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Greg Matthews

No team has chased down 546 runs to win a Test match. The best effort so far has been 418 by the West Indies against Australia in Antigua.

The wicket at The Oval didn't really allow for a big chase, so I never thought Australia were a chance in real terms. But you hope, and while there's life there's hope.

At 2/217 there was a lot more life, but things just didn't happen for Australia in this Test. Certainly, the team they picked and not winning the toss hurt them enormously.

So where to now for Australian Test cricket?

I don't think it's about blame. But when you are clearly superior to the opposition, people must be held accountable for the decisions that are made. It's a multi-million dollar industry and for Australia to lose, with all due respect, to a pretty average England, side questions must be answered.

You look at the England team. They had one world-class player in Kevin Pietersen who was injured. Andrew Flintoff was playing on one leg. All their guys had pretty poor numbers against Australia, and yet when it mattered most all their players stood up – especially the captain Andrew Strauss.

England will come out of the series with a gun wicketkeeper and an exciting batsman in Matt Prior. He did a great job.

In Stuart Broad England have found a guy who stopped letting Australia bully them. He's a big, tall boy and he looked down on a few of the Australian guys. He stood up to them and said 'I'm not gonna cop this any more.'

With his spell of 5-18 off 47 balls at The Oval, he won the Test match and won the Ashes. In him they've got an all rounder who may not be quite as good as Ian Botham, but at the end of his career I think he will have better numbers than Flintoff.

Then you've got a guy like Jonathan Trott who came into a deciding Ashes Test match, scored 41 and was there for 92 runs in the first innings, and then in the second dig came in at 3/39 and was there for 334 runs. So in total he was at the crease for 426 runs. That is a phenomenal effort.

Moving forward with Strauss, Prior, Broad, and Trott, England are in a great place.

Australia's issues

I want to be diplomatic here.

Australia had one world-class player in Ricky Ponting, and had high hopes for Phillip Hughes and Mitchell Johnson, but neither player really stepped up when it mattered.

The hope with Hughes was that he would fill Justin Langer's position in the Australian batting line up, but he was dropped after just two Tests.

Like the great Alan Davidson I saw great things in Johnson. I thought 'maybe he won't be an Alan Davidson, but he could be a phenomenal Test all rounder'. Maybe he still can be, but he slipped in this series.

With Michael Hussey we perhaps learnt that he doesn't deal with responsibility particularly well when you look at what he's done since he has moved into a senior role in the Australia team.

From his last 22 Tests Hussey has scored just two hundreds and is batting at an average of about 30. Brad Hodge scored 203 in Perth and got dropped three Tests later. Hughes scored two centuries against South Africa and got dropped two Tests later. It's hard to fathom.

Should Australia hang on to Hussey against weaker opposition and then maybe still have the same problems in 12 months time, or should they drop him?

In Nathan Hauritz, I wasn't sure he would be good for it. But even though he didn't win that first Test match in Cardiff, he deserved a chance in the last Test and didn't get it which was hard to understand why.

On the spin bowling front, Jason Krezja could be a match winner but for whatever reason he wasn't included. You need guys who are going to win you matches as opposed to guys who just hold up one end. Hauritz was picked to win matches and he did well, but didn't finish the job. He has never taken a 5-for in his career and he has played 53 first class games.

Ben Hilfenhaus is nice and solid, but he had opportunities to take 5-for in games and he didn't manage it.

I gave Peter Siddle a wrap before the series began saying he was a "poor man's Merv Hughes", but maybe he's not in that class. He had opportunities as well and didn't get it right.

We've got some issues with Brad Haddin. His keeping is just not good enough at Test match level. That may sound severe, but it's just the reality.

I thought Michael Clarke had a very good series.

I feel a little sad for Ricky Ponting. He is a truly great player who has done outstanding things for Australia at every level of the game. But his legacy is that he will be remembered as the first Australian captain in 119 years to lose two Ashes series in England.
 
As the captain it's hard to imagine Ponting wouldn't have had a big say in the selection of the team. The captain must accept the responsibility of the role and there has to be questions asked of tactics and the selections that were made.

The responsibility of losing the Ashes - where does it fall? Is it the selectors? Is it the captain's responsibility? Is it the players?

That is something Australia must look at before the domestic season begins at home.