The Ashes – First Test, Day 1: England On Top After ADHD Bat Fest

 

 

 

 

Revolutionary England versus Australian bureaucracy?

Test batting in the age of ADHD?

The triumph of “expertise” over cricket basics?

Or maybe it’s as simple as Test batsmen’s feet and minds being thoroughly scrambled by the many competing formats of today.

Take your pick to explain this day’s play, but the fact remains 19 wickets fell on a pitch that did little to suggest England’s decision to bat was a misreading of conditions. There was much high class fast bowling on display but, oh my, the batting!

Australia’s general disdain for Bazball has always felt odd. After all, aren’t they talking our language? Sure, they bang on about it like they invented positive cricket. But who’s really against positive cricket? Is it just that Australians are naturally dubious of ideologues?

As an ideology in practice, the difficulty in judging the extent of the Bazball threat has always been that it seems equal parts Chinese Communist Party and People’s Front of Judea. Formidable one moment, risible the next.

England’s first innings was very much People’s Front. Mitchell Starc bowled a superb opening spell, but England’s top order contributed to their own troubles. Crawley drove without moving his feet. Duckett missed a straight full delivery. Root closed his bat face too soon. Ollie Pope and Harry Brook threatened to restore the situation, then Pope played across the only ball Cam Green bowled on the stumps. England 4-105 at lunch, off only 23 overs.

When Starc cleaned up Ben Stokes just after lunch, England were teetering. Jamie Smith joined Brook, and their response was Bazball in excelsis – 45 runs came in 5 overs. Then Brook gloved a Doggett short ball and the England bottom half batted like they urgently needed to catch a bus to oblivion. England all out 172,  a ball shy of 33 overs. It seemed considerably under par.

Starc rose to the absence of his fellow Cartel members magnificently, claiming a career best 7-58. With little inswing on offer, his scramble-seam wobbler served to hypnotise several Englishmen by just holding its line.

It was just as well he did, because his support cast didn’t entirely convince. Doggett did little wrong on debut, picking up 2-27, but Scott Boland struggled on a day where pace dominated. He found little movement off the deck and was too full or too wide too often. But as England only survived 33 overs he was the only one strenuously tested.

In contrast to England, Australian cricket has recently resembled the voice of bureaucratic corporatism. We are all about sound process, scientific preparation, data analysis and an ever expanding portfolio of ways to justify picking Cam Green. Trust us, we’re professionals, even if we’re old.

So there will presumably be some organisational embarrassment that we joined in the spirit of England’s effort by batting like the Judean People’s Front. The comic gold began even before England’s last wicket fell. Usman Khawaja was caught off-field as England collapsed, rendering him ineligible to open the innings. So Jake Weatherald was joined on debut by Marnus Labuschagne after all. Taking strike, Weatherald received a full inswinger second ball from Joffra Archer.  To his mortification, he not only ended up sprawled on the pitch, but adjudged LBW upon review. 1-0.

Steve Smith joined Labuschagne and they survived to tea more by grit and luck than anything else. As a bowling group, England looked faster and got more out of the pitch than Australia (apart from Starc). Runs were scarce, bruises many. A partnership of 28 had occupied 14 overs, almost half England’s entire innings, when a late Labuschagne decision to leave Archer saw the ball ricochet from his rear elbow onto the stumps.

Brydon Carse then had Smith and the late Khawaja nicking and gloving off. 4-31. Travis Head and Cam Green laboured unconvincingly but advanced the score to 76, whereupon Ben Stokes took to the bowling crease. With the recovery barely begun, they both gifted catches off Stokes. Alex Carey and Starc briefly teased with a spritely small partnership, but soon bestowed more largesse to Stokes.

When Boland completed a very dirty day by failing to trouble the scorers, Stokes had taken 5-23 from 6 overs. He’d bowled ok, but it was the sort of five-fer Ian Botham used to specialise in – bowl a box of all-sorts and let the batsmen invent their own way back to the sheds.

Australia 9-123 at stumps, with the batting stylings of Nathan Lyon and Brendan Doggett all that’s left. Nobody would be expecting much wag in that tail.

Australia’s top order continues to fail against top quality fast bowling. The Great Bat-Off seems to have changed nothing. We’ve used various excuses – Bumrah, pitches – as cover. But the truth is that the team’s success has increasingly relied on four champion bowlers. Now two of those champions aren’t playing.

England have their own fitness concerns, but Australia failed to force Archer and Mark Wood into many hard yards today. If England can hold Starc out when they bat tomorrow, this game could race away from Australia very quickly.

One finishing comment on over rates. A lot of wickets fell today, but to only manage 72 overs in a full day is an indictment on both teams’ attitude. It’s all well and good to espouse entertaining cricket, but playing at such a dawdling pace shows spectators no respect at all.

 

England 172 (Brook 52, Pope 46, Smith 33, Starc 7-58)

Australia 9-123 (Carey 26, Stokes 5-23, Archer 2-11)

 

 

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