There was once a dream that was Bazball. You could only whisper it. Anything more than a whisper and it would vanish. And one way or another, it was always coming down to this.
By the time play was abandoned in the afternoon mulch, with Australia on 135 for none in their fourth‑innings chase, the sense of creeping jeopardy could hardly have been greater. Roll on Monday, final staging point in this five‑Test ride. One day left to save the English Ashes summer; and to save a few other things too.
Only Test cricket can do it this way. The fourth day of this Oval Test was a low-throttle affair under bruised July skies, but a day that still carried a sense of much wider opposing forces. In outline nothing much hangs on the result here. Australia already have the urn. For all the messianic, save the farm talk, Test cricket will carry on down the same carefully stewarded path. But if you love the deeper gears of this code, and indeed the qualities present in these two fine teams, then the scales will feel a little more loaded.
What remains here is a kind of referendum on the wider story of the Ashes summer, the collisions of style and approach, the blaze of Bazball versus the orthodoxies of Australian Test cricket. Not to mention the outright disaster of a 3-1 home defeat versus the defiant relief of a hopeful 2-2.
Above all, there is still a chance for the way England play this game to rescue itself from a creeping sense of indulgence and sentiment, the backslapping and self‑mythologising that was evident on a day of Test cricket where, for once, the task in hand seemed to drift a little.
The debate around England’s approach, free jazz versus old truisms, is perhaps best embodied by the idea of a giant Steve Waugh head floating over the Vauxhall End, the lines around its Steve Waugh eyes – the “crow’s feet” celebrated by the Grade Cricketer podcast – deepening with every affront to orthodoxy.
In this context Sunday was like an all-day Steve Waugh spa facial, the lines around that vast baggy green-clad super-ego easing and softening with every landmark ticked off in a measured, high‑craft opening partnership between David Warner and Usman Khawaja; the crinkles easing with each nick though an absent second slip, a grimace of a smile starting to spread at every bisecting of the umbrella field.
At times England’s bowling lineup looked like what it is here: a TV pundit, an injured bloke, an injured radio summariser, a dutiful wizard, an ageing red-zoned speed freak and a 41-year-old celebrating his birthday.
Yet England really should be able to regroup and win this Test on Monday – and deservedly so. They have played some luminous cricket here and at Old Trafford. If that sense of weaponry remains it comes from the conflict between two aspects of the Stokes‑McCullum style.
On one hand freedom, chains thrown off, no bad shots, no blame, Zak Crawley transformed by a kind of faith-healing process into a new type of Test match giant. On the other the boys’ club feel, the cultish quality, the self-absorption, a longing for the big strokes that overlooks the small details. England are, right now, either falling into the trap of sentimentalism; or powering on, fuelled by it. Sport: never knowingly not outcome-based.
And sentiment has become a visible part of this series. The Josh Tongue selection was a keen‑eyed success. Picking Jimmy Anderson ahead of him at the Oval is pure sentiment, heritage value not the deserving present. Jonny Bairstow got to decide who kept wicket, then kept wicket like a man trying to remember how. Moeen Ali probably had it right first time when it came to his overall impact so far on a post‑retirement Ashes series. Lol indeed.
Then, of course, Stuart Broad turned Sunday here into a Stuart Broad story, right from the start when he was sent out to hit a final commemorative six. Was this the right stuff, really, for the sharp end of the series, the guard of honour energy, the weirdly sensual and sombre Sky TV homages, as though covering the death of a much-loved global statesman in a suicide pact with the Blue Peter dog.
And really, why not just retire the day after the series ends? It is hard to imagine a more distracting way of doing this, a day of potentially era-defining Test cricket recast as the launch of a new media brand. There will be cries that one of England’s great Test bowlers needs a chance to wave goodbye. But why? This is not the Love Island finale. It’s a brilliantly engaging Test series with a knife-edge finish to come. Spare us the Viking funeral, just for now.
England were subdued with the ball in the morning session. As the skies opened an hour into the afternoon Australia still needed 249 with all 10 wickets intact, and so much on the line beyond the numbers.
So, on we go, with one day left to tie up those ends, to sway the narrative either way. One thing about England’s venerable old warriors. They really do know how to win these games.
It seems inevitable that the ending, whichever way it falls, will be less soggy, less indulgent than this oddly distracted fourth day. And if not, if you find yourself riding alone, riding in the green fields, do not be troubled, for you are already a TV pundit.
