Section:GDN 1N PaGe:53 Edition Date:190906 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 5/9/2019 20:42 cYanmaGentaYellowbl
Friday 6 September 2019 The Guardian •
53An afternoon of spills, thrills and
bellyaches conjures memories
of the dark days of the 1990s
Analysis
Barney Ronay Old Traff ordcricket is a brutal game, but not
brutal in the way it seemed at
Headingley , a game of explosive
last-ditch jeopardy. It is instead
brutal like this. It wears you thin,
peels away the layers, strips out
the froth, leaves you pinned and
wriggling on the turf.
Occasionally it exposes you to
the full range of a batting genius
like Smith, who continued to do the
same thing he has done throughout
the series; but did so here to a
degree that will haunt some of these
England players, and indeed the
England captain.
Smith’s scores now in this series
are: 144, 142, 92 and 211, at a time
when almost every other top-order
player has appeared to be batting
with a length of plastic drainpipe on
the deck of a storm-tossed dinghy.
Up to this point England have
worked around Smith, absorbing
the hits at Edgbaston and Lord’s.
Here his brilliance became an
instrument of torture. The step to
leg, the fl ick off the hip, the thrilling
launch through cover: England’s
bowlers will see these things in their
sleep. Plus there’s the other stuff.
It can’t be easy acting as Australia’s
12th man when Smith is batting:
Wait ... What’s he asking for? Gloves?
Bat? Fly-swat? Yard of ale? Or ... Just
having a think?
Smith was at the wicket as that
session of pain began after lunch.
Fittingly, perhaps, he was on 101.
Australia had gone to lunch 245 for
fi ve, a door England will have felt
they could kick down with a little
early intensity. Instead they brought
something else.
The fourth ball after lunch saw
Tim Paine dropped at second
slip by Jason Roy, a fumble from
a toe-edged drive off a wide
half-volley. Roy doesn’t fi eld at
slip for Surrey. By the end of this
session he wasn’t fi elding at slip for
England. Batting form and catchingconfi dence have often seemed to
go hand in hand. But he probably
shouldn’t have been there.
Then, four overs later, came
the gut-punch. Jack Leach tossed
out a slower, wider ball. Smith
drove and edged to Stokes. At
which point enter: the horror. As
Smith walked off the TV replays
showed Leach had overstepped,
ankle dangling just short of the
line. After Headingley, England’s
No 11 had been hailed as a kind of
village-cricket everyman. This felt
like a slightly vicious punchline.
Joe Root chided his players.
An over later Jonny Bairstow was
involved in a brief altercation with
Smith over an absent-minded
double-hit of the ball. Stokes
wandered off in the middle of an
over fl exing his shoulder. And half
an hour before tea his substitute
dropped Paine again, Sam Curran
putting down a low chance off
Archer. Paine had gone from nine
to 49 between drops. By the end of
that extended dissolve Australia
had moved to 369 for fi ve and over
the hill and out of sight.A
ll that remains for
England is to escape,
intact, to the Oval
and a possible
decider. Perhaps in
time Old Traff ord’s
unhappy Thursday afternoon
might come to look like the horror
session where England dropped the
Ashes, no-balled the Ashes, then
dropped the Ashes again. But this
wasn’t really a turning point. It was
more a kind of reveal, a moment
to strip bare whatever pretensions
this England group might have
towards being a functioning,
settled group of red-ball players.
Headingley, Stokes, and one
astonishing day of cricket kept
them level in this series. Either
side of that Test Smith has baffl ed
both the bowlers and the captain.
Australia’s pace and spin attack
has looked more settled and more
potent. For their part England have
looked like what they are: a collage
of talents assembled in hope from
the left overs of project World Cup;
and fl ushed out into the light here
on an afternoon of gaff es, drops,
and a few home truths.F
or a while in
mid-afternoon as the
score ticked along, the
white shapes moved
listlessly about the
Old Traff ord turf and
the men in green helmets punched
gloves at some fresh milestone,
something odd seemed to happen.
Squint a little and the picture
began to dissolve. Baggy-jeaned
ghosts shuffl ed at the edge of the
stands. Jangly guitar music seemed
to fl oat across the Manchester
skyline. And for two and a half hours
between lunch and tea on the
second day of this fourth Test
England went back to the 90s. In
Ashes terms that was the decade
of sessions from hell, of howlers
and shockers, of bursts of defi ning
English ineptitude. Proper Cricket
Men will say you can’t win the Ashes
in a session – but you can lose them.
It is probably too early to
suggest England managed this in
Manchester. But they did their
very best across a rain-extended
middle session that brought two
dropped catches; the dismissal of
Steve Smith, Test cricket’s own
next generation terminator, from
a front-foot no-ball; assorted barks
and gripes and fallings-out in the
fi eld; and fi nally the departure of
Ben Stokes from the fi eld with a
twinge (mercifully short-lived) in
his shoulder.
Get back to the 90s! As the endless
afternoon wore on you half expected
Martin McCague to come bustling
in from the pavilion end, or Ronnie
Irani and Mark Lathwell to produce
a slapstick fi elding mishap on the
deep midwicket rope. Either way a
position of some strength at lunch,
with two early wickets taken, had
proved to be fool’s gold; blown away
by two and a half hours of spills,
thrills and bellyaches.
It was also a period of illumination
as much as anything else. Test The England
substitute
fi elder Sam
Curran looks
rueful after
dropping
the Australia
captain,
Tim Paine
TOM JENKINS/
THE GUARDIANdismissed yet another left-hander,
Travis Head, lbw. Then Matthew
Wade, who is not the type to grind
down spin bowlers since he does not
trust his defence, drove wildly against
Leach and the ball hovered in the air
for ages. Awaiting its descent was Root,
who judged a swirling catch well. Aus-
tralia were wobbling at 224 for fi ve.
But the middle session, which
lasted two and a half hours, was a
torment for England. The tone was
set in the fi rst over when Tim Paine
stretched to reach the widest deliv-
ery Broad had delivered in the match
and succeeded only in edging the ball
towards Jason Roy at second slip. The
chance, a straightforward one – if there
is such a thing in the slip cordon – was
spilt. Roy is in alien territory at second
slip in a Test match.
After this aberration he was, later in
the afternoon, surreptitiously replaced
by Stokes. A feature of so many of Eng-
land’s recruits in their batting line up
has been their inability to hold on to
chances coming their way. This has less
to do with their catching skill than their
ability to stay relaxed yet alert amid the
special tension and scrutiny that is part
and parcel of Test cricket.
Then came the catch to Stokes from
Leach’s no-ball. That was the fi nal
straw in England’s eff orts to dismiss
Australia for a manageable total. This
was followed by another moment
indicative of England’s plight: Stokes
left the fi eld before completing his
over. It later transpired he was suf-
fering from soreness in the shoulder.
Another dropped catch by the substi-
tute, Sam Curran, when Paine was on
49 compounded the misery. A session
of 32 overs had produced 124 runs,
no wickets and three major English
blemishes. And, as is constantly said,
“ You can’t aff ord one bad session at
this level.”
After tea Craig Overton and Leach
picked up a wicket each and then, glory
be, Smith was out for 211, reverse-
sweeping Root to backward point.
“Ah”, mused the old timers, “Bradman
never got out like that.” Then Mitch-
ell Starc swung merrily, smashing 54
from 58 balls with enthusiastic sup-
port from Nathan Lyon.
England had to face 10 overs and
there was nothing merry about that
process. The opening position awaits
a resolution. Out came Joe Denly; he
was lucky to survive for six overs, as
the ball sped past his defensive bat
on several occasions, but then he was
unfortunate to be the victim of a bril-
liant catch by Wade at short-leg after
the ball had been hit by the middle of
his bat. Overton, the latest nightwatch-
man, hung on alongside Rory Burns,
but there is a lot of batting to be done
to keep the destination of the Ashes a
mystery at the Oval.Scoreboard
Old Trafford (second day of five) England trail Australia
by 474 runs with nine first-innings wickets remaining.
Australia First innings (overnight 170-3) Balls 4s 6s
SPD Smith c Denly b Root ................. 211 319 24 2
TM Head lbw b Broad ......................... 19 22 3 0
MS Wade c Root b Leach ..................... 16 45 2 0
*†TD Paine c Bairstow b Overton ........ 58 127 8 0
PJ Cummins c Stokes b Leach................ 4 9 1 0
MA Starc not out ................................ 54 58 7 2
NM Lyon not out ................................ 26 26 4 0
Extras (b8, lb14, w3, nb4) .................. 29
Total (for 8 dec, 126 overs) ............... 497
Fall cont 183, 224, 369, 387, 438.
Did not bat JR Hazlewood.
Bowling Broad 25-2-97-3; Archer 27-3-97-0;
Stokes 10.5-0-66-0; Leach 26.1-3-83-2;
Overton 28-3-85-2; Denly 3-1-8-0; Root 6-0-39-1.
England First innings Balls 4s 6s
RJ Burns not out ................................ 15 25 2 0
JL Denly c Wade b Cummins .................. 4 24 0 0
C Overton not out ................................ 3 12 0 0
Extras (nb1) ........................................ 1
Total (for 1, 10 overs)......................... 23
Fall 10.
To bat *JE Root, JJ Roy, BA Stokes, †JM Bairstow,
JC Buttler, JC Archer, SCJ Broad, MJ Leach.
Bowling Starc 2-2-0-0; Hazlewood 4-1-3-0;
Cummins 3-0-10-1; Lyon 1-0-10-0.
Toss Australia elected to bat.
Umpires HDPK Dharmasena (S L) and M Erasmus (SA). Steve Smith
guides the ball
away during
an innings of 211
that takes his
series batting
average to 147
TOM JENKINS/
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