Ashes
2017/18: 2nd Test, Days 1-4
After
Fourteen Consecutive Sessions of Handing Out Cauliflower Ears has Steve Smith
Fallen for a Sucker Punch?
December 5th 2017
After 3 days
of this Test journalists and fans were becoming desperate. Finding ways of
re-arranging the words “England”, “waggon”, “tour”, “wheels” & “falling off”
into new and inventive phrases was getting beyond most.
After 7
sessions of this Test Australian fans were licking their lips anticipating a
3-day finish. It should have been a 3-day finish. We now go into Day 5. And,
all results are still possible, with an England win starting to look plausible.
Even if Australia win, which is still the most likely result, it looks as if
Steve Smith has blown it big time and made what is potentially one of the most
series-changing calls since the catastrophic insertion at Brisbane in 2001.
In what
every single pundit has said is a must-not-lose Test, Joe Root made the
controversial decision to insert and England bowled poorly for two sessions.
First and foremost, on the available evidence, it was the right choice.
However, when the opposition makes 442-8 and the tail again scores big runs,
making the bowlers look impotent, it is never going to look good on your CV.
The theory was that Joe Root was running scared of the Australian pace attack.
Actually, he thought that Anderson and Broad could knock Australia over for 150
– and subsequent events have proved him right.
When the
opposition have made 442-8 and the top order fails, despite being largely
spared batting under the lights and the follow-on looks inevitable, maybe as
many as 300 behind, things look pretty awful.
Cheer was
pretty limited, but the fact that in his debut innings as a Test bowler Craig
Overton equalled the number of wickets that Jake Ball has from four Tests was
one bright spot. Another is that those three wickets cost significantly less in
total than each of Jake Ball’s wickets suggests that, as in 2013, amid the
ruins England may have unearthed a gem.
Wind
forward. England 142-7. 300 behind. And those last 3 wickets expected to go
down without getting England over the 150. Follow-on under lights and the real
possibility of the game finishing that same evening. It was awful. Worse, it
was an embarrassment.
Then, the
unexpected. Overton’s three consecutive ducks did a lot of damage to his
chances of playing the 1st Test (especially when combined with an
erratic last day of bowling in the warm-ups). Chris Woakes has struggled to
reproduce his all-round form so far in the series. Put the two together and Pat
Cummins must have been licking his lips, especially with the timorous Stuart
Broad to come in behind them. Stand of 66 and, for the first time, Australian
belief seemed to start to waver: this was not in the script. The follow-on
edged closer and speculation mounted about whether or not Steve Smith would
take it, even if given the chance!
OK.
The last
three wickets fell for nineteen. Normal service resumed. Surely Australia will
enforce the follow-on. Tricky session under lights. Ball on a string. The main
betting was about whether England would be four or seven or more wickets down
by the scheduled Close.
And then, incredibly,
Smith blinked. Starc had bowled 20 overs, but Cummins and Hazlewood had only
bowled 16, the new ball had not been needed and batting conditions were at
their most difficult, but Smith made Bancroft and Warner sprint off to pad up
and gave his own batsmen the difficult session under lights. You could almost
sense the relief in the England camp: they knew that they were back in the game
if they bowled as they could.
Suddenly
Australian were under the cosh. Bancroft fell to only Jimmy Anderson’s eighth
ball and England tails were up. Instinctively you felt that someone would get
in and the fun would be over. At 39-1 it looked as if Australia had weathered
the storm, but Khawaja, even liberated from the threat of Moeen (who is
obviously not fit to bowl) fell for 20. If you had said then that that would be
the top score of the innings, you would have been locked-up, but it was.
Warner and
Smith fell before the Close as Australia discovered that they are not as good under
pressure as they thought. Australia 53-4 at the Close and you thought that
England really needed at least one more wicket: surely, in the afternoon, on
Day 4, with ideal batting conditions, 50-4 would become 220-5 and it would be
as if the Australian collapse had never happened?
Wonder of
wonders, with England needing quick wickets Australia obliged and panic set in:
75-6, 90-7… surely not? Even when Marsh and Starc held out, it was only a brief
respite of less than eight overs and the collapse resumed. 138 all out. England
would have settled for 50 more as a superb day’s work.
So, target
354. Can England even get close?
Standard
wisdom is “no”. Australian fans were confidently predicting that a best case
scenario for England was to take the game into the fifth morning but, it was
noticeable, as the openers put on 50 together and then Malan and Root added 78
that the Australians were nervous and, at times, as chances went down and
reviews went wrong, seemingly close to panic. Steve Smith certainly was transmitting
anything other than calm. The inconceivable was looking all too conceivable at
169-3, just before the Close. If Steve Smith were to lose this one – and it
requires the highest chase ever by England and the thirteenth highest ever in
Tests, so it is not exactly a gimme – it may well be his head that replaces the
replica of the Ashes urn at the end of the series.
You sense
that the fall of the unflappable Dawid Malan just before the Close swung the
balance firmly back towards Australia but, is Chris Woakes and Joe Root can get
in in the morning, with Jonny Bairstow, Moeen Ali and Craig Overton to come,
Steve Smith may yet sweat quite a bit before he can close this match out. See
off an hour in the morning and get through the new ball and Australia will really have
reasons to flap.
The fact
that we can even talk about an England win is a measure of the seismic shift in
momentum in this Test.
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