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.
Adelaide Oval, Day 2: Australia 473–9d and England 17–2. Another Day. Another dominating performance from the hosts.
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 blog from Day 1 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
MORNING SESSION: Australia 302–5 at Lunch (Smith 55 not out).
I was talking with my cricketing mole “Horseman” the other day about many things, football, family, sons and grandsons, and even his uncanny ability to pluck a fine tune from a fine old banjo, but we’re not here to talk about such things. This is, after all, a blog on cricket.
Following Trent Alexander-Arnold’s footballing thunderbolt into the Newcastle United net and thus securing yet another three points for my beloved Liverpool at my equally beloved Anfield, sleep was both calling and indeed called for. To the rather amusing consternation of my visiting son, I was determined to see every ball from yesterday’s play and then a relaxing day in his beautiful company followed by the Liverpool game ensured I had been awake for over 30 hours. As Liverpool’s own Alexander-Arnold was smashing a screamer into the Kop End goal, the walls were beginning to bend and I was beginning to question whether horses could indeed play banjos.
And where did they keep their plectrums?
After some listless sleep I proclaimed my pre-day prediction on Twitter:
“smash, bang, wallop this afternoon before skittles under the floodlights this evening”
and at roughly 4.29am Ollie Robinson bowled a beautifully arcing delivery first up to Marnus Labuschagne, caught the outside edge of his bat and finally, finally, after the Australian had doggedly just reached a dominating century, he was out. Robinson, still on 3/4 pace but with a perfect and metronomic line and length immediately put the ball in that infamous “corridor of uncertainty” © Geoff Boycott, and the battling Labuschagne was finally gone.
Or was he?
Typifying England’s Ashes tour to date, Robinson overstepped and had bowled a no ball and thus negating his beautiful wicket taking delivery detailed above. Labuschagne was back in and, in the beautifully chaotic language of cricket, he was soon out again. This time a legal delivery, and trapped LBW (Leg Before Wicket) Robinson finally had his man and was bowing well. Well, apart from bowling no balls that is. A no ball had robbed Robinson of a wicket that he would soon snap up anyway, but that’s not the point. But it was a point of conversation with “Horseman” recently, and brought to the surface yet more cricketing memories that made me smile.
I had mentioned to my mole in our passing conversation recently that I rarely, if ever, bowled a no ball, and there was a simple reason for this, and a reason that I didn’t particularly expand upon in our underground world of clandestine cricketing chats. So for a wider audience the reason was quite simple: coaching.
Or to give this sweeping term a more human name, “Dave” and “JT”, as I distinctly remember to this day, and 4 decades since this cricketing colts coaching, Dave asking me why I kept bowling no balls? I was clearly overstepping in a colts match or even a practice match and the answer to his question was much simpler than this particular 9 year old cricketing mad kid could comprehend.
Perhaps because it was so simple?
Bowling a no ball was simply absurd! You have the entire universe in which to place your bowling foot behind that crucial white painted line so why get even remotely close to bowling a no ball? It was faintly ridiculous bowling a no ball. Especially if you’re a fast bowler, pounding in, expending energy, receiving the utter joy of grabbing a wicket……then the utter despair of bowling a no ball. Professional cricketer. Colt cricketer. The age may differ but the basic skills do not. Bowling no balls is simply a waste of every energy known to cricketing man or woman.
England are labouring and shelling catches. Australia are pounding out the basics. And have a 300 hundred run lead on which to build, and their unorthodox Skipper is 55 not out and looks “set” for that crash, bang, wallop I predicted after the lunch break.
However, in exceedingly positive English news this cricketing lunchtime (or 6.21am, sat at a kitchen table, drinking tea and dreaming impossible dreams), the bowling trojans of Robinson, Stokes and Captain Root have dragged their team kicking and screaming into a day 2, lunch time score of 302–5 with both a glimmer of a hope of making this a competitive Test Match and via the route of good old fashioned cricket. Robinson, labouring and continuing to indeed labour my point, looks incredibly tired and whilst I definitely acknowledge that fast bowlers tend to look exceedingly grumpy most of the time, Robinson’s hang dog expression is there for all to see. But his no ball delivery to Labuschagne and his follow up soon after were classic Test Match deliveries and right in Geoffrey Boycott’s favourite copyrighted area. Captain Root bowled the dangerous Travis Head (18) with an absolute cricketing peach of a flighted, drifting off spinner that bamboozled Head into submission. It was sublime. As was Ben Stokes yet again this morning, pounding in and pounding the short pitched stuff again but with less regularity this morning and as aptly demonstrated with his perfect delivery to Cameron Green (2). Good length delivery, and pitching on off stump that simply deceived the newcomer into hearing the “death rattle” of cricketing timber behind him.
So at the lunch break (the Aussies call it the Dinner Break…) on Day 2, England have finally “won” a session but the hosts are currently way in the historical cricketing lead with 300 runs already in the scorebook. 400 is a “Par” score for me and I can say with no certainty whatsoever that Captain Smith will concur with me and will be aiming for nothing less than a final total of at least 400 runs. He is the rub though, that emergency Captain, that Jack in a Box, that energetically electric eel like Steve Smith, and Captain of Australia. If he does indeed start crashing, banging and walloping the England attack all around the Adelaide Oval this afternoon, it could make for some exciting if painful watching. England need him gone, and the Aussies all out for under 375.
AFTERNOON SESSION: Australia 390–7 at Tea.
The afternoon session, whilst not quite a 20/20 style crash, bang wallop cavalcade of high risk shots from Australia did result in a further 82 runs being added by the hosts as they simply continued to grind their English opponents into the Adelaide dust. The England side are looking more and more ragged and that’s to be expected after nearly two solid days in the field, and of course the baking heat. Aside from Mitchell Starc’s 3 runs at the end of the session, the other 79 were compiled between an impressive and busy Alex Carey (51) and his scatty and erratic skipper Steve Smith who scored yet another seemingly carefree host of runs and seemed certain for a century before finally being dismissed LBW for 93, and 7 short of the magical three figures. Carey and Smith added 91 as a partnership and at 390–7 at the Tea interval, and with the twilight beginning to take effect alongside the artificial light of the floodlights, I foresee Australia trying to smash their way to a further 50 runs before declaring and really putting a tired and weary English batting group under pressure. Plaudits to Jimmy Anderson who plugged away in every bowling stint he undertook and thoroughly deserved to snag both Australian wickets to fall in this session.
There lies ahead yet another of *those* sessions that enthuse cricket fans such as myself: the threat of some slap, dash and crashing of quick runs before those same players then disrobe from their batting pads and receive that prized delivery of a new cherry, and an hour’s of atmospheric batting for their opponents in a tricky, no-win situation.
Perfect.
Stumps at Day 2: Australia 473–9 declared. England 17–2.
As the above score(s) at stumps demonstrate, England comfortably lost their no win situation and if it wasn’t for the Godly intervention of huge thunderbolts and lightening enveloping the Adelaide Oval, I fear England may have already lost the Test too. Before the intervention from mother nature, the Australians bludgeoned their way to a further 83 runs for the loss of two wickets before putting the England openers to the sword under the electrical Adelaide lights.
Here were your principal players in that final session of today’s play:
Mitchell Starc: 39 runs from 39 balls and remained not out as Captain Smith declared the innings.
Michael Neser: 35 runs from just 24 balls and mightily impressive and free swinging on his Test match debut. He clubbed the tired England bowlers before hitting a loose one to Broad, giving Stokes his 3rd wicket of the innings.
Jhye Richardson: 9 runs from 3 balls. Three huge swipes, one for 3, another a huge 6 and the third the slightest of edges off the bowling of an exhausted looking Chris Woakes.
Rory Burns: caught Steve Smith bowled Mitchell Starc for 4 runs.
Played one glorious shot for a boundary four before receiving a “snorter” from Starc, an almost unplayable delivery, and Smith took the easy catch.
Haseeb Hameed caught Starc bowled Neser for 6 runs.
Hit two drives for three before wafting across the line and giving a dolly catch to Starc and more importantly, an overwhelmed Neser his first ever Test Match wicket.
Dawid Malan: 1 not out. Dropped anchor. Thankfully.
Joe Root: 5 not out. Looked in “good nick” and confident despite the chaos surrounding him.
With huge jagged lightening strikes and thunder clapping around the Adelaide Oval the Umpires called a halt to proceedings, ending the day 45 minutes early. Perhaps God is an England fan after all?
If so, he’ll imbue Captain Root overnight with a sense of batting invincibility and the skipper will lead from the front and score a double hundred and bat well into the 4th day. That, or a similar innings from Malan, Stokes, Buttler or Pope will be the tourist’s only salvation.
And a salvation that looks a long way away for England’s walking wounded.