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England’s batting, bowling and fielding are taking turns to let them down
Batsmen bobbed and weaved under a barrage of bouncers on a blood-and-thunder day of Ashes cricket at a feral Gabba but it was Australia on top by the end thanks to one of the worst bowling performances of the Bazball era.
Australia cruised at 5.17 an over, helped by five dropped catches and bowling that was at times atrocious and unable to exert pressure for long enough. They went from bullying Australia on day one in Perth to conceding 214 runs in boundaries: 46 fours and five sixes.
England dropped four catches under the lights, perhaps the result of failing to play a proper pink-ball match as warm-up. Preparation in the nets is one thing, but a game situation cannot be replicated quite so easily, and England’s record in day-night cricket when fielding under the lights has always been dodgy. They have now dropped 16 catches in the final session of day-nighters.
At 378 for six, a lead of 44 with the power to add, Australia have one hand on the second Test and can throw down the challenge to England to bat on day three under pressure in the half light.
This series is only four days old but a grim pattern has emerged: England just do not play well enough for long enough with bat, ball or in the field to threaten a weakened Australia side.
Every Australian batsman reached double figures and five of the six partnerships put on at least 37 – the first four all cruising past 50 stands – a sharp contrast to the four ducks in England’s innings.
It was achieved by treating England’s main threat with respect. Jofra Archer took one for 74 from 20 overs and deserved better, Jamie Smith dropping a howler with the new ball that could have changed the day.
Australia just waited for the others to serve up dross.
Brydon Carse was poor, conceding 113 at six an over, buying three wickets in the process but failing in his job: to hit the cracks hard and intimidate the Australians with some rough stuff. Gus Atkinson bowled well enough but is still waiting for his first wicket of the series, while Stokes at 5.4 an over was costly and looked troubled by his left leg again by the close. The seamers looked absolutely spent by the end. The spinner, Will Jacks, was trusted with just one over, started with four byes down the leg side and conceded a further nine off the bat.
Jacks redeemed himself with a world-class catch to dismiss Steve Smith for 61 in a crazy 57th over with the game still in the balance with Australia 292 for five and 42 behind, but England spilled three further chances to add another Gabba nightmare to a long and inglorious Brisbane history.
Australia’s total exposed England’s first innings 335 as being well under par, a warning sign missed in the emotion of Joe Root’s first Test century in Australia. Can they now learn lessons from their opponents and sit in against Mitchell Starc and go after the weaker bowlers?
Do not bet on it. Ben Duckett restarts on a golden pair and two dropped catches. Smith is also on a pair and set the tone by dropping Head on three in ninth over of the Australia innings, a mistake that let loose a torrent of runs and changed the momentum of the Test.
Impetuosity has been England’s problem and for the second Ashes series running they have given Australia a route back in the first two Tests when they had chances to take control. Stokes bristles when he is asked about ruthlessness, but they were loose again and punished by a team capable of absorbing pressure but also recognising when to hit back.
The Gabba scented English blood from the moment Smith dropped head off Archer, a chance to his left in the ninth over he should have been gobbled.
Head and Jake Weatherald took the chance to turn the guns on England. It took Australia 20 balls to score a run, opening up with three maidens, but once Head had been dropped, the mood changed. They added 40 in the next four overs. England were rattled and Stokes went early to the short ball. It fed Weatherald’s strengths. He cut and uppercut his way to a maiden Test fifty and England conceded 80 runs from short balls in the first 20 overs; only four deliveries in the first session would have hit the stumps as the bowlers failed to calibrate the right lengths. Australia went to lunch at 130 for one from 20 overs, the mood completely changed and the new ball wasted.
Carse was all over the place. Mark Waugh described his pitch map as “third grade” standard, and England could not string two good overs together. Weatherald was pinned lbw by a yorker from Archer, the second time he had dismissed him with a full ball in three innings, but Marnus Labuschagne helped himself to a rapid fifty before Stokes cramped him for room with another ball short of a length.
Smith was hit on the hands and elbow and his duel with Archer was box-office again. But for all the pace and fire, Archer has still never dismissed Smith. England hammered away with bouncers at Smith and Cameron Green, who needed lengthy treatment when an Atkinson lifter hit him on the thumb.
Green gave himself room to leg to swat Carse’s short balls into the vacant areas on the off side, playing white-ball cricket in a pink-ball Test, but it left him vulnerable if England went full and straight: it did not look pretty when Carse bowled him with a yorker as England struck from nowhere. Alex Carey fended the next ball to Duckett at gully and he failed to hold on to a dolly. Two balls later Carse bounced Smith who pulled to deep backward square leg where Jacks dived one handed to his right to hold on to a breathtaking catch. Smith threw his head back, England were still clinging on somehow.
But they shipped 86 in the remaining 16 overs, the final hour raining runs and the fielders either struggling to pick the ball up under the lights or simply flustered by the day-long barrage from their opponents combined with a vociferous Friday crowd that was tanked up from a long morning in the city before play began.
Duckett dropped Josh Inglis on 21 at gully, another chance he would normally snaffle. Stokes bowled Inglis two balls later with scores almost level but was feeling the heat. Root told him to stop bowling, and vice-captain Harry Brook had a word too. Australia kicked on again: Carse dropped Michael Neser at mid-off and split the webbing in his hand doing so, while Root missed a half chance at slip off Carey as another 49 were added in nine overs before the close.
[Source: Daily Telegraph]
