Tea and Biscuits at The Ashes
Adelaide Oval, Day 4: Australia 230–9 declared. England 82–4. Australia need 6 wickets to win. England need a miracle.
Adelaide Oval, Day 4: Australia 230–9 declared. England 82–4. Australia need 6 wickets to win. England need a miracle.
Before we delve into the nitty gritty of the day’s play, can I direct you to (1) the reason why I’m sitting up through the night watching Test Match cricket and (2) my blogs from days 1, 2 and 3 of the 2nd Test:
A cricketing journey
Why I’m going to Australia at 2am this winter for lunch and why cricket memories never fail to make me smile.medium.com
Tea and Biscuits at The Ashes
Adelaide Oval, Day 1: Australia 221–2 and with their feet firmly on the throat of a tired looking England.medium.com
Tea and Biscuits at The Ashes
Adelaide Oval, Day 2: Australia 473–9d and England 17–2. Another Day. Another dominating performance from the hosts.medium.com
Tea and Biscuits at The Ashes
Adelaide Oval, Day 3: England 236 all out. Australia 45–1. With a lead of 282 runs, the hosts continue to pile on the…medium.com
MORNING SESSION: Australia 134–4 at Lunch. They lead by 371 runs.
Anyone who chooses to arise from their slumbers at 3.30am to watch cricket from the other side of the world is clearly as mad as the proverbial box of jumping frogs, but Sports Unillustrated are paying me handsomely to do so and whilst my neighbourhood here in the UK is shrouded in a gloomy cold mist reminiscent of The Hounds of the Baskerville of my childhood, the Adelaide Oval is shrouded in a mist of Covid, rousing speeches and an English Skipper having scans at the local hospital. Before play had even begun today, and as I sipped the first of many mugs of overnight tea and marvelled at how blooming cold and uninviting outside looks at 4am, Captain Root had a warm up injury and would not be taking the field at the start of play. The portents did not look good for England, or indeed, it’s Skipper.
And why on earth was I awake at 4am for a day of crushingly disappointing Test Match cricket and yet another day of humiliation for the team I’m ostensibly cheering for?
The opening 10 balls of the morning’s play gave a firm and quite surreal answer: first Haseeb Hameed hit the stumps directly on the first ball of the day in a run out attempt that was a hair away from giving England the dream start before “Night Watchman” (a quaint old fashioned cricketing phrase meaning a bowler is sacrificed to protect a top order batsman and just has to block and protect for the better batsmen following him) Michael Neser, was brilliantly clean bowled by England’s Jimmy Anderson, the ball pleasingly jagging back off the wicket and clipping the top of middle stump.
Next up was Anderson’s fast bowling partner of over a decade, Stuart Broad, as firstly he had Marcus Harris (23) spectacularly caught behind by a fantastic diving catch from Jos Buttler before the wicket-keeper inexplicably dropped the Australian Captain Steve Smith two balls later, again off the bowling of Broad, and again, like on day 2, a much simpler chance than the unbelievably difficult one he pouched mere seconds earlier. Broad’s next ball, the 10th in this surreal opening to the 4th day’s play was a beauty, trapping Smith on the crease as he rapped his pads and implored the Umpire to give the Aussie Captain out, LBW (Leg Before Wicket). The Umpire refused. Broad challenged. DRS confirmed that Smith was out, but because of the vagaries of the on field/off field cricket decision system(s), he was in. You’re in. You’re out. You’re up. You’re down.
It’s only 4.02am, the Hounds of the Baskervilles are howling in the mist, and the morning’s play is underway in dramatic fashion.
Captain Smith soon departed to a strange tickle down leg side off the bowling of Ollie Robinson (who would later in the morning bowl off spin rather than his fast/medium). Quite bizarre indeed. As was the all conquering Smith’s dismissal. Lame, uninspired and quite out of character. A charge you could, at that early stage of the morning’s play, equally place at the feet of his team. England were bowling well and Broad and Anderson were their superb selves. Enter Marnus Labuschagne and Travis Head. The chatterbox and the man in form, and from England taking 3 wickets for just 7 runs early on, the two Aussies have now compiled a fairly carefree 79 run partnership and at Lunch their side have a virtually impregnable and unbeatable 371 run lead.
But here’s the Test Match cricket rub: The Aussies will want more, to grind the touring English even further into the dust, inflict more wounds, more overs, more time in the sun, ahead of the next two back to back Test Matches. This afternoon I expect Travis Head in particular, and then Alex Carey and Mitchell Starc if needed, to crash the pink cricket ball to all parts of the Adelaide Oval, another 100 runs possibly, and then England, that weary outfit slogging around in the hot Adelaide sunshine for virtually three days, will be asked to bat again, and under the glare of the evening’s floodlights. As I’ve remarked to my cricketing mole “Horseman” a number of times in recent conversations, this afternoon’s play could be carnage!
AFTERNOON SESSION: Australia 230–9 declared. England 20–1.
Well it was entertaining carnage! And for a whole host of cricketing reasons. Ben Stokes took two fantastic boundary rope catches and thus ensuring both Marnus Labuschagne and Travis Head were both out on 51 and the simpler of the two catches provided Dawid Malan with his first ever Test Match wicket for his well flighted and arcing leg spinners. The Australians push for quick runs ended with a second Test Match wicket for Malan and in between a returning, if wincing and occasionally limping Captain Root, clean bowled Alex Carey for 6 runs and Mitchell Starc for a quickly clubbed 19.
Declaring on 230 gave Australia a massive lead of 468 and 50 runs in excess of a record breaking run chase in the entire history of Test Cricket, so there are only two results now possible: an Australian win (99% probable) and a draw (an entirely improbable but possible) 1%. Declaring also gave the Australians that perfect cricketing opportunity of a short, sharp burst of 30 minutes against the England batters before Tea and Rory Burns would have been a nailed on certainty to lose his wicket early but it was his opening batsman partner Haseeb Hameed who perished. He scratched around for 5 balls before gloving his 6th to wicket keeper Carey in yet another tame English dismissal in a delivery he could and should have left well alone.
England need 448 runs to win. Australia need 9 wickets.
Australia have their tails and dander up. The English look tired, jaded and beaten. And now batting under the Adelaide lights against a newish ball.
Stumps Day 4: England 82–4. Australia need 6 wickets to win tomorrow
It’s now 11.38am and the Hounds of the Baskerville evoking mist is still surrounding my neighbourhood, but it’s both a different time and a different mist descending on Joe Root, the beleaguered England captain. Root started the day in hospital for scans to a training session injury to his abdomen before play and ended it by first being struck a fearful blow to the same area by Mitchell Starc (and writhing in some considerable pain before resuming) and then with the last touch of the day, edging an easy catch to wicket keeper Carey, and frankly it summed up his day, his tour and England’s as a whole.
They are now just six wickets away, and probably only 90 minutes away in truth, from going 2–0 down in this 5 Test series and dare I say that there is simply no coming back from this and even more damning, it looks like a 5–0 whitewash ahead.
Here’s the really painful rub if you’re an England fan: Root was magnificent this evening. Stoic, unmovable (until Starc moved his actual balls), determined and sheer bloodily minded. Stokes too, batting on one leg and with only defence in mind. Rory Burns played very well and look self assured for his 34 runs but was simply set up by a brilliant Jhye Richardson with the ball before his actual demise. Until then he looked solid and Malan too before Michael Neser’s “in ducker” rapped him on the pads for an easy LBW. It’s just that this Australian side, whilst not a classic by any means, are a grade above the tourists.
This evening’s session was all Australia and they blooming well loved every damn minute of it! Ring fields, 3/4 slips, Gully, and when the goat (Nathan Lyon) was on the prowl, two close in catchers right under the English batsmen’s eyeline, sharks smelling blood, chirping and shouting and cajoling like lovebirds in the tallest of trees. The Goat didn’t take a wicket, but he will tomorrow, and he did, indirectly tonight, as he bowled almost unbroken from one end, causing all sorts of spinning mischief and doubt in the English batsmen’s minds. Starc was ineffective until he broke the heart of Root with the last ball of the day but the plaudits really fall to Jhye Richardson who took two wickets for just 17 runs from 8 overs and England are in big, big trouble.
Tomorrow is simple for both sides: Australia need 6 wickets. England need a miracle. Batting all day to save a Test Match has been done numerous times over the years but it won’t be done tomorrow. I give it 90 minutes, or just after lunch, and the game will be over and the hosts will be celebrating yet another victory over the oldest of enemies and over the oldest and smallest of trophies.
The mist has cleared. The hounds are silent. And hope springs eternal.