Daily Mail, Monday, August 19, 201975
THE ASHES
NASSER
HUSSAIN
at Lord’sRoot tactics
almost akin
to Bodyline
T
he only mystery about
the extraordinary Test
debut of Jofra Archer is
that he has not taken
his wickets in first-class
cricket more cheaply than 23.
I’m surprised it’s not 15 judging
by the way he bowled at Lord’s.
Archer was absolutely unbelievable in
this drawn second Ashes Test. Truly
awesome. he reminds me of Shaun
Pollock (below) when he first came on
the scene in the number of people he
has hit. You couldn’t pick up Pollock’s
bouncer and it’s the same with Archer.
There is no big gather in Archer’s run-
up or discernible change in his action
when he is about to pitch short. There’s
nothing that makes the batsman’s brain
think ‘bouncer’.
he just runs through his action
with no massive bound and
unleashes which makes it
that much harder to know
what he’s about to do. It’s
like facing a bowling
machine you thought was
set at 80mph and someone
had turned it up to 95mph
without telling you.
Archer’s stock ball is also
bowled from close to the
stumps and nips back most of
the time, so even his bouncer is com-
ing at you when you try to sway out of
the way. There is nowhere to go. It just
keeps following you. A batsman cannot
end up doing limbo to a 96mph bowler.
It is just ridiculous how easy he makes
bowling fast look.
We have seen something almost akin
to Bodyline here. It has been what
Douglas Jardine did with Don Bradman
all those years ago. he had run out of
ideas so switched to leg theory and here
Joe Root has done something similar
with Steve Smith.
You can argue about intimidation but
these are frontline batsmen and the
bouncer is part of the game. I’m not
saying Archer tries to hit people — he
just wants to get them out. But I don’t
think he worries about hitting people.
It’s part of his armoury.
Already in his short international
career Archer has shown a capacity to
soak up pressure. he doesn’t get tense
whether it’s a World Cup final super
over or his Test debut against Australia
at Lord’s. he seems to see everything as
another game of cricket.
Justin Langer’s comments before this
Test were valid. We were all waiting to
see how Archer would cope with his
fourth or fifth spells in Test cricket. But
he came back in his later spells on
Saturday, bowled 96mph and knockedout the best batsman in the world. And
he did it without seeming to take a lot
out of himself physically or mentally.
But however easy Archer is making it
look, fast bowling really is hard work
and england will have to look after him.
Already this season we have seen Jimmy
Anderson, Mark Wood, Olly Stone and
now Tom Curran succumb to injury and
england cannot afford to risk Archer
joining them on the sidelines.
We have already seen him take the new
ball off Chris Woakes. And we know that
Root will want to go to Archer when-
ever Smith is batting and when-
ever the tail are in so he can
wrap things up. he’s already
racking up the overs.
I know this is the Ashes
and england need to give it
their all but Archer is like
gold dust now and the
people at the top will have
to look after him.
I feared for england’s Ashes
chances when Anderson was
injured, the first Test was lost
and england’s batting was looking
fragile to say the least. But with this lad
in the side the whole dynamic of the
series has changed.
For instance it will be interesting to
see how Smith plays him, whether his
trigger movements have changed. Ricky
Ponting was one of the great pullers and
hookers but even he was a little more
tentative after being hit on the head
towards the end of his career in Sri
Lanka.
The spell to Smith on Saturday was
the fastest and best I’ve seen since
Mitchell Johnson inflicted a 5-0 thrash-
ing on england in 2013-14. I’ve admired
the skill of Anderson but there have
only been a handful of times I’ve thought
‘Oh my God’. I did watching Archer on
Saturday and it was frightening when
Smith was hit.
I was never scared of a cricket ball
when I played. I worried about getting
out and I worried about my fingers get-
ting broken but never of getting hurt,
even though when you faced Devon
Malcolm in the nets you were never
quite sure where the ball was going.
But since I retired, Johnson in that
Ashes series because of his trajectory
and nastiness and this at Lord’s has
made me shudder. You just think ‘good
luck’. And that applies to anyone who
will face Archer.T P SPIN AT THE TEST
LAWRENCE BOOTH
AT LORD’S
15
WHEN Jofra Archer
felled Australia’s
concussion sub
Marnus Labuschagne with
a blow to the helmet, it
was the 15th time —
according to CricViz — he
has hit a batsman since his
international debut in
May. Over the same
period, next in the list are
Australia’s Pat Cummins
(12) and England’s Mark
Wood (9).258
ENGLAND’S
declaration
meant that
for the first time in their
1,013 Tests they made the
same score in both innings.115
BEN STOKES’S
unbeaten 115 was
only the fourth
Ashes hundred made by
an England batsman at
Lord’s since David Gower
in 1989. Since then,
Andrew Strauss hit 161 in2009, Ian Bell 109 in 2013
and Joe Root 180, also in
2013 as an opener.- 75
CAMERON
Bancroft’s
dismissal for 16 means the
Aussie openers average
7.75 in this Ashes.
Only once before in a
series of at least two
matches have they
produced a worse return,
averaging 7.41 during the
1888 Ashes.SECOND TEST SCOREBOARD
LORD’S, DAY 5
THE ASHES
ENGLAND — First Innings 258
Second Innings
(Overnight: 96-4)
B Stokes not out .................................................. 115
J Buttler c Hazlewood b Cummins ........................ 31
†J Bairstow not out................................................ 30
Extras (b5, lb19, nb1) .......................................... 25
Total (5 wkts dec 71 overs) ............................... 258
Fall: 9, 9, 64, 71, 161.
Bowling: Cummins 17-6-35-3, Hazlewood 13-1-43-
0, Siddle 15-4-54-2, Lyon 26-3-102-0.
AUSTRALIA — First Innings 250
Second Innings
C Bancroft lbw b Leach ......................................... 16
D Warner c Burns b Archer ...................................... 5
U Khawaja c Bairstow b Archer ............................... 2
M Labuschagne c Root b Leach ........................... 59
T Head not out ........................................................ 42
M Wade c Buttler b Leach ........................................ 1
*†T Paine c Denly b Archer ...................................... 4
P Cummins not out .................................................. 1
Extras (b8, lb14, w1, nb1) ................................... 24
Total (6 wkts 47.3 overs) ................................... 154
Fall: 13, 19, 47, 132, 138, 149.
Bowling: Broad 7-0-29-0, Archer 15-2-32-3, Woakes
3-0-11-0, Leach 16.3-5-37-3, Stokes 3-1-16-0, Root
1-0-7-0, Denly 2-2-0-0.
PICTURE:
ANDY
HOOPERMissile
man: Jofra
Archer in
full flow
yesterday