ACS Overseas First-Class Annual 2011

Australia in 2010/11 There were 40 first-class matches in the Australian season of 2010/11. Of these, 31 were in the Sheffield Shield. All the other matches were played by the England touring side: four first-class matches, in addition to the five Tests. This compared with only one first-class match outside the Tests on the previous Ashes tour in 2006/07 and was the most since 1998/99 when there were five first-class matches in addition to the Tests. England retained the Ashes by a convincing 3-1 margin. This was England’s first win in Australia since 1986/87, which was also the last time England successfully defended the urn. England’s achievements of three innings victories, and four totals exceeding 500, are unique in the long history of Ashes cricket. At individual level, A.N.Cook’s total of 766 runs in the series was the second highest by any England batsman against Australia; only W.R.Hammond (905 in 1928/29) has more. It passed almost unnoticed that Cook, with 1,022, was the first England player to score a thousand first-class runs on an Australian tour since G.Boycott and J.H.Edrich made respectively 1,535 and 1,097 in 1970/71 when more first-class matches were played (Cook played 9 matches; Boycott and Edrich 12 each). From Australia’s point of view, defeat in the Ashes followed a 1-1 draw against Pakistan in England (see Wisden 2011) and the loss of both matches in a two-Test rubber in India (see the India section). Not only were Australia’s bowling problems repeatedly exposed, especially during the Ashes Tests; the batting too was brittle. A total of 88 against Pakistan, in admittedly difficult conditions at Headingley, was Australia’s lowest in Tests since 1984/85 and another two-figure score was to follow against England in front of a Boxing Day crowd at Melbourne. This indifferent run of performances meant that the end of the 2010/11 season found Australia in the unfamiliar position of fifth in the world Test rankings. (To rub salt in Australian wounds, England were ranked third.) Scorecards of Test matches, including of course the Ashes, are available in many other publications. What makes this annual unique is that it also provides the wider context of first-class cricket against which Test matches take place. It thus includes, for instance, the game between Victoria and Western Australia in which M.E.K.Hussey scored 118 in the second innings at a time when it appeared highly probable that he would be dropped from the Test side. The innings encouraged the Australian selectors to retain him and he proved to be, by far, Australia’s most successful batsman in the series. This was the most striking occasion during the season, but far from the only one, on which Sheffield Shield performances had a major bearing on the composition of the Australian team as the selectors strove to find a winning combination. The Shield itself was won by Tasmania, for only the second time (previously, in the guise of the Pura Cup, in 2006/07). The island state headed the league stage with seven wins out of ten, the turning point proving to be a last-wicket stand of 31 to achieve a one-wicket win over New South Wales in an absorbing, low-scoring match at Sydney in November. Tasmania deservedly went on to win the Shield final against the same opponents. Tasmania’s success was mainly attributable to the seam attack of L.R.Butterworth, J.P.Faulkner and A.J.Maher, who occupied three of the top four places in the Shield aggregates and between them took 118 Shield wickets at a remarkable collective average of 17.80. They ensured that Tasmania was generally able to remove the opposition for a modest score. This was important because the batting was much less consistent, being heavily reliant on M.J.Cosgrove, whose total of 806 at 53.73 was the highest aggregate in the 2010/11 Shield. New South Wales won six out of ten league matches to finish as runners-up. At the other end of the table, South Australia managed only a single win, and even this was achieved only after being forced to follow on by Tasmania. Defending champions Victoria, seeking a hat-trick of Shield wins, could finish only fifth. 39