Why Losing at Melbourne Was the Best Thing That Could Happen

Musings on the fourth Ashes Test from an anonymous former Australian Test cricketer

Let me tell you why losing at Melbourne was the smartest thing Australia’s done all series.

Forget switching Trav to the top of the order to kickstart our summer. Forget Kez standing up to the stumps to blow the brain gaskets of every muddleheaded Pom who wants to wander down the pitch like they’re on a bushwalk. Forget flying in Cummo to win us the one Test, then sending him back off to Cotton Wool Land to shoot more Chemist Warehouse commercials or pose for GQ in thoughtful solar-powered black and white photos or whatever the hell the handsome bugger spends his spare time doing.

Nah, the smartest thing we did all summer was lose at the MCG in two days and let England think they’ve figured something out.

Now, I don’t know if Ron McDonald planned this, but I wouldn’t put it past him. The bloke’s a complete nerd - all numbers and analytics and contingency plans and pie charts about how many pie charts he has in his PowerPoint slides. Probably has a spreadsheet for how many times Starcy should adjust his box per over. Or how many times he should adjust Root’s.

What I’m saying is that you can’t put anything past these analytical poindexters. Always playing the long game, seeing patterns us normal blokes miss. Could be he looked at that green top and thought ‘you know what, losing here might actually win us the next three Ashes series.’

Look, probably not. Nobody sets out to lose a Test match - goes against everything the baggy green stands for. But then again, you don’t get to be national coach by thinking like a normal person. Those blokes play 4D chess while we’re still trying to remember how to set up the board.

But whether McDonald engineered it or just got lucky, the result’s the same: absolutely perfect. England’s walking away from that shitshow thinking Bazball works. They’re convinced now. Adelaide proved abandoning it doesn’t help - they tried batting like adults and got pumped anyway. Melbourne proved committing to it wins matches. Open and shut case in the twin brain cell potato brains of McCullum and Stokes, yeah?

Sure, we all know it’s completely wrong-headed. But they don’t know that, do they? And that’s bloody brilliant for us.

Because here’s what actually happened at Melbourne: the MCG rolled out the greenest bloody monstrosity you’ve seen since my youngest kid played Shrek in the Sunday School nativity play. The curator left ten millimetres of grass on the pitch, for reasons known only to himself. (By the way, since when do groundsmen tell us how closely they mow their grass? Or not, as in this case. Do we really need to know these things to the fucken millimetre? ‘Oh, you thought this was six bees’ dicks’ worth of greenery? I’m sorry to tell you, Smudge, that it’s actually eleven and a half mozzie testicles’.)

Look, whatever. It was a green top. We’ve all played on them and survived. Hell, thrived. I remember Tugga and Gilly on a classic green mamba against the Saffers one time - the skipper doing his ‘not going to catch me hooking’, jumping out of the way, squirting singles to deep fine, accumulation business, while ol’ Churchy just teed off like an absolute lug-eared maniac. Great stuff. Everybody has their own methods.