Decoding Australia's mantra of success in the Ashes!

It’s been the most satisfying month in Australian cricket since perhaps the 2007 World Cup because since then apart from a Champions trophy win, the Aussies haven’t enjoyed much success having been toppled off the top of both the ODI and Test rankings. During this period, they lost 3 back to back Ashes series and just a year ago got a 4-0 drubbing at the hands of India in the sub-continent, when Australian cricket seem to be reaching an all time low. Their performance in the Ashes in mid-2013 held in England was better and yet they lost 3-0. So coming into the recently concluded Ashes down under, very few people gave them a chance to beat England but buoy, have they defied all that and that too in style with a 5-0 clean sweep. Now, what can be the reason for such a huge turnaround! Let’s evaluate it.
Australia, I believe ahead of the series went back to what they do best. They prepared tailor made Australian pitches with pace and steep bounce, started off the series in typical Aussie fashion using sledging as an integral part of their game to get underneath the skin of the Englishmen which they succeeded in. They used aggression right from the first test to not let the English settle down. This was imperative as such ruthless aggression has been missing from the Aussie side in recent times. Even when they were struggling in India last year, they hardly showed any aggression to give it back to the Indian at any stage and ruffle their feathers.
One other area in which the Australian team management has improved in the past few months is the cessation of chopping and changing tactic. Aussies have this habit of messing around with the playing XI a bit too much, which they call it ‘sending right signal to a player’. They have rightly understood that, this may not be the way to go when you do not have players like Warne, Ponting and Gilchrist in the side anymore. When you have an average side, you need to stick to the same group of players for a longer time and show faith in them rather than trying new players over and over.
The resumption of bodyline bowling reminiscent of the 1930’s, is also something which was as added advantage for them. When you have bowlers in your side like Siddle, Johnson and Harris, who can bowl over 145 kmph, you might as well use them, especially when things are not going your way. They prepared tailor-made Aussie tracks and their bowlers made full use of them, bowling fast and sometimes not shy of sending in a barrage of bouncers to ruffle the feathers of the English batsmen. Mitchell Johnson was a revelation in the series with 37 scalps to his name. He has managed to bring back the art of bowling to intimidate back into international cricket via this series and seems to have turned his international career upside down. The moustache which he flaunted in the series seemed to add to his aura making it even fiercer. With bowlers like Pattinson, Cummins and Starc waiting in the wings, Aussies have a potent bowling attack but if they are able to resurrect their overseas batting woes, there could be even more success in store for them in the time to come.