stokes and McCullum from the fairways.
Besides, even if England had watched, it will not change the way the play. They will go hard. If it works, they will go harder. If it doesn’t, they will go harder still.
Before his own team’s Ashes tune-up against Ireland, Stokes said he has repeatedly faced the same question regardless of the opponents his team have been due to play – that of whether or not their devil-may-care attitude will work. It has.
For his part, Smith was all too keen to remind England “they have not come up against us yet”. They haven’t.
Soon it will be time for the talking to stop.
Australia have improved from four years ago, but England have improved more. The question is, have they improved enough?
Only five more sleeps until we find out.
