The Times - UK (2021-12-18)

surreptitious as possible in scanning

the opposition dressing rooms,

looking for the wave of the captain to

bring his batsmen in and declare. For

most of the England team Steve

Smith’s signal will have brought relief,

for the openers it will have brought a

huge flutter of butterflies in the belly.

There might even have been the

odd thought about the weather. Could

rain delay the moment of truth?

Might it be that the first ball could be

faced in bright sunlight rather than

under the floodlights?

It is bad enough being an opener in

Tests played exclusively during the

day, but floodlight matches have now

added a cruel twist to the lot of the

men at the top of the order. Hameed

and Burns were being asked to play

an entirely different game from that

of their Australian counterparts. You

could not fault their enthusiasm,

though.

They were out in the middle before

everyone else, not something the

more superstitious of openers would

ever contemplate. But again, as in the

second innings in Brisbane, Burns

headed for the non-striker’s end and

away from Mitchell Starc. The

smile on Burns’s face while

Hameed prepared for the

first ball in his stead was

likely to have been in

response to a comment or

two from the Australians

about his choice.

Hameed made a good

start against Starc,

driving his fourth ball

sweetly through cover

for three, meaning that

again Burns was facing in

the first over, something

that, apparently, England’s flawed

logic is attempting to avoid.

But he too actually made a decent

start, surviving the first ball and then

clipping the second through mid-

wicket for four. It was almost a carbon

copy of the ball that had snared him

first ball of the series, but this time his

balance was much better and his leg

stump not exposed.

Sadly that was as good as it got for

Burns. His next ball was the first

of Starc’s second over and it was

a beauty, pitched just short of a

length and moving away from

the left-hander. Burns edged to

Steve Smith at second slip, the

ball flying there to confirm

the extra zip generated by

the pink ball under lights,

but Burns’s technique did

not help, with his front

trigger closing him off

initially and his bat

Hameed must produce

more than bright starts

A flash of lightning sparks the night

sky over the Adelaide Oval while

Dawid Malan is batting. The players

were taken off for safety reasons —

at least giving England some respite

Storm takes England

out of the firing line

J

ust imagine being in the minds

of Haseeb Hameed and Rory

Burns throughout this hot

second day for England in the

field. From the day’s first ball

their thoughts would have been on

fast forward, anticipating that

moment when it was time to bat.

They knew what was coming, but the

wait will have been excruciatingly

long and tense.

It is a horrible feeling, knowing that

your time in the field is merely a

prelude to the most exacting of

examinations. As the declaration

approaches, you try to be as

Second evening — check. Twilight —

check. Lights on — check. Pink ball —

check. Heavy atmosphere — check.

Runs on the board — check. Opposi-

tion weary after 150 overs in the field —

check. This, in a nutshell, was the ideal

pre-match scenario, imagined by the

boot-room planners. Except it was

England who were now batting under

immense pressure; Australia who were

now bowling and in control. The

witching hour was upon us and

England were up against it again.

Inevitably — and there was an air of

inevitability about what followed — it

was too much for the openers. Standing

at the non-striker’s end for the first ball

of the innings, to delay his date with

Mitchell Starc, Rory Burns pinged his

second ball from the left-arm fast

bowler to the square-leg fence, but

edged his third to slip, having been

squared up on the back foot. It was a

good ball to get early in an innings, but

the Surrey left-hander has suffered a

torrid start and is facing a long tour

having been dismissed for 0, 13 and 4.

Haseeb Hameed played two exqui-

site cover drives off Starc but had

looked a little more uncomfortable

against the skiddy right-armer Jhye

Richardson, who sprinted in with all

the enthusiasm of a man playing in his

third Test with everything to prove.

Michael Neser, who had gained some

confidence from a breezy 24-ball in-

nings that included five fours and a six,

replaced Starc and, inexplicably, Ham-

eed clipped Neser’s second ball as a Test

cricketer into the hands of mid-on.

Once again Joe Root was in early,

shouldering the immense burden of

leading a team in which he stands head

and shoulders above the rest as a bats-

man. He arrived at the crease sur-

rounded by close fielders and with the

ground buzzing in expectation. He

edged his second ball just short of Steve

Smith at slip and was relieved to be able

ble before play — they were dispelled

on the half hour, with Ollie Robinson’s

first ball of the day. It was a lovely ball,

full, drawing Marnus Labuschagne

forward, with enough movement to

find the edge. Trouble was, Robinson’s

front foot had landed beyond the

popping crease — not by far, you

understand, but far enough.

Labuschagne, who had brought up

his first Ashes hundred the over before,

had made his way three-quarters to the

boundary edge when the cheers of the

crowd alerted him; he stopped and

looked at the replay on the big screen,

and before the decision had been given,

he was marching back to the crease,

Even when not at his best, Smith’s

ability to manipulate the ball and evade

the fielders marks him out, although

the top edge to take him to his half-cen-

tury, as he backed away to smear a short

ball from Stokes, went over the wicket-

keeper’s head unintentionally. Two

shots in the afternoon, a driven four off

Stuart Broad and a pulled six off Chris

Woakes, both completed with a full

Root must dispel dark

2 1GS Saturday December 18 2021 | the times

WEEKEND

BRIEFING

Ones to watch

After beating Castres,

Harlequins host Cardiff

in the Champions Cup. Their

depleted side was thrashed

by Toulouse last weekend but

they have players returning

after their Covid travel chaos.

1pm, Channel 4

Spurs host Liverpool

looking to build on their

improved form under new

manager Antonio Conte. The

visitors have won their last

eight games.

Tomorrow, 4.30pm, Sky

Sports Main Event

Guess the star

Name this England rugby

union player who has made

233 appearances for

Harlequins and toured New

Zealand in 2017 with the

British & Irish Lions

Answer on page 17 (in Quiz)

Brighton’s task

Arsenal stretched their lead

at the top of the WSL last

weekend by hammering

Leicester 4-0. Can Brighton

end their unbeaten start to

the season at Meadow Park?

Tomorrow, 6.45pm, Sky Sports

Football

Guess the season

Southampton, featuring Virgil

van Dijk and Sadio Mané, lose

6-1 at home to Liverpool in

League Cup, Harry Redknapp

becomes manager of Jordan,

Aston Villa finish 17 points

adrift at the bottom of the

Premier League

Answers on page 12

to walk off shortly afterwards as a sticky

and humid second day in Adelaide

reached its natural stormy end.

It was as Dawid Malan faced up to his

19th ball that a dramatic flash of light-

ning lit up the night sky behind the old

scoreboard and, with rain falling,

Malan did not wait for the umpires and

began to march to the safety of the

pavilion with the score 17 for two in

reply to Australia’s 473 for nine

declared. It was a slice of luck that only

the most hard-hearted would deny

Root at a critical juncture, preventing a

further 40 minutes of intense examina-

tion. Even so, it feels as though the

storm clouds are gathering over the En-

gland dressing room and his captaincy.

If there were any doubts about how

things were going to go — the doom

and gloom and sense of foreboding

among England supporters was palpa-

grinning like the cat that had got the

cream. What a time to be alive as a bats-

man, with DRS and umpire’s

reviews to correct mistakes and an

England team intent on making them.

As it happened, Labuschagne added

only a single before Robinson got him

again, but the-wicket-that-wasn’t was

another error to add to the collection.

Selections in both Tests, the toss at the

Gabba, half a dozen or so dropped

catches, a run-out or two spurned, two

wickets with no-balls: England may

have been planning this tour in

intricate detail for two years, but they

cannot master the basics. They have

made as many mistakes so far as a team

would hope to make in an entire series.

These errors have been doubly frus-

trating, because England’s bowlers

have created opportunities, and Aus-

tralia’s batting has shown some frailty.

Most chances in the field have been

gifted to David Warner and Labuscha-

gne, whose run-scoring so far has un-

derpinned strong first-innings totals.

Here, they were given company by

Smith, back in the captain’s chair in the

Covid-enforced absence of Pat

Cummins, and doing to England what

he did to them four years ago, when last

he captained in the Ashes, and Alex

Carey, the replacement for Smith’s re-

placement as captain.

Smith began the day on 18, playing

second fiddle to Labuschagne, which is

not where he likes to be. Labuschagne’s

early dismissal, leg-before offering no

shot, was followed in the second hour

before lunch by Travis Head and

Cameron Green.

Having settled and added 50 with

Smith, Head yorked himself advancing

to Root’s off spin, and Green got a good

one from Ben Stokes, a rare full-length

ball that challenged the stumps. En-

gland’s bowlers operated on a length

too short throughout and this was the

dismissal that highlighted it most of all.

It meant that, by lunch, Smith was

where he very much likes to be, holding

things together, all eyes on him. Even

by his own standards he found himself

in some contorted positions in the

morning, with his bat skewing too often

across the line of the ball. Each time the

ball evaded the middle, Smith would

gesticulate with his right hand, palm

pointing to where he wanted the ball to

go. When the ball beat the bat, Smith

would gesticulate again, miming the

movement of the ball off the pitch, the

kind of gestures bowlers find irritating.

Mike

Atherton

Chief Cricket

Correspondent,

Adelaide

Australia v England

Adelaide Oval (second day of five):

England, with eight first-innings wickets in

hand, are 456 runs behind Australia

Burns’s Test career on chopping block after tying

Steve

James

Burns edges

his third ball

to trigger wild

celebrations

by Starc, inset

Burns’ Test scores

in 2021

33

0

0

25

132

25

81

0

0

18

49

0

61

5

50

0

13

4

India

India

India

India

NZ

NZ

NZ

NZ

India

India

India

India

India

India

India

Aus

Aus

Aus

The Ashes

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6 Log on to find out

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Read at thetimes.co.uk