Australia’s Chances in the 2013-14 Ashes

Unlike some Australians, and a lot of English supporters, I think Australia has a fair chance of reclaiming ‘the Ashes’ in the 2013-2014 Test series in Australia. Now that we know who Australia’s first Test team will be, and we can take a reasonable guess what England’s team will be (or at least Michael Clarke has), I’m going to have a go at comparing how good each team is.

To compare players, I have used the Reliance ICC Player Rankings. I have also calculated a team rating as follows: sum of Batting Ratings for batsmen + sum of Bowling Ratings for bowlers + ¾ * sum of Batting Ratings for bowlers + ¼ sum of Bowling Ratings for batsmen. Alas, there are no wicketkeeping ratings. Australian debutant George Bailey and Michael Carberry have each been given ratings of 500.

Australia		England		% Advantage of Eng over Aus
Batting Ratings - Batsmen
Rogers	515	Cook	737
Warner	567	Carberry	500
Watson	583	Trott	698
Clarke	853	Pietersen	706
Smith	526	Bell	748
Bailey	500	Root	580
Haddin	448	Prior	647
Total	3992		4616	15.6
Batting Ratings - Bowlers
Johnson	287	Broad	389
Siddle	274	Swann	369
Harris	202	Tremlett	54
Lyon	158	Anderson	131
Total	921		943	2.4
Bowling Ratings - Bowlers
Johnson	537	Broad	740
Siddle	760	Swann	760
Harris	782	Tremlett	460
Lyon	576	Anderson	741
Total	2655		2701	1.7
Bowling Ratings - Batsmen
Smith	97	Root	92
Watson	423	Pietersen	88
Clarke	141	Trott	49
Total	661		229	-65.4
Total team rating	7503		8081.5	7.7

Based on the Reliance ratings, England’s line-up looks to be about 8 per cent better than Australia’s. Their specialist batsmen – depending on how good Bailey turns out to be – look to be a bit more than 8 per cent better.  Their specialist bowlers look to be slightly better than Australia’s at both bowling and batting. Australia’s batsmen look to be considerably better bowlers, but that largely depends upon how much and how well Shane Watson bowls this summer.

However, the reason I think Australia have a good chance to win the series is that they are playing the series at home. Is England’s ’8 per cent’ advantage enough in a series played in Australia? A well-known comment is that a team has to be 25 per cent than Australia to beat them on their own turf. Even if that does not sound particularly scientific, one can note that home teams win about 40 per cent of the time in Test cricket, compared to only 25 per cent of the time for away teams. The English team is clearly better – but although they may be the second (or third) best team in the world, and Australia may be middle-of-the-pack, the Aussies down under may be good enough.