Ashes 2017/18: 5th Test, A Match Too Far

 

Ashes 2017/18: 5^th Test

A Match Too Far

January 8^th 2017

When it is 3-0, the rubber is dead and you have to raise yourself for one last game, sometimes there is a danger that everyone is too flat to respond. Back in the old days, before 2005, England made a habit of winning dead rubbers in Ashes series. It was an old tradition and you can argue that the win at Sydney in 2003 was the Launchpad for the successful Ashes side of 2005. It was only a dead rubber, but the elements of the 2005 side were falling into place, with Steve Harmison leading the attack and Michael Vaughan leading the batting.

Another old tradition was to offer a sacrificial lamb for a dead rubber 5^th Test who would go into the game knowing that this might be the only Test he would get. Scott Borthwick drew the short straw in 2014 and, as many predicted when he was selected, never got close to playing another Test (and now, never will). In 2018, helped by Chris Woakes’s injury, it was Mason Crane, although the suspicion has to be that Woakes who, after excellent performances before the 1^st Test, has been very disappointing, might have been dropped anyway.

Scott Borthwick at least could point to some cheap wickets to ease the pain of becoming yet another one-Test wonder. Mason Crane has the most expensive ever figures for an England debutant. 1-193 from 48 overs make Devon Malcolm’s debut look like a success story. He also committed the cardinal sin of taking an excellent debut wicket only to see the batsman recalled because he had overstepped.

If any wicket in Australia were to help spin in the series and justify playing two spinners, it was likely to be Sydney. Of course, Australia called-up Ashton Agar… and then did not play him. However, given England’s lack of high pace and the lack of success of seam and swing bowling in the series, playing a leg-spinner was at least trying something different.

Yet again though it was a tale of what might have been. Joe Root won the Toss and batted. Eight England batsmen reached 24, yet only Root and Malan passed 40 and no one got close to a century. A partnership of 133 between Root and Malan was putting England in an excellent position to push on to 450 or even 500. At 228-3 when the new ball came England just needed to see out the last few overs of the day and start anew in the morning. Not a bit of it. As so often happened England just could not sustain a position of growing superiority. 228-3 became 251-6 with the ball still new and England were up against the wall… again. It would be funny if it were not so tragic.

Even the good news was bad. Moeen Ali, Tom Curran and a revived Stuart Broad batted effectively and, for the first time, the England tail wagged, but it suggested too that the wicket was very flat and that was not great news. Again, at 335-7, England were getting into what was, if not a strong position, at least one that offered 380 as a viable target. If England were at least close to 400, scoreboard pressure might help them, but 346ao was bitterly disappointing.

Cameron Bancroft fell to Broad’s second ball and you thought that maybe England’s score might be better than appeared. At 86-2 you could dream of a first innings lead. By the time that Smith and Khawaja’s partnership was approaching 200 all you could dream about was for the torture to stop. Even if Sir Donald Smith did not reach his century (whoops! Just short), Khawaja and the two Marshes did. Broad 1-121. Crane 1-193. Moeen a comparative success with 2-170. England were ground to hamburger. Through it, Jimmy Anderson’s figures of 34-14-56-1 shone through as heroic: what would he have achieved had he had a bowler of high pace (Plunkett or Wood) supporting him at the other end? Stuart Broad can still bowl the occasional effort ball at 90mph and Woakes can pass 90mph, but it is a single delivery every few overs, not delivery after delivery. Throughout the carnage Tom Curran was quite lightly bowled, but at least kept things fairly tight and continued to impress.

It reminded one of the regular Christians v Lions fixtures at the Roman Colosseum but at least in the Colosseum you could hope for a miracle. Players were trying, but were running on fumes and the hottest ever day in Sydney would be a day when England were in the field and under the pump on the flattest of pitches. And, of course, when you start your second innings more than three hundred behind, losing both openers with 15 on the board is not a great idea. Cook has played one major innings in the series and not threatened 40 on any other occasion. Stoneman started the series solidly, but has faded rapidly since being hit and has finished the series with scores of 3, 15, 25 & 0. And James Vince has managed 2x50, but no other innings over 25. England knew what they were getting with Vince and he knows that unless he can score a lot of runs in New Zealand, he will not be playing again come the arrival of Pakistan and India in the summer. Dawid Malan has been a huge success, but even he cannot score runs every innings and make up for the failings of others.

On a pitch where Australia’s batsmen could score runs for fun with no danger of getting out, England could only stagger to 93-4 by the Close. Any remote chance of saving the match ended when Joe Root was checked into hospital dehydrated and with severe gastroenteritis and could not resume his innings in the morning. This being Australia though, some Australian fans decided that this showed a lack of toughness worthy of mocking: you have to wonder if the last Neanderthals really did die out twenty-three thousand years ago in the south of the Iberian Peninsula, as science would have it, or were deported en masse to live on in the Antipodes.

Root showed tremendous guts to come back to the ground, still wearing his hospital wristband and batted superbly with Bairstow through to Lunch but, by the end of the session he was again visibly out on his feet. Once Root had retired, ill, for a second time, the end was mercifully swift. It was a suitable ending for a depressing series. For significant parts of the series England competed strongly, but always fell short in the end. They won occasional days and, more frequently, individual sessions, but could not string together a performance over five days. The best that you could say is that, at least this time, every Test went into a fifth day: it is not thought, much consolation.