Crawley punishes Aussie “school team” as England dominate at Old Trafford
Ashes Day 16: Old Trafford, Manchester.
Ashes Day 16: Old Trafford, Manchester.
Thursday 20th July 2023
Australia 317 all out
England 384–4 (lead by 67 runs)
Act One: England build platform for afternoon assault
It was 6.30am when the shrill of the alarm roused me from my slumbers, but not today for an early morning first session from Pakistan, the afternoon session from New Zealand or the final session from a Melbourne Cricket Ground bubbling to the sound of jubilation and English humiliation. That was last Winter and the cricketing year that came before and the umpteen overseas England cricket tours I’ve bemused girlfriends, family members and friends by watching religiously, night after early morning light, day after cold, dark, English days. But this morning’s alarm heralded the beginning of the golf Open Championship from Royal Liverpool, 40 or so miles from Old Trafford in Manchester, and my venue 4 and a half hours later for the first ball of the morning’s play, and a first ball that rather summed up the remarkable day of Ashes cricket that followed.
Jimmy Anderson turns 41 years of age in a few days and whilst a pale shadow of his legendary best has deserved more wickets in the series and a dash more luck along the way. This morning a modicum of that luck surfaced with his first delivery of the day, a wide “loosener” that Australian captain Pat Cummins duffed tamely into the grateful hands of Ben Stokes. Australia had lost their ninth wicket without any addition to their overnight total of 299–8 and had it not been for Chris Woakes overstepping and bowling a no-ball when dismissing Josh Hazlewood for 1 and Australia on a perfectly round 300–9, the visitors would have been traipsing back to the Pavilion within 4 or 5 minutes of the start of the day’s play. 25 long minutes later, Woakes dismissed Hazlewood once more, this time a legitimate delivery, and Australia were finally all out for 317. Mitchell Starc, batting with his wife’s bat, added 13 runs this morning to his overnight score of 23 to remain 36 not out in a final total of 317 that is easily 83 runs short of a “par score” on this wicket.
England commenced day 2 slightly ahead on my judge’s scorecard and by the end of the first session had edged further ahead despite losing Ben Duckett so early in the innings. From 9–1 the hosts rested at the Lunch Break on 61–1 with Zak Crawley playing against type and watchfully compiling 26 steady runs from 46 balls received and Moeen Ali overtaking his partner in the scoring stakes with 31 from 44 balls. Ali impressed in the final hour of play with some beautifully crisp drives through the off side for boundary 4’s and realised yet another milestone in a Test Match career he had retired from until his captain’s WhatsApp “SOS” just days before the start of the 1st Test. Today, the 36 year old from Birmingham became only the 4th English player in history and 16th within the entirety of Test Match cricket to reach the dual landmarks of 3,000 runs and 200 wickets, and at the break for lunch, he and Crawley can rest easy with the knowledge they have built a solid platform from which they and their team can attack a rather weary looking set of Australian bowlers this afternoon. Skipper Cummins barely bowled himself this morning, sticking with the partnership of Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood in the main. But Crawley and Ali “milked” them for carefree runs in this session and England enter the afternoon session a little further ahead on my scorecard.
Act Two: Super Heroes and Super Crawley
Blessed with the company of my son today I made two concessions (1) I’d let him beat me at Uno (see the scorecard of my continuing woes within the Postscript below) and (2) We’d treat ourselves to another cinema trip to save the world once more. According to my Social Affairs Editor Dr Horseman, my son and I have now saved the world on three recent occasions as we’ve lent our world saving skills in support of Indiana Jones and Ethan Hunt before today we aided and abetted “The Flash” alongside Super Girl, Wonder Woman and three different Batmen (sic). My son was keen to point out to my esteemed editor that he is in fact saving the world once more tomorrow as whilst I’ll be glued to events at Old Trafford, he’ll be helping to keep the world turn with his beautiful mother and Cillian Murphy in Christopher Nolan’s eagerly awaited Oppenheimer. I have to wait a further 24 hours before I get to taste Nolan’s latest masterpiece for the first time and as the biggest fan of Christopher Nolan you’re never likely to meet, please rest assured that I’m excited beyond measure. The Flash was brilliant fun, Michael Keaton will always be Batman, and the lad and I shared the saltiest of popcorn with the biggest of smiles.
The cricket?
I missed a session of Test Match cricket for the ages!
The pre-lunch partnership between Zak Crawley and Moeen Ali of 52 runs rocketed to 121 in double quick time before Ali found the safe hands of Usman Khawaja and after 54 runs from 82 balls received, became Mitchell Starc’s second wicket of the innings. From 121–2, Zak Crawley and new partner Joe Root added a further 118 runs between them as Root raced to 44 runs from just 35 balls received but was still the junior partner as Crawley smashed his way to a remarkable 106 runs in this session alone (a century in a session!) to remain 132 not out at the Tea Break and in a less than a run-a-ball innings so far containing 14 boundary 4’s and 2 boundary clearing 6’s. Crawley went from a quiet and circumspect 26 runs from 46 balls received to a century in a session and 132 not out from just 128 balls received. I have long trumpeted the upright style, “correct” cricket shots and attacking verve of the young man from Kent and I couldn’t be more pleased for him.
England enter the final session of play on a commanding 239–2, trailing by just 78 runs.
Act Three: “Australia look all at sea”
Ex England opening batsman Mark “Butch” Butcher is always good value for a soundbite on TV commentary, and this afternoon he gently, but not necessarily gleefully, chided the Australian performance in the afternoon session as being “all at sea”, chasing around the outfield akin to a “school team” and most damning of all, a display “unbecoming of the World Test Champions”. In all honesty the Aussies didn’t particularly raise themselves from such pointed accusations in the final session and despite snagging the crucial wickets of both Zak Crawley and Joe Root, they all looked rather unhappy with sporting life as they traipsed around the boundaries of Old Trafford under a bright evening sun. For the first time in the series the Aussies looked ragged, tired and more than a little directionless and I don’t add these to Mark Butcher’s assertions with any air of gloating as I labelled this English team in the very same way just 18 months ago in Brisbane and Melbourne, Sydney and Hobart. Australian captain Pat Cummins, such a talismanic, Test Match winning force in this series looks out on his feet, Mitchell Starc appeared to aggravate any number of niggling injuries and the combined spin option of Travis Head and Marnus Labuschagne went for 51 runs from just 7 overs. Cameron Green and Mitchell Marsh conceded 97 between them at an average of over 5 runs per over, Cummins himself conceded a whopping (and unheard of) 93 runs from 16 wicketless overs and the team around him looked a tired, dejected unit at the close of play.
To make matters worse and to press forward amid the rarefied air of stating this World Champion team are at last looking fallible and not just a remorseless winning machine, they conceded 145 runs in the day’s final session and whilst they grabbed the late wickets of Root for 89 and Crawley for a remarkable 189 from just 182 balls received, both were fortuitous and portentous for the cricketing days ahead. Crawley fell 11 runs short of his double century, “chopping on” a delivery from Cameron Green that kept a little low, hence snagging the bottom edge of his bat. Root meanwhile received a true cricketing “grubber” from Josh Hazlewood that should have bounced somewhere near the ex captain’s thigh or the top end of his bat. Instead, the delivery barely bounced at all and bowled Root with the ball reaching the bottom third of stumps. Incredibly unlucky on both counts as well as a sign of the variable bounce of a wicket that will only get worse and more tricky to bat on come days 4 and 5.
Weather permitting.
And therein lies the rub of this Test Match and the Ashes series as a whole. England have to win and have batted themselves into a position to win from with 3 days left. But tomorrow is expected to be interrupted by bad weather and Saturday, if those weather watching doom mongers are to be believed, could be a biblical washout entirely. This would leave Sunday, and surely not another last day of unbearable tension, you know, just like all the other matches in this series!
England begin in the morning on 384–4, with a 67 run lead on 1st innings and Ben Stokes (24 not out) and Harry Brook (14 not out) to be followed, no doubt chasing quick runs, by Jonny Bairstow, Chris Woakes and Mark Wood.
England begin in the morning with their foot firmly on the throat of Australia for the first time in a long, long time.
See you in the morning!
Postscript
“Uno Ashes”
Dad 4 (20)
Lad 9 (38)
I now trail the lad by a whopping 18 aggregate games and all after a bumper crop of 13 games today started with my nail-biting win in the first game (100 points to 97) before the young scoundrel reeled off 5 straight wins and a 9–4 thrashing on the day. He takes such great delight in defeating me which is bloody annoying if more than a little endearing too!
18 games behind. I’m in need of a Lazarus like comeback.
I’m sure he cheats you know.
Thanks for reading. My recap of the 1st day in this 4th Ashes Test Match is linked below:
England ahead on points after Day 1 in Manchester
Ashes Day 15: Old Trafford, Manchester.medium.com