Key events
Drinks! A good hour for England
36th over: England 170-3 (Root 55, Brook 54) Webster, like his twin Green, is proving easy to score off. Four or five singles and that’s drinks, with England winning that hour. And that’s my stint done, so I’ll slope off to bed and leave you in the safe hands of Angus Fontaine. Thanks for your company.
35th over: England 164-3 (Root 51, Brook 52) Starc continues, bowling length to Root and liquorice allsorts to Brooks. They take three singles, one of them off a no-ball.
“Hello,” says Abhishek Chopra. “Excuse me if this has been covered before but what’s the story behind England’s black arm bands in this Test?” It hasn’t been covered before – my fault. It’s in memory of Hugh Morris, who has died of cancer. He played a few Tests for England and captained Glamorgan, but more significantly was a much-loved administrator for both his county and the england and Wales Cricket Board, which he embodied. He it was who appointed Andrew Strauss and Andy Flower, which led to that rare triumph in Australia in 2010-11.
Milestones galore!
34th over: England 161-3 (Root 50, Brook 51) Smith turns to his fifth seamer, and second all-rounder, Beau Webster. Root cuts for a single and hits two milestones with one stone: his own fifty (off 65 balls) and the hundred partnership (off just 20.2 overs). It’s his second fifty of the series, following that long-awaited hundred in Brisbane, and it’s England’s third hundred partnership, after 117 by Root and Crawley (also in Brisbane) and 106 by Stokes and Archer in Adelaide. Brook plays a cut too, for four, to bring up his fifty – 51 off 63 balls. And both of them could have been out for nowt.
33rd over: England 155-3 (Root 49, Brook 46) QED. Brook gets a bouncer from Starc, can’t resist the swish, hits it upwards and is lucky to find that it lands between two men in the deep-square zone. Just let it go!
32nd over: England 152-3 (Root 48, Brook 44) Brook, facing Neser, starts the over with a glide for four, straight out of the Root playbook, which brings up the 150. Then he plays three forward-defensives in a row, before cutting for a single. He’s two batters in one, a classicist and an iconoclast. I’m not sure he should be anywhere near the captaincy: just let him bat, and bat, and work out how to cope when opposing pacemen try to bomb him out.
31st over: England 147-3 (Root 48, Brook 39) Smith goes even more defensive for Brook, removing all the close catchers bar one (at fly slip) and setting a trap for the hook. He has fallen for that a few times and now he flirts with doom again, aiming a carve over the fly slip, getting a top edge and taking a streaky single. For Root, the field resumes its normal shape – and he plays a handsome off-drive for four.
30th over: England 142-3 (Root 44, Brook 38) Neser continues, strays onto the pads and sees Brook put him away to the rope. That’s only Brook’s third four, whereas Root has six – but it’s at least partly because Steve Smith has spread the field for Brook. The partnership, which only passed 50 in the 24th over, has raced to 85.
29th over: England 137-3 (Root 44, Brook 33) Three singles off Starc’s over. The ex-players are all saying what a good pitch this is. There was plenty of movement this morning, both seam and swing, but it’s hot now, and humid, and the consensus is that these two batters need to cash in while they can.
“Who’s your favourite Waugh?” asks the scoreboard, rather brutally. The crowd are voting and it’s 50-50, then 52-48 to Steve. Depends what you want a Waugh for: Steve to bat for your life, Mark to enhance it with his elegance.
28th over: England 134-3 (Root 43, Brook 31) Root has been dabbing and cutting behind square as if he was batting at Headingley, but now there’s a deep backward point, so he adjusts and cuts a short ball from Boland just in front of square. Four more! Root is now England’s leading scorer in the series with 277 runs, overtaking Crawley (272) – and Brook is not far behind on 263. Among the Aussies, Head and Carey are out in front but the rest are behind those three Poms.
27th over: England 130-3 (Root 39, Brook 31) A tighter over from Starc, just two singles from it. Jason Gillespie is on commentary and he’s not happy with the selection from his old team, who’ve picked five seamers and no spinner. “I’m baffled by it. The reason Australia have picked a spinner at Sydney in every Test since 1888 is because it turns here.”
26th over: England 128-3 (Root 38, Brook 30) Root survives a half-chance for a run-out as Marnus Labuschagne misses with a shy at the stumps, and a shout for LBW (or caught behind?) as he’s beaten by Boland’s nip-backer. But in between, Root plays a glorious cover drive for four and a cut for two.
25th over: England 121-3 (Root 32, Brook 29) England take up wherev they left off before lunch, helping themselves to seven from the first over of Starc’s second spell. Brook, who didn’t face Starc before lunch, plays a confident clip through square leg. Usman Khawaja, playing in his final Test, puts in a strong chase and keeps the ball in, only to find that the batters have run four anyway.
The players are back out there and as yet, there’s no sign of the forecast rain. It’s going to be Mitch Starc, the bowler of the series.
And here’s Paul O’Neill. “Having looked forward to this series for literally years (there’s no fool like an English cricket fan in his 50s), I have consumed a LOT of Ashes content over the past couple of months,” he says. “Particularly in recent weeks, I’ve noticed a pattern from the England camp during interviews that they’ll credit the opposition as a ‘great team’ or ‘difficult to play against’ but always with the rather backhanded qualifier ‘in Australian conditions’.
”This happens too regularly for it just to be a coincidence – trust me, I’ve listened to a LOT of player/staff interviews – so my question is this: is this a sly ploy of deliberate premeditated shade on England’s part (I’m all for that, if so) or just another mantra of the be-where-your-feet-are or run-towards-the-danger variety that everyone in the camp has absorbed unconsciously? And if it is a campaign of co-ordinated messaging, could I suggest maybe ‘leave the ball on length’ or ‘aim for the top of off’ for future series?”
“This morning’s play,” says Andy Moreman, “is a perfect example of the missed opportunities on this tour. Australia playing with three and a half bowlers, get through the first 25 overs and there will be runs for the taking. England unable to apply the discipline required to achieve that.
“With a bit of discipline and better acclimatisation this series was there for the taking. (Thanks for the coverage!)“
It’s our pleasure. Even when England are collapsing.
Lunchtime reading
Barney Ronay has been thinking about that teenager who played in the IPL.
LUNCH! Root and Brook survive
24th over: England 114-3 (Root 31, Brook 23) Neser continues and Carey, still standing up, concedes a bye – a bit of a collector’s item. Root glances for two, then edges for two more but it’s safe, angled down with soft hands. That brings up the 100, to loud cheers from the Barmy Army. Root celebrates with a lovely dab for four, and when he takes a single, it’s the fifty partnership off 63 balls. Brook plays a classic cover drive, then a clueless waft, and finally a clip for three. Thirteen off the over! That’s one way to go to lunch.
Australia won the first hour, England the second, but you can easily see another couple of wickets falling at any time.
22nd over: England 96-3 (Root 22, Brook 15) Green bowls a long hop and Root caresses it for four with his signature shot, the silky glide. When Smith signals that he wants another short one, Green goes so short that it’s called a wide. His pace is good, touching 88mph, but when he pitches it up, Root has time to open the face and steer through the covers for two.
21st over: England 87-3 (Root 15, Brook 14) Neser replaces Boland, like for like. The batters take a single apiece. Steve Finn says Neser is trying to hone in on the off stump. Steve, love your work, but it’s home in. Hone means sharpen!
20th over: England 85-3 (Root 14, Brook 13) Green keeps Brook quiet: dot, dot, dot, then a glide past gully for a single. It’s easier to get past gully when Green is bowling, as he’s not there with his ridiculously long reach. Root goes in that direction too, cutting for four. He’s scoring at the same rate as Brook – 60 runs per hundred balls – which is Root’s usual tempo, but not Brook’s.
19th over: England 80-3 (Root 10, Brook 12) Brook, facing Boland, gets two more inside edges, but they’re thick ones, nowhere near the stumps. He calams down a bit, leaving one ball outside off, then another. When he takes a single, Root drives for two, nice and fluently. Twenty minutes till lunch: can these two get there unscathed?
18th over: England 77-3 (Root 8, Brook 11) Smith turns to the first of his two all-rounders, Cameron Green, who starts tidily, restricting each batter to a single.
“Morning Tim, morning everyone,” says Guy Hornsby, writing half an hour ago. “Spending my last day in Australia on my birthday with my twin Dave watching the Sydney Test unfurl in front of us on a warm day in Melbourne. It’s been a winning feeling since I arrived so clearly I need to be out for all five Tests next time. A good toss to win, if we can get through the first session, but Australia are always in the game with this attack. It already feels a bit of a crucial next hour. I was going to say Crawley was playing with circumspection but I didn’t get to hit send. Over to you, Joe.”
17th over: England 75-3 (Root 7, Brook 10) Boland continues and Brook gets another inside edge. Root takes a single. Brook knows a bouncer is coming as square-leg has gone out. He hooks anyway and gets a top edge over the keeper! That’s four, and he adds two more with a more controlled shot into the off side. It’s a funny old ploy, Bazball: the batters keep trying to play as if they’re supremely relaxed, but when they do it at 60-3 they’ve got all their supporters on edge.
16th over: England 67-3 (Root 6, Brook 3) Extra-cover is set deep for Neser, so Brook can take another easy single. Smith could surely be more attacking here – he can afford to let Brook get a quick 20. Alex Carey calls for a helmet and comes up to the stumps, to keep both batters in their crease.
15th over: England 66-3 (Root 6, Brook 2) So, Harry Brook, what mood are you in today? Skittish or super-skittish?
Facing Boland, he dances down the track to his first ball – and then leaves it. To the second, he plays a loose drive and gets an inside edge. It could easily be his downfall, but he escapes down the other end. Boland beats Root on the inside edge and goes up for LBW. Smith thinks about a review before deciding, rightly, that it’s too high. Brook takes a quick single, profiting from the more defensive field that his aggression has induced. There is some method in his madness.
14th over: England 63-3 (Root 6, Brook 0) Root, standing outside his crease, clips Neser for two to get off the mark. This is his 297th Test innings, more than any other Englishman. He tries the cover drive again, which didn’t go well a few minutes ago, but this time he nails it. If the MCC Coaching Book still exists, that shot can go straight into the next edition.
13th over: England 57-3 (Root 0, Brook 0) Bethell, facing Boland, had just shown Root how it was done, gliding for two, then stepping outside off to on-drive for four. “Look at how fast his hands are,” said Graeme Swann. But Boland switched to over the wicket, angled the ball across Bethell and took the edge.
England have lost three wickets for 22 and they have two new batters in. They happen to be the two highest-ranked batters in the world, but they may not feel like it right now.
WICKET! Bethell c Carey b Boland 10 (England 57-3)
The collapse is on.
12th over: England 51-2 (Bethell 4, Root 0) Joe Root starts with a terrible shot, a grandiose drive that connects only with thin air. He’s just turned 35 but that was more reckless than anything we’ve seen today from Bethell, who is 22.
Drinks! And the Aussies are on top
Mid-12th over: England 51-2 (Bethell 4, Root 0) Neser had just replaced Boland, which should have been music to Crawley’s ears. For a moment it was, as he saw a short ball and played the pull with some authority. But he’s always vulnerable to seam bowling of no great pace and sure enough, he missed a straight one. So the first hour belongs to Australia, even though the first half-hour belonged to England.
WICKET! Crawley LBW b Neser 16 (England 51-2)
Beaten by the nip-backer, given out. Crawley reviews, rather hesitantly, and it’s umpire’s call!
11th over: England 47-1 (Crawley 12, Bethell 4) Starc, sniffing blood, gives Bethell a bouncer and it’s a vicious one. Bethell does the old jack-knife, as if in homage to Robin Smith, and manages to evde it. And then he finally gets off the mark with a cut for four – smoothly timed, very Goweresque.
10th over: England 43-1 (Crawley 12, Bethell 0) Crawley gets another friendly ball from Boland, on the pads, and takes an easy single. Boland stays full to Bethell, who clips to mid-on, then plays and misses for the first time today. To counter the movement, Bethell shuffles across to the off side, which allows him to pick up a leg-bye and get down the other end. Adapting to survive… He’s faced 11 balls without scoring, whereas Duckett hit 27 off 24.
9th over: England 41-1 (Crawley 11, Bethell 0) So, Jacob Bethell, the man who really shouldn’t be at No 3 but looks as if he rather likes it. Half Gower, half Tintin. He glides Starc down into the gully, then plays a solid defensive shot. A leave or two, a push to mid-on, another leave. That’s a maiden, the first one of the morning.
8th over: England 41-1 (Crawley 11, Bethell 0) Crawley had been playing second fiddle to his mate Duckett, but now he drives Boland for four, straight down the ground, and flicks him for two.
Meanwhile, here’s Gary Naylor. “Steve Finn mentioned ‘the radar’ then, as always, referenced as a bowler’s tool,” he says. “But surely it should be in the batters’ hands, because they’re the ones who need to know where the ball is at any given time – which is what radar will tell you. (You can tell it’s the fifth Test can’t you?)“ Ha. It’s still a good point.
7th over: England 35-1 (Crawley 5, Bethell 0) Just when Duckett was looking himself again … He had cut Starc for four, helping himself to his favourite dish, and then clipped him (uppishly) for four more. But Starc has had an immense series and he hit back with a classic outswinger and a classic nick, which produced a fine low catch by Alex Carey.
WICKET! Duckett c Carey b Starc 27 (England 35-1)
Ben Duckett hits Starc for two fours … and pays the price!
6th over: England 27-0 (Crawley 5, Duckett 19) Steve Smith goes for an early bowling change, replacing the blameless Neser with Scott Boland (perhaps Neser is going to change ends). Boland instantly finds some seam movement and beats Duckett’s outside edge. Crawley then plays no stroke to the nip-backer. Dangerous game … As the ball lodges in his pad, the Aussies discuss a review, but decide against – and they’re right, as HawkEye shows it was too high and too wide.
5th over: England 26-0 (Crawley 5, Duckett 18) Duckett gets another freebie from Starc and flicks it for four. Then he plays and misses at a loopy bouncer outside off, but when Starc goes full again Duckett tucks in with an off-drive for four more, following through like Brian Lara. You’d never guess that he’d had a shocker of a series.
After three overs, Mitch Starc has none for 17. But he also has the Ashes in his pocket.
4th over: England 17-0 (Crawley 5, Duckett 9) Duckett gets a single off Neser, but Crawley is joining the dots (plus a leg-bye). He’s wary of Neser and And well he may be as Neser is one of seven bowlers in this series who are taking a wicket every 35 balls or better. If they maintained that over a long career, they would be the seven most incisive bowlers of all time. At the moment, the bowler with the all-time best strike rate (min. 200 wickets) is Kagiso Rabada of South Africa, on 39.
3rd over: England 15-0 (Crawley 5, Duckett 8) Duckett, facing Starc, plays a nice solid push down the ground for two, followed by a glance for a single. Then Crawley gets a thick edge to a ball that comes back in, but it lands safely enough in the silly-point zone.
No big shots yet, and they’re still going at five an over. Rumours of Bazball’s death may be exaggerated.
2nd over: England 11-0 (Crawley 5, Duckett 5) At the other end it’s Michael Neser, who’s been taking wickets for fun. He nearly has another one as Crawley, squared up, edges into the gap where fourth slip would be if the Aussie captain was Steve Waugh, not Steve Smith.
1st over: England 5-0 (Crawley 1, Duckett 4) Crawley leaves the first ball, which is well wide of his off stump. He defends the second and takes a quick single. No sooner is Duckett is in his sights than Starc hits his straps: a yorker on middle-and-off, just about stabbed out, followed by a length ball and an uncertain prod. Duckett manages a leave, then gets what he wants – a nice half-volley on the pads, which he whips away for the first four of the day.
The Test begins with … a delay. In fact, two: one for a reflection in the crowd, the other for a steward moving behind the bowler’s arm. Proper creekit.
Ready now. It’s going to be Mitch Starc to Zak Crawley.
As the Aussies spread out with pink numbers on their backs, Zak Crawley and Ben Duckett stride out to open the innings. On TNT, which had had an even worse series than England, Graeme Swann is at the microphone. “This is where you want someone to do an Alastair Cook,” he says. “To be 35 not out at lunch.” Good luck with that.
“Hello Tim, and happy new year,” says Andrew Benton. Happy new year to you too, and everyone. “Who could replace Brendon McCullum? I do think he should go given his stated aim was to win the Ashes, but who could take over? There seems to be a dearth of suitable candidates. But there seems not to have been much discussion in the media on it in any case. What’s your take?”
I’m not sure! So I went on WhatsApp and asked Tanya Aldred, our queen of the county scene. “Um,” she replied. “Championship winner with three counties Peter Moores?” But she did add a laughing face.
“Might be limited,” Tanya went on, “by who wants to commit because obvs they can all get lucrative franchise gigs. I’d go for Rahul Dravid if they can get him.”
This is the pink Test, with funds being raised for the McGrath Foundation. As the players make their way out there’s plenty of pink in the crowd, adding to the elegance of the faded green stands at the members’ end.
Sydney, by the way, used to be a spinners’ paradise. The all-time top wicket-taker in Tests at the SCG is Shane Warne, with 64 from 14 Tests, and second is his old understudy, Stuart MacGill, with 53 from only eight. It makes you wish England had taken Rehan Ahmed.
This is thought to be the first time Australia have gone into a Sydney Test without a frontline spinner since 1888. And now, as at Melbourne, they will have to bowl last, unless that long batting order of theirs racks up enough runs to win by an innings.
“Long odds,” says Jack Gough, “but… tantalising possibility that Steve Smith gets 5 catches in this Test, Joe Root gets none and Smith then goes to the top of the leaderboard for most Test catches of all time.
”Smith has 11 catches in 3 matches so far and Root has 3 catches in 4 matches. What do you think?”
I think that’s a good spot. The point Stokes made about the bowlers – that Australia’s have been better under pressure – could equally well apply to the slip catching.
Toss: England win and bat
Steve Smith tosses the coin, Ben Stokes calls tails and tails it is. “We’re gonna have a bat,” he says. Why, says Isa Guha? “Good conditions here in Australia.”
Shoaib Bashir? Not picked. Matthew Potts comes in for the injured Gus Atkinson.
“I would have batted,” Steve Smith says briskly. He’s left out his specialist spinner too, so Todd Murphy, like Bashir, will be carrying the drinks. It may or may not be a consolation to him that Smith adds, “Hate doing it.”
Beau Webster comes in for Jhye Richardson, which means Cameron Green survives but has a rival alongside him. And the Aussies will bat deep, with one of those two at No 8.
“Great pre-amble,” says Tom van der Gucht, sportingly. “It got me thinking whether Labuschagne or Weatherald could do a Pope and Crawley and do just enough to retain their place.” (At the risk of splitting haiirs, I thought Pope had lost his place?) “Cricket is a strangely moral sport whereby you earn your chance, become the next cab off the rank, deserve another shot etc… Bazball has been weirdly anti-Bazball by eschewing county form, yet still hanging onto hunches and giving Pope/Crawley shot after shot based on their feasts and ignoring their famine. Weirdly, Crawley has probably pencilled himself in for the rest of the year based on the paucity of scores from other batsmen. I bet Malan is fuming – never really fitting in or backed in any England regime whilst Crawley seems destined to be picked for the ODI team too.
“One of the pleasures and unique idiosyncracies of the sport I suppose, like looking at how many incredible Aussie batters never got the chance in the test team due to its strength and consistency: Bevan, Hodge, Law, Love… Even Glenn Maxwell… How the hell has he not been backed as a game changer in Tests?
“I should go to bed…”
Ha. To be fair to Crawley, he’s been pretty good against Australia, unlike Pope. His average in the Ashes is 39, the same as Joe Root and Alec Stewart. And his 37 in the run chase at the MCG was worth 75.
The difference between the sides
In that press conference, Stokes put England’s defeat down to the Australian bowlers and their ability to get it right under pressure. They’ve certainly brought a lot more experience – even their new bowlers are fairly old. But England too have bowled better than they usually do in Australia.
The Aussies’ average (completed) score has been exactly 300, which is their second-lowest in a home Ashes series in the 21st century, only just beating the 292 they managed against Andrew Strauss’s triumphant team in 2010-11. England’s average score has been 242, so the gap has been 58. On England’s last Ashes tour, under Joe Root in 2021-22, it was a gulf of 148; on the tour before, also on Root’s watch in 2017-18, it was 222. On the tour before that, under Alastair Cook in 2013-14, it was 198.
Strauss’s achievement was to inflict a gap like that – 219 – on the Aussies, which was a spectacular case of giving them a taste of their own medicine. No wonder he got a knighthood. And it was lovely to read, the other day, that he’d found love again after losing his first wife, Ruth, to cancer.
Pre-match reading
Barney Ronay has been listening to Ben Stokes, who is beginning to sound like William Goldman. “We all play a good game,” Stokes tells the media, “by looking like we know what we’re doing when we’re looking at the wicket.”
Preamble
Tim de Lisle
Hello everyone and welcome to the final act of this drama. It should have been a cliffhanger, and could well have been if England hadn’t fluffed their lines on the second day in Perth. It should have been an epic, and might have been had the pitches in Perth and Melbourne not come straight from a seamer’s dream. The long and the short of it is that it’s been both long and short at the same time.
It’s been a long tour – four of England’s likely XI today left home on 10 October, for the baffling warm-up that consisted of two white-ball tussles with New Zealand. And yet it’s been a short Ashes series, occupying only 13 days so far. For the players, it may have felt a little like what was famously said about the First World War: months of boredom punctuated by moments of terror. They haven’t shot themselves in the foot, but they will have spent a bit of time kicking themselves.
For the Australians, who may have been mildly irritated to lose in Melbourne, Sydney is a chance to make that game look like a blip, to complete yet another hammering and give Usman Khawaja a handsome send-off. And to show why they deserve to keep their places, as there have been three underperformers in their top seven – Jake Weatherald, Marnus Labuschagne and Cameron Green, who may already have been dislodged by Beau Webster.
For England, it’s a chance to play for pride again, for a sliver of respectability, for some World Championship points, for the record books, for the mood in the camp and their long-suffering captain, not to mention their travelling supporters. In Test cricket, no rubber is ever more than half-dead. A consolation win is still a win, and as England discovered at Melbourne, when Ben Stokes and Joe Root finally tasted Test victory in Australia, it is definitely some consolation.
The best England can do now is to lose 3-2, something they’ve done just once in 140 years of Ashes tours – way back in 1936-37, when Gubby Allen’s team raced into a 2-0 lead, only to find Don Bradman pulling off the greatest comeback in Test history. A 3-2 win by the Aussies has happened only once in England, too: in 1997 Mike Atherton’s team went 1-0 up, then 3-1 down, before winning a dogfight at the Oval.
So there’s no shortage of sub-plots, and the pitch is among them. It’s been looking like another greentop, but the man in charge of it, Adam Lewis, says he’s confident it will go to five days and Cricket Australia, along with the spin-bowling community, will be praying he’s right. The weather hasn’t been on Lewis’s side – too hot and dry before Christmas, too cool and damp since. Today’s forecast is for all of the above at once, with warm sunshine giving way to showers after lunch and a fair chance of a storm in everybody’s tea cup.
All being well, the toss will take place at 10am (11pm GMT), so do drop by five minutes after that to find out if Shoaib Bashir has finally got the nod.
