At what point does defiance veer into recklessness? When are the lines between bravery and stupidity blurred?
One has grown quite used to debating these questions with regards to England’s batting, but here was something new: Australia nine-down and already 355 runs ahead, circumstance having opened up the chance for a double-dart at the home openers either side of tea, here came the one-legged warrior, dragging himself and his gammy calf through the Lord’s Long Room and out to bat.
Reckless? Defiant? Stupid? Brave? Mitchell Starc certainly did not expect it, halfway back to the Pavilion in the assumption he had run out of partners when Nathan Lyon emerged, the spinner hardly able to walk and his series already in doubt, but apparently willing to risk putting the final nail in that coffin for the sake of what Australia clearly believed might yet prove vital runs.
That, at present, looks unlikely. Set what would be their highest ever Ashes chase of 371, England are already staring down the barrel of a 2-0 series deficit, four-down and requiring a miracle that would rival, maybe even better, that of Headingley in 2019. There will be hope for as long as that tale’s hero, Ben Stokes, remains, as he does alongside Ben Duckett, the opener past fifty for the second time in the match and England steadied at 114 for four. For now, it is faint, though a little brighter than had Duckett not been handed a remarkable late reprieve, Starc deemed not to be in full control when grassing a catch in the penultimate over of the day.
Brainless on the second evening, England were helpless here at the start of the fourth in the face of a sensational new-ball spell from Pat Cummins and Starc, the quicks trading blows in their own ball-of-the-series contest with two wickets each as England fell to 45 for four. Starc, having already strangled Zak Crawley, made the running with a vicious late inswinger to rip out Ollie Pope’s middle stump. Cummins replied with the crucial scalp of Joe Root and then a beauty that kissed the top of Harry Brook’s off stump.
England had set out believing they could chase down anything, their potential seemingly still untapped having reeled in 378 against India at Edgbaston last summer while only three men down. Right now, though, they look to have let the game get too far away from a position of genuine promise in the first innings, and Australia, the world champions, are surely too good.
Labelled casual in the field on day one, England did not lack for effort here, Stokes leading the way with a trademark marathon spell of 12 successive overs after lunch. Feeding off their own vulnerability to the short-ball, England put Australia to the same test as bouncers found more ready employment than in all the country’s provincial nightclubs combined. The relentless barrage from an England attack hardly built for the task prized all eight Australian wickets to fall on the day as the tourists got and stayed bogged down, adding only 149 runs to their overnight advantage across the course of two extended sessions. In the second of those, a staggering 98 per cent of deliveries were bowled short.
England’s batters had been chastised for their persistent aggression in trying to meet the challenge head on but Australia’s greater experimentation - to fend, to weave, to pull, to hook? - brought no greater success. Cameron Green’s departure best showcased the bizarre extent to which a two-paced surface has made the tactic both teams’ kryptonite, the giant all-rounder ducking - no mean feat - under ball after ball during a non-event innings of 18 off 67, then picking out a fielder with near enough his first stroke of real intent.
Lyon’s emergence livened up what had until then been a bit of a turgid day. With only half of the partnership blessed with the gift of movement, the final wicket pair operated a boundary-or-bust policy in a farcical passage that coughed up some of the easiest dot-balls ever delivered.
The sole run - in the literal sense - in a partnership of 15 came as something of an accident, Starc’s would-be six somehow clawed back by an outrageous piece of substitute fielding from Rehan Ahmed that forced a dawdling Lyon to suddenly hop through for one. The 35-year-old made what may prove his final exit from an English Test arena to applause on all sides, the English fan theory that Australia might come to rue his fourth-innings penetration soon looking fanciful after Starc and Cummins’s burst.
Should Lyon’s batting contribution turn out to be relevant, we will have witnessed another thriller. Should it somehow even end up insufficient, England will have produced something extraordinary.
