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THE ASHES | MIKE ATHERTON

The Ashes: Abject England suffer after another day of errors

Adelaide (second day of five): England, with eight first-innings wickets in hand, are 456 runs behind Australia

Mike Atherton, Chief Cricket Correspondent

Friday December 17 2021, 11.45am, The Times

 

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-ashes-abject-england-suffer-after-another-day-of-errors-vsptg8d6v

 

Lightning brought the day to a premature close

Lightning brought the day to a premature close
BT SPORT

 

Second evening — check. Lights on — check. Pink ball — check. Heavy atmosphere — check. Runs on the board — check. Opposition 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-armer 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 Burns has suffered a torrid start against Starc and is facing a long tour.

Haseeb Hameed played two exquisite 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 in his third Test with everything to prove. Michael Neser, who had gained some confidence from a breezy 24-ball innings that included five fours and a six, replaced Starc and, inexplicably, Hameed 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 batsman. He arrived at the crease surrounded by close fielders and the ground buzzing with expectation. He edged his second ball just short of Steve Smith at slip and was relieved to be able to walk off shortly afterwards as a sticky and humid day reached its natural stormy end.

 

It was as Dawid Malan faced up to his 19th ball that a dramatic flash of lightning 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. 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 examination. Even so, it feels as though the storm clouds are gathering over the England 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 palpable 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 already 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, grinning like the cat that had got the cream. What a time to be alive as a batsman, 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 more before Robinson got him again, but the-wicket-that-wasn’t was another error to add to the growing 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 frustrating, because England’s bowlers have created opportunities, and Australia’s batting has shown some frailty. Most chances in the field have been gifted to David Warner and Labuschagne, whose run-scoring so far has underpinned strong first-innings totals. Here, they were given company by Smith, back in the captain’s chair, 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 replacement 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. England’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 and aiming 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.

 

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-century, as he backed away to smear a short ball from Stokes, went over the wicketkeeper’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 extension of the arms, suggested he was seeing the ball well and getting into better positions. With no Mark Wood to make him hop around, Smith bedded in.

 

Local boy Carey got off the mark with a sweetly timed pull for four and brought up his maiden Test half-century in a partnership of 91 with Smith that stretched through the afternoon session. James Anderson had looked unthreatening but, as always, refused to let his figures get away from him, so when he trapped Smith on the back foot seven short of a century and then encouraged Carey to chip to cover on the stroke of tea, those figures took on a more impressive glow. The same could not be said for Woakes, who conceded a gallon and has looked as ineffectual this time around as he did four years ago.

It was the turn of the tail-enders, and Australia’s new boy, Neser, to have some fun after tea, and to ready themselves for the twilight tango with the pink ball. Neser and Starc added 58 in nine overs, swiping with such intent that Root, at times, had as many as eight fielders on the boundary.

The fielding became scrappy, with overthrows and a difficult chance missed by Ollie Pope at deep mid-wicket. With the declaration in hand, the crowd became increasingly raucous, revelling in the misfortunes of an England team that continues to make a difficult task even more so, by dint of some woolly thinking and elementary mistakes.

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It's good to see Steve Smith captaining Australia. A wonderful cricketer. To think Marnus Labuschagne has now moved his batting average ahead of Smith makes you wonder if this is some kind of superteam in the making.

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2 hours ago, Rousseau said:

Was this four years of planning from England? Are they even trying?

It takes years of careful, considered, groundwork to bring about a classic England collapse: it is not something that may be improvised. 

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40 minutes ago, compo said:

England's batsmen could do worse than watch the way Warner hit that four took the shot on a rising ball and still managed to place it in a safe zone ,England have been abysmal. 🏏

Just as well Australia left Cummins and Hazlewood in the locker. 

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THE ASHES | MIKE ATHERTON

The Ashes: Intensity and variety of Australian approach exposes lame tactics of Joe Root’s men

Mike Atherton

Saturday December 18 2021, 1.00pm, The Sunday Times

 

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-ashes-intensity-and-variety-of-australian-approach-exposes-lame-tactics-of-joe-root-s-men-b8tq927tv

 

One 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 of the 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 — came 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 dreaded 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 nets putting, 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.

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THE ASHES | GIDEON HAIGH

Ben Stokes makes fans believe in miracles, but England have had their backs to the wall too often

Gideon Haigh

Saturday December 18 2021, 12.00pm, The Sunday Times

 

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/ben-stokes-makes-fans-believe-in-miracles-but-england-have-had-their-backs-to-the-wall-too-often-ss672kzgk

 

The batter wound up. The ball disappeared into the Basheer Stand. The commentators cued superlatives. Back to the wall, Ben Stokes was taking the Second Test on as only he knows how.

Back to the wall, however, is a decidedly unpromising vantage from which to take anything on. There’s usually a reason you’re there. You’ve essentially run out of options. There’s a reason walls are favoured by firing squads. They’re not interested in a contest.

Stokes, of course, is a wonderful, dramatic cricketer, and the élan vital of this England team. His selection caused hearts to soar. For a man who plumbed such depths earlier this year, he has sounded positive. “If we don’t believe,” he argued after play on the second evening, “we’re already beaten.”

 

Stoke’s six to leg and four over cover off Nathan Lyon in early evening at the Adelaide Oval were hardly the strokes of a believer. Quite the opposite. Having played himself in carefully over two hours, Stokes had been joined by Stuart Broad, a bagatelle with the bat these days, with a second new ball in the offing and the possibility of a follow-on looming [dash] a triple-horned batting dilemma, to which, he concluded, slogging seemed the only answer.

This could be questioned: it’s a sad state of affairs if Broad, in his 150th Test, is not to be trusted with any strike at all, even simply to defend his stumps. And, perhaps inevitably, it didn’t work: aiming towards the footbridge the following over, Stokes dragged Cameron Green onto his off stump, with England still 252 runs in arrears, and now a single wicket left. In the end, the visitors did not quite halve the home side’s score.

 

For some years afterwards, it was argued that Headingley 1981 had the negative consequence of causing English cricket to trust in miracles and over invest in Ian Botham. Has Headingley 2019 had a similarly perverse outcome? For all the romance of the wall, surely the objective should not be ending up there.

England’s best session of the series had nothing to do with walls; for a couple of hours, it made the playing field look almost level. Joe Root and Dawid Malan, last seen pursued by lightning, made the most of clear skies and a softening ball to pass unharmed through the first session. Root was even slightly overshadowed.

 

Malan, cutting crisply and defending compactly, passed 50 for the sixth time in twelve innings against Australia, which in another context might have produced hosannahs of praise. There was a little hiss as pressure eased: Mitchell Starc was used sparingly; Michael Neser proved unthreatening; Jhye Richardson conceded Australia’s first no ball of summer.

After dinner, Australia tightened up, with drier lengths, tighter lines and a meaner spirit, swarming England like a Twitter mob intent on cancellation: four for 57 in 30 overs does it full justice.

Yet to make a scoreboard impact with the bat this summer, Green continued his progress with ball, persistent and pacey at Root, until England’s captain was undone again by his open blade, ending a partnership of 138 off 237 deliveries.

In the absence of Pat Cummins and Josh Hazlewood, Mitchell Starc has been Australia’s attack leader here by experience gap rather than nominated order. He bowled accordingly, taking 2-12 in a smothering seven-over spell. Malan and Jos Buttler, who is having a wretched Test match, perished to needless, fretful strokes.

 

The giant screen provided regular updates of Lyon’s figures on the Adelaide Oval as he tip-toed up on Shane Warne’s wicket taking record by ending Ollie Pope’s frantic cameo, then picked off the tailenders Chris Woakes and Ollie Robinson after tea.

In a way, this was England’s poorest performance of the tour, accentuated by its following their best. They have had moments here, glimmers there. Root has purred through the year like a Brough Superior; at last, in Malan, he has someone in the sidecar. Robinson looks a bowler; Hameed does not appear out of his depth. But they keep ending up at that wall, and it leads nowhere good.

 

● Gideon Haigh is Cricket Writer for The Australian

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9 hours ago, Uilleam said:

It takes years of careful, considered, groundwork to bring about a classic England collapse: it is not something that may be improvised. 

I disagree. England can improvise a collapse anytime, anywhere, any conditions.

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Just been reading an article in the Sydney morning herald about some new competition that's going to take place in England were it will be ten ball over it might be five from one then five from another or the full ten from one bowler and all delivered from the same end .

I remember in the late seventies the end of the eight ball over in test cricket in Australia, I thought that was a bad move .

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