Eight days into an Ashes series scheduled for 25 and England are already staring down the barrel. The question now, for a team that has built a reputation for escapology under Ben Stokes, is whether they can wriggle out of Australia’s increasingly vice-like grip.
At stumps on the third day at Lord’s, called at 5.45pm once rain and bad light stopped play, the mood among the local supporters was as bleak as the picture out in the middle. Australia, scarcely believing their luck when the hosts largely self-immolated to the tune of 325 all out first thing, had reached 130 for two from 45.4 overs. With it an ominous lead of 221 runs had already been established.
Along the way the tourists had repelled England’s four-pronged seam attack stoutly, Usman Khawaja once again proving a hardy perennial to reach 58 not out and Steve Smith, a centurion in the first innings, having survived a probing late spell from Jimmy Anderson to remain unbeaten on six. Sitting 1-0 up, and knowing only once in the 140-year rivalry has 2-0 not settled the fate of the urn, Australia could sleep easier.
It was no mean feat from Khawaja either. Though denied further rest by the collapse of six for 46 that came in the morning, Anderson and Stuart Broad were probing away. There was a life on 19 – a pull shot off Josh Tongue bursting through the hands of Anderson and running away for four – but as one-half of a 63-run opening stand with David Warner, and unbeaten come the close, Khawaja’s quality shone in the gloaming.
The successes for England? The sparky Tongue completed a double over Warner when the opener’s latest craggy effort was ended lbw on review for 25. Marnus Labuschagne was still searching for rhythm and, having survived a streak of manic celebrappeals from Broad either side of tea (one, it turned out, proved to be accurate), he eventually wafted at a wide long-hop from Anderson on 30 and sent it to point.
But at the other end Khawaja was providing further evidence that a player who averaged 19.6 in England before this tour is a very different proposition these days. This was not the Edgbaston road. If Australia prevail in this match, the left-hander’s work in dulling the new ball second time around, wearing some spiteful stuff from Tongue, and picking off all available runs will have been central to their cause.
And so far the visitors have had the worst of the conditions in this match. They were stuck in on a green-top, bowled in sunshine, and were back out there batting under cloud cover and the glare of floodlights. They also lost Nathan Lyon for the remainder of the match (and most likely the series) only 13 overs into his work, the off-spinner hobbling into the pavilion on Friday morning on crutches like he was Long Room Silver.
It is worth looking back to the moment Lyon’s calf muscle cruelly pinged on day two, both for the match situation and what followed from England. They were 182 for one just after tea on day two, 234 in arrears but tucking in without risk, only to lose their next nine in just under two sessions. And not just lose them, like the house keys that end up on top of the toilet, but positively stick them in the blender and hit “frappé”.
Australia’s bowlers have greater pace and are grooved to deliver short-ball plans from the moment they bounce out of the pouch. Their execution is impeccable (just ask Harry Brook and Broad, both clonked on the swede on the third morning). But not even these elite athletes can do it for ever. Just an hour of relative resistance after resuming on 278 for four – like the one that followed the flappery of Ollie Pope, Ben Duckett and Joe Root – could have set up a surge once the headliners were grazing.
Stokes was undone by a snorter first thing, it must be said, Mitchell Starc twisting him up like a pretzel and seeing the ball fly to gully off the shoulder to leave England 279 for five. But Brook? It’s not often Geoffrey Boycott speaks for everyone, mercifully, but the head in hands up in one of the hospitality boxes when his fellow Yorkshireman perished on 50 attempting a wild swat off Starc was a sentiment widely shared.
Even with a long tail under way, Jonny Bairstow could not resist becoming the last of the d’ohicans when he drilled Pat Cummins to mid-on for 16. Thereafter the tail collapsed like a bouncy castle turned off at the mains, Travis Head stepping into the shoes of Lyon to winkle out Ollie Robinson and Broad, and Cummins ensuring Tongue did not wag.
But here’s the thing – this wasn’t the inevitable approach of the cricket that got England to this point. Stokes turned the tide against South Africa last summer with a century of gimlet-eyed gumption. In Mount Maunganui earlier this year they tactically applied the brakes on day three to make New Zealand start under lights. On the first day of this series they happily took the singles on offer. There are other examples of nuance amid their overall convention-defying run-rate.
But this summer they have seemingly gone harder than before and jettisoned their one lower-order grafter in Ben Foakes, architect of rearguards along the way. This is being a little wise after the event, perhaps, but a team run on superhero theory now needs capes to be donned by all for the remainder of this second Test match.
