Are Australia, the new England?

Blimey did Australia take a beating in the second test against India; I don’t think I can remember Australia taking such a thumping. I saw quite a bit of the match and the 300 run victory to India was completely deserved. India out-batted Australia and then out-bowled them. They even out-fielded them at times. Australia’s performance was that bad that it reminded me of a few of England’s – it had the classic Team England traits:

• An ineffective first-day bowling attack that somehow gets into a ‘reasonable’ position then blows it big-time
• An un-spinner that the opposition love facing
• A poor batting performance on a flat track, followed by
• The other side smashing it all around with little difficulty that makes everyone think ‘oh, this really is a magnificent batting wicket’. A fielding captain who daren’t put his un-spinner on, followed by
• 58-5 and 195-10 in the second innings with a complete inability to hit the ball and an opener that thinks he can help by smashing the ball out of sight

So can we enjoy a winter of Aussie bashing? We will see, it was only a week ago that India had to bat all day to save the match. India was magnificent at Mohali ... can they do it again next week?