Memories of the WACA, Perth.

[GarlicJam]

not the greatest of eras for Aus.

[Arthur Crabtree]

I never get interested in 86-7 (sorry, I said 85-6 before), as it was two weak sides playing, though the Aussies went on to be a great side.

[Gingerfinch]

I never get interested in 86-7 (sorry, I said 85-6 before), as it was two weak sides playing, though the Aussies went on to be a great side.

Though we did contest the 87 world cup final. In tests like you say, two weak, or maybe average sides.

[Arthur Crabtree]

When England went to Perth in 2010, they hadn't won a Test there since 1978-9, and had lost the last five. All emphatically. That wasn't surprising, as Australia beat England everywhere. It would take an impressive eye for detail to pick out that while the Aussies did donate occasional dead rubber capitulations in this time, they didn't happen at Perth. In the two dead rubbers played at at the WACA, they handed out drubbings.

Australian dominance was at full flood, so the nuances of their dominion weren't obvious. But as the tide of their supremacy drew back, Perth stood alone as their last stronghold. England arrived in 2010, ahead in the series, having drawn unexpectedly in Brisbane thanks to second innings hundreds from Cook, Trott and Strauss, and then won in Adelaide at the instigation of James Anderson's first morning heroics. But they weren't able to hold on to their advantage at Perth. England supporters again reset their expectations to zero.

Between the second and third Test, England played a three day game at the MCG. I'm not sure that would happen now, so established is Perth as a unique case. Broad had gone home, but the game against Victoria didn't play a part in deciding who would come in: Collingwood and Panesar took all the wickets. So Chris Tremlett was selected at the WACA.

In the next Ashes series, the whitewash, it felt like Australia were trying to win like they win in Perth, but at the other grounds. And this Test did follow the pattern of many later games. Australia were 69-5 batting first, but Hussey, Haddin and Johnson took away the advantage, seeing Australia to 268. The key to the game came in Mitch Johnson's 6-38, as England collapsed from 78-1 to 187 all out. He got Cook, driving in the air to gully, and then Trott, Pietersen and Collingwood were lbw to late swing into the pads...

... The next day, Paul Collingwood, as mitigation, said England hadn't prepared for inswing. Ex-bowlers said Johnson wasn't able to swing the ball with his method. Offended coaches said the breeze, the Fremantle Doctor, couldn't effect the path of the ball bowled at that speed. Yet he eviscerated the England innings. His pace might not have been as terrifying as it was three years later, yet his bowling was just as much of a shock. It was just as chastening. As emasculating. England had no answer to it. They had to take it and like it.

Johnson as the sneering bully, the melodramatic ruffian, has been a devil that has dominated and abated in the subliminal minds of England supporters over the years. Of course, folk mock him when the sun is strong and our magic is working. Yet he torments us in our weaker moments. At times like the Perth Test of 2010, best avert your eyes and deny. The ball can't swing like that. It's not possible.

And as in Ashes to come, Shane Watson dominated us from a position of strength with 95. Mike Hussey's hundred was a demonstration of how to bat at the WACA. Even Steve Smith got a few. When England batted again, the more earthy, rustic virtues of Ryan Harris did most of the damage. And yet... Mitch got Strauss, Trott (who he would torment three years later) and Swann. Australia won by 267 runs, and Mitch was Player of the Match with a fifty and nine wickets.

And as at no time in the past, Perth became a major part of the mythology of Ashes cricket. It represented the ultimate of a certain facet of the game, as much as India did of another. England were trapped, Goldilocks like, between the extremes, only likely to function within a limited range of conditions. Whenever they feel threatened in their own country, they can come home to their slow seamers and set their familiar fields. Like a reluctant traveller, closing the door, lighting a fire and opening the post. In 2010-11, thrillingly, England came back to win heavily on the slower pitches of Sydney and Melbourne. But even at the full tide of a successful period for the England team, the WACA could not be breached.