4 December 19, 2021The Sunday Times
Cricket The Ashes: Second Test
experience, and backing the right
players is important if they are to
survive not one tour, but two or
three. Too many of this England side
are on their first tours to Australia
and some of the wrong ones are on
their second or more.
Is it surprising that the batsmen
with the lowest returns have not
played Test cricket here before: Rory
Burns, Haseeb Hameed, Ollie Pope
and Jos Buttler? Saqib Mahmood is
not here but could have a role four
years from now. Should he not be on
the trip rather than Woakes, who
seems no more effective in these
conditions than he did in 2017-18?
There was an outcry when James
Anderson and Stuart Broad were left
out in Brisbane but they did not
suggest in Australia’s first innings in
Adelaide that they were the match-
winners England needed. Anderson
is on his fifth Ashes tour, Broad his
fourth. Is this the best use of precious
tour spots, given that they won’t be
here next time? How much
meaningful knowledge of Australian
conditions will England’s pace attack
in 2025-26 have?
Tough decisions such as these
have been kicked down the road for a
long time. The culture surroundingSilverwood’s
England have
been too cosy
for too long –
they need
a mongrel
Tours such as England’s in Australia
can unravel remarkably quickly. After
seven days of play in this series, all
the fine hopes and good intentions
that were no doubt sprinkled across
many planning meetings appeared
scattered to the wind by Australia’s
superior skill and grim efficiency.
Assuming this second Test arrives
at its likely destination — another
decisive win for the home team —
England will be forced into changes
for a must-win game in Melbourne
starting on Boxing Day, where the
locals tend to turn out in large
numbers to witness the Slaughter of
the Poms.
Jonny Bairstow, Zak Crawley and
Dan Lawrence will all come under
consideration as batting
reinforcements. According to the
management’s script, England’s
fastest bowler Mark Wood will
return, probably for Chris
Woakes.
The bigger picture is more
complex, but it is the bigger picture
that counts. England play Australia a
lot but Ashes tours down under only
come around every four years. It is
not easy for players to gain relevantputting, among others, Ollie Pope
through his paces.
Having bowled nine wicketless
overs in the morning for 28 runs from
the river end, Lyon switched to the
cathedral end after lunch, and began
a beautiful spell (15-9-17-1) that would
take him unchanged through the
session. He had something to work
with — the odd ball spun quite
sharply — but mainly it was the
bounce, encouraged from the height
from which he delivers and the
overspin he puts on the ball, that was
his chief weapon. His fielders had
energy where England’s had none.
Lyon bowled maiden after
maiden, nine in all. Starc’s spell was
equally mean (7-2-12-2). After Malan
cut to slip, it was Pope’s turn to
wriggle in Lyon’s web. Pope had
played a poor shot against the off
spinner at the Gabba, attempting to
cut a ball too close to his body, and
Smith crowded the bat when he
came in. Pope faced nine balls from
Lyon and was given out to two of
them — overturning one on review.
His downfall came when he skipped
down the pitch and, attempting to
turn the ball into the leg side, turned
it only as far as Marnus Labuschagne
at short leg. A frenetic end to a
frenetic innings.
It is said of a good team that an
observer should be able to recognise
how that team is trying to get a
wicket. When Jos Buttler faced Starc,
it was obvious: from a full length on
the angle and with two slips, a fine
gully and a short extra cover waiting,
an edge from a drive was the aim,
and Buttler duly obliged. When
David Warner took the catch, it was
Australia’s 24th of the series without
error. England, at a conservative
estimate, have dropped at least eight.
England had lost four wickets for
19 runs in 16 overs, on the best
batting pitch imaginable. A first
session that produced 123 for none
gave way to a second session of 57 for
four. Australia’s out-cricket had been
sharp and hungry; their bowling
disciplined and imaginative. What a
contrast to England. One team
playing good cricket; the other not.Mike
Atherton
Intensity and
variety of
Australian
approach
exposes lame
tactics of
Root’s men
O
ne of the most famous
quotes in cricket came on
this ground nearly 90 years
ago, when Bill Woodfull
chastised England’s
Bodyline tactics by stating
that there was only one
team playing cricket out
there. Given the marked contrast
between Australia’s out-cricket in the
middle session of play on the third
day and England’s during the first two
days, it is too tempting not to recall it.
Where England were aimless and
lacking direction, Australia’s tactics
were sharply defined; where
England’s fielding was lacklustre,
Australia were full of intensity; where
Joe Root lacked options and variety in
the attack, Steve Smith was spoilt for
choice. The second session was a
terrible one for England, but Australia
were outstanding, squeezing and
smothering in even the friendliest
batting conditions.
The first session had belonged
resoundingly to England, with Root
and Dawid Malan combining
impressively, as they had at the Gabba
in the first Test. No wickets had fallen,
the run-rate was a healthy 3.80 per
over and both batsmen lunched
happily with fifties to their name. The
grisly events of the previous evening,
when Australia’s tail had wagged
merrily and England’s openers had
fallen, faded from memory. This was a
batting day, no excuses to be had.
When he was not out overnight at
the Gabba, Malan had revealed a little
of his inner self: “I’ve really missed
this, someone trying to blow my head
off, and the adrenaline going, playing
against the best bowlers,” he said. He
sounded very much like a man who
enjoyed being in the arena, striving
valiantly, rather than with the cold
and timid souls watching on.
So far, he is the only one to have
given Root able support. It was a
gorgeous afternoon; cloudless skies,
the merest hint of a breeze, the
patrons unresponsive and nothing in
the pitch to cause concern. The ball,
by lunch, was 41 overs old; conditions
for batting were perfect. In this
situation, based on the evidence ofthe first two days, it was not hard to
imagine the lame tactics to which
England would have resorted:
bowling short and hoping for — but
not expecting — mistakes.
Redoubling their efforts, Australia
thought differently. They aimed for
disciplined and focused bowling, to
hit the pitch hard on a good length,
to bring the batsmen forward
without offering easy drives, all
backed up by energetic fielding,
giving the impression of a team who
expected to take wickets. The basics
done well, and a refusal to accept
that the stand between Malan and
Root, worth 138, was anything other
than there to be broken.
The deadly combination — one
that was not available to Root given
the diet of right-arm medium pace —14
Test innings in
which Steve
Smith has taken
three or more
catches — the
most evercame between the left-arm quick,
Mitchell Starc, and the off spinner,
Nathan Lyon. Before that, Smith
allowed Cameron Green to finish a
spell started before lunch.
Green had dismissed Root at the
Gabba and troubled him here with
bounce and late movement away
from the bat, and it was in the fifth
over after lunch that Root nibbled at
one and edged to slip, where Smith’s
bucket hands did the rest.
Green gave way to Starc. The
squeeze was on — reminiscent for an
hour or more of the dread Test match
in 2006, when Shane Warne
mesmerised England to defeat.
England’s batsmen, of course, do not
have a left-arm fast bowler in the
ranks to practise against, but Ant
Botha, the assistant coach at
Nottinghamshire, who throws a
mean ball left-handed with the
sidearm, is employed to do just that.
Before play, Botha was in the netsSimon Wilde AdelaideEngland took the easy
option in appointing
Silverwood but they
need a disruptor