It’s been unmissable Ashes theatre for a decade – but when the Englishman all Australia loves to hate bowls to the Australian all England loves to hate, there’s still only one winner.
So there was almost a grim inevitability to David Warner ending up with a look of anguished misery as he fell victim to a rampant Stuart Broad for the 15th time in Test cricket on Saturday.
No misery in Edgbaston’s Eric Hollies stand, though – the self-styled party capital of English cricket – as they danced in delight at the eagerly-awaited sacrificial rite which has been an Ashes tradition for a decade now.
But for Warner, oh what a miserable way to go. Pinned down as he tried to find his old attacking mojo, there was a touch of desperation about his horrible, off-balance attempt to crack a wide tempter to the ropes.
Instead, he only heard the rattle of his stumps from a thick inside edge and a roar that would have deafened them in Birmingham’s Bull Ring shopping centre miles away.
“It was a great battle,” said the conquering Broad.
“He’d played some really nice shots last night but we started with four maidens this morning and it was actually the first ball I’d bowled with the shiny side on the outside because I was trying to move it away and wasn’t getting anything.
“I’ll take the drag on because it’s a slow pitch and you need to keep hammering length. It actually feels like a genuine dismissal on a pitch like this.”
The 36-year-old Warner wants to bow out of Test cricket on his own terms, with a potential dream farewell at the SCG against Pakistan in January.
But after another cheap dismissal for nine – that’s the ninth time Broad has trapped him in single figures – his wish looks a bit of a pipedream at the moment.
For Broad, who first bowled his favourite target back in Chester-le-Street in 2013, apparently still has his number.
Warner’s not quite up there with Glenn McGrath’s pet Mike Atherton, who fell to Australia’s deadliest hunter 19 times, but to Broad, he must look the fluffiest of bunnies.
And the other constant danger to Australia, who first learned to get really riled by Broad a decade ago with his angel-faced refusal to walk when giving a blatant catch at Trent Bridge, is that he’s not a man you want to see get with a spring in his step.
For his latest dismissal of Warner only unleashed the beast in the Hollies, as he stood there for a minute whipping the crowd into even more of a frenzy as Marcus Labuschagne came to the wicket.
With one outswinger Broad called “the perfect ball”, the world No.1 was gone too, and by the time Steve Smith emerged to face the hat-trick ball,
Broad looked ready to deliver the sort of mayhem of Nottingham 2015 when he took 8-15 on the opening morning.
Smith, who was relieved to see that delivery whip harmlessly down the legside, was eventually dismissed before lunch by Ben Stokes but his main service had been to prevent Broad getting on a roll as the Usman Khawaja-inspired Australia ended the day in good nick on 5-311, just 82 behind.
At least when the veteran quick, having grabbed the new ball with relish, got no-balled after he’d castled Khawaja late in proceedings, Warner could afford himself a wry smile that England’s main agent provocateur was not having everything his own way.
— AAP
