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 misery.
Adelaide Oval, Day 3: England 236 all out. Australia 45–1. With a lead of 282 runs, the hosts continue to pile on the misery.
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 and 2 of the current Adelaide 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
MORNING SESSION: England 140–2 (Malan 68 not out. Root 57 not out)
In the words of the eponymous West Indian yet typically English loved song Dreadlock Holiday by 10cc “I don’t like cricket. I love it!”, and this morning was a true love in fest for your humble narrator. Arising from my slumbers and enjoying a hearty beans on toast with both lashings of barbecue sauce followed by lashings of strong English tea, I was ready for yet another enthralling day of Test Match cricket. Going against perceived wisdom and not taking notes today, I delved into my real love of watching cricket from Australia, lights out, tea aplenty and a head full of cricketing dreams.
Being the contrarian that I am, I actually don’t love cricket anywhere near the levels of my teenage self, but that’s more in line with the technological changes and whilst I know the DRS system and slow motion cameras make for great televisual entertainment on those wafer thin and borderline decisions, it sanitises the game far too much for this curmudgeonly and grumbling old fast bowler now nearing his 50th year on planet earth. But then, ever the contrarian, there is one particular technological leap I’m all in favour of, the “stump mike” or stump microphones that bring the audio flavour to the dust battle on going under the heat of an Adelaide sun. I love that aspect of the modern game, and I’ll try and give you a flavour for why shortly.
I’ve watched Ashes battles from down under since 1986/7 when Gatting’s team that, according to Australian lore couldn’t bat, bowl or field won handsomely and Botham, Lamb and Stuart’s Dad Chris Broad made hay and won the Ashes urn. As I was sat in the dark this morning and loving the over 2 hours play from the morning session I reminisced, as I am oft to do, on actually watching that Ashes, in my dear old Mum’s old flat and being constantly amused whenever she awoke in the morning to find me, under a duvet in the lounge and watching the cricket in the faraway sunshine whilst we collectively shivered under a dark Winter’s morning. I watched other Ashes Series in another of my Mum’s flat’s, then my first house (to the consternation of my beautiful girlfriend) and my last house before moving away from my hometown for good, and that Darren Gough hat-trick at Sydney in 1999. I am smiling now at simply writing that last sentence, the memory of watching the entire night’s session and then, from nowhere, in the lengthening shadows of the SCG, “Dazzler” took a hat-trick as the sun rose outside my last home in my hometown.
I love the old style of cricket when the Umpire had ultimate authority and when he raised his finger to signal the batter’s demise, it was official and final. Oh for the days of Billy Bowden and his “crooked” finger! Dickie Bird and his “OUT!” exclamation as he raised a dismissive finger, but most pleasing of all, and most missed of all is West Indian Steve Bucknor, clad in facial sun screen and when deciding on an appeal from the bowler would take an age before slowly, very slowly, enunciating a soft “out” as he still slowly raised his finger.
But I am a contrarian and so I love the stump mike as it really conveys the sounds and the chatter from “out in the middle”. And the sounds from the middle this morning has been a low determined murmur of a resolute England, led by their Skipper and Dawid Malan who have taken their partnership to 128 runs, jointly scored 123 runs this morning at over 4 runs an over and of course crucially, are both not out at lunch. Malan started tentatively but has really grown into the session and has, in cricketing phraseology “dropped anchor” perfectly. Captain Root looks in magnificent form and has passed 50 runs in a fairly carefree fashion and with little scares along the way. England won their second session of the Test Match, but they must win the remaining two sessions today and bat out the entire day. That remains to be seen and isn’t a strong suit of the current England team but they are facing an Australian bowling attack missing their spearhead of Cummins and Hazlewood and the wicket is an absolute belter!
But time will tell.
What time will also tell, or rather the sounds that’ll be conveyed in this afternoon’s session, is of Australian Captain Smith leaping around like a jack in a box at first slip, Marnus Labuschagne chirping and chattering away under the helmet at the “Bat/Pad” position and right under the batsman’s eyeline. Those two in particular are an annoyance to listen to as well as seeing them cavort around in the field. But it’s fun too as they’re clearly one off’s and we can’t have enough of those in our lives. Nor so Carey behind the stumps, urging on his team mates and Nathan Lyon in particular. Nathan is “Gary” and “Gaz” and “Gazza” and indeed simply “Goat” too.
And I feel we’ll be hearing and seeing a lot more from the Goat as the afternoon wears on.
Bravo the stump mike!
AFTERNOON SESSION: England 197–6 at Tea (276 runs behind)
To say this afternoon’s session was the very epitome of why I love (yes, that word again) love, Test Match cricket may be outrageously verbose even for me but I’m going with it. This morning, England scored 123 runs without losing a wicket and scored those runs with authority and with an air of determination and doggedness. England didn’t just win the session, they dominated it.
This afternoon, England scored just a miserly 57 runs and for the loss of 4 prized wickets and if you deduct the 12 runs a one-legged Ben Stokes contributed in his battling innings to date and the 23 runs Chris Woakes has slapped and dashed around the Adelaide Oval, they would have been in an even worse predicament. From utter dominance to being unable to score, pressured, cornered, OUT. Time and again this tried and trusted cricketing method of drying up the runs, building pressure and ensuring that pressure is loudly conveyed on those “stump mikes” for all to hear, England crumbled.
Again.
At Tea, England trail by 276 runs and are yet again in the middle of a “calypso collapso” and the two hours under the lights of this Day/Night Test Match are not particularly crucial but incredibly intriguing. If England do collapse (and Ben Stokes is literally batting with an injury and on one leg), do the Australians force the “follow on” and make them humiliatingly bat again and under the lights with a brand new ball? Or do they just grind England into the dirt as they force them to re-take the bowling field at the end of yet another demoralising day?
See above for reasons why I love Test Match Cricket.
Stumps, Day 3: England 236 all out. Australia 45–1 and 282 runs ahead
At the end of today’s play there were yet more (semi) ironic pointers as to why I love the game of Test Match cricket and regardless of the Ashes Series or yet another obviously signposted England batting collapse, I still love this form of sporting tussle and as I started 7 long hours ago in the vein of why I love this cricket format, I may as well end it in this fashion too. The ultimate irony today is that before a ball was bowled every England fan hoped and prayed that Captain Root would still be in his whites come the end of play under the Adelaide floodlights. And he was.
But rather than taking the cheers from the crowd for an entire day’s batting stint and clawing and leading his team to a stronger position in this Test Match, he was bowling his underrated off spinners in the last over of the day’s play. In the intervening time the Captain and able lieutenant Dawid Malan had batted the entire first session, dominated proceedings and given their team hope. But Test Matches run in spells, sessions, lengthy periods of play, and so often the team dominating proceedings suddenly lose their way, the momentum shifts and suddenly from attacking and purposeful comes wary and defensive. Root and Malan departed, England collapsed (as usual, sorry) and lost their last 8 wickets for 86 runs. Turgid stuff all round.
And oh so painfully predictable.
Australia should have enforced the follow on but either way they couldn’t lose. And they won’t. Either way they’ll continue to batter (pun intended) a weary looking England who if they’d been enforced to bat again tonight would no doubt have lost wickets but instead toiled with ailing and tiring bowlers, with a brand new ball, and under the lights, and looked utterly, utterly, toothless. These were the vaunted conditions in which to bowl, under the lights with a new ball that would swing and shape around. Instead, Australia made easy work of it, and they’ll make even easier work tomorrow as by the afternoon, Captain Smith will be looking for his side to crash England to all parts, build a ridiculously large lead, and then skittle some late English wickets in the favourable conditions under the lights.
Enforcing a follow on and making a batting side immediately bat again is one of the ultimate humiliations in cricket. Perhaps Captain Smith has achieved and even usurped that by batting again and showing how toothless, dispirited and ultimately defeated England currently are. His team bowled them all out in the greatest of batting conditions. Then his batsmen made easy work of the day’s most difficult conditions.
The swings and roundabouts of Test Cricket. And so many reasons why I love this game.