Key events
“I really thought this was England’s chance, Rob,” says Luke Regan. “More fool me; the Aussies are too good as usual. How we nearly beat them in England I’ll never know.
”We’ll also never know what would have happened if Pope hadn’t gifted his wicket so meekly. Never a good sign when everyone knows what you’re going to do before you do.
”Even if we now scrape a score approaching parity, we aren’t knocking them over cheaply without a frontline spinner to support Archer. This tour has truly become death, the destroyer of worlds.”
That’s an important point – parity is no good to England, they need a lead of at least 100. I should probably have written that in the past tense.
Lunchtime reading
Lunch: Australia lead by 312 runs
14th over: England 59-3 (Root 11, Brook 6) Lyon bowls the final over before lunch. He briefly moves around the wicket to Brook, who times a classy back-foot drive for four.
England will need plenty more boundaries like that after lunch. Australia are in charge at Adelaide Oval after a hideous mini-collapse from England, who lost three wickets for five runs in 15 balls. Zak Crawley and Ben Duckett fell to excellent deliveries but the beleaguered Ollie Pope played a horrible shot to Nathan Lyon’s third ball.
13th over: England 53-3 (Root 10, Brook 1) Boland’s first poor delivery is clipped to the midwicket boundary by Root. No pressure, Joe, all England need from you in an unbeaten double hundred.
That delivery aside, Boland’s control has been immaculate, and later in the over he forces Root to inside-edge one onto the thigh.
“I think the right decision was made on the Root review, but I wonder whether it was fair that Australia lose a review,” writes Tom. “The umpire made a howler – Root smashed it – and the usual protocol is to check if it carried after it is given out, so Australia shouldn’t have had to use a review. In any case, it wasn’t definitive that it didn’t carry, so it begs the question why there isn’t an umpire’s call decision on instances like these so that it doesn’t cost a review.”
12th over: England 48-3 (Root 6, Brook 1) Root negates an LBW appeal from Lyon by getting outside the line. Lyon is all over Root for the first part of the over, but Root puts some pressure back on the bowler with a crisp reverse sweep for four.
“We need to talk about Pope,” says Will Ellen. “There’s vast billowing smoke swirling all around – but not because we’re getting a new pontiff. You cannot have a No3 who at times looks like a No11. Skittish, erratic, nervous, desperate to hit the ball somewhere, anywhere, rather than build an innings. And averaging less than 15 against Australia. This was inevitable. Surely for his own good he needs to be taken out of the firing line?”
The odd thing is that he looked a different player, a lot more composed, in the first innings at Perth. But this feels like the end, certainly as a No3.
11th over: England 42-3 (Root 1, Brook 0) Boland slips a cracking delivery past Root. Another maiden, his second in a row. In the last four overs Australia have taken thre wickets for five runs, on what was supposed to be a road.
Root is not out! Australia aren’t happy, with Marnus Labuschagne and then Pat Cummins having a chat with the umpires.
It’s still being checked. I think it bounced but the more they look at it, the more you fear for Joe Root.
Root clearly inside-edged the ball onto the pad and through to the keeper – but it may not be a clean catch by Alex Carey. Sheesh, this is huge.
Australia review for caught behind against Root!
There may be trouble ahead…
10th over: England 42-3 (Root 1, Brook 0) Well that escalated quickly.
If Pope gave his wicket away, then Duckett was undone by a gorgeous delivery. It curved onto middle stump from around the wicket, then spat past the edge to hit off stump. Majestic bowling from Lyon, who has moved past Glenn McGrath into second place on the list of Australian Test wickettakers: Warne 708, Lyon 564, McGrath 563. He’s not filthy any more.
WICKET! England 42-3 (Duckett b Lyon 29)
Nathan Lyon has struck twice in his first over and England are in all sorts!
WICKET! England 41-2 (Pope c Inglis b Lyon 3)
Nathan Lyon strikes third ball! It was a desperate shot from Ollie Pope, who dragged a routine offbreak straight to Josh Inglis at short midwicket. Inglis’s shoulder is apparently fine; Pope’s future prospects may not be.
9th over: England 40-1 (Duckett 28, Pope 3) Scott Boland replaces Mitchell Starc (4-0-20-0) and hits Pope on the glove with a short ball that follows him. Pope was caught in two minds and ended up just taking the blow. Boland ends an accurate first over by nipping one back to beat Pope on the inside. Not a great shot from Pope, who could easily have inside-edged that onto the stumps.
In other news, Josh Inglis is off the field with what could be a shoulder problem.
8th over: England 40-1 (Duckett 28, Pope 3) Ollie Pope flicks his first ball to fine leg for a couple.
WICKET! England 37-1 (Crawley c Carey b Cummins 9)
Pat Cummins makes the breakthrough with a sensational delivery! He went slightly wider on the crease and got the ball to straighten sharply from a good length. Crawley, pushing defensively, thin-edged it through to the keeper. No blame attached to Crawley there – that was a jaffa.
7th over: England 37-0 (Crawley 9, Duckett 28) After Crawley knocks Starc down the ground for three, Duckett clips expertly through midwicket for his fifth boundary. It wouldn’t surprise me if Australia have a look at Nathan Lyon before lunch, which is around 35 minutes away.
“In a bar in NYC,” writes Rachel Clifton, “but watching on my phone (shout to Willow TV – $79 a year for all cricket!) and sharing the anxiety with the West Country bartender. Can Duckett make it past 30?!”
I’ll let you know in the next five minutes.
6th over: England 28-0 (Crawley 6, Duckett 22) Both the openers have decent head-to-head records against Cummins in Tests: Crawley averages 54, Duckett 45. Duckett is hit in the stomach by a short one, the last ball of a largely uneventful over.
“I’m just home from work flicking through the channels,” writes Niall Mullen. “On ITV1 right now is Live Free or Die Hard which I assumed was the cricket. But it turns out the rugged alpha is Bruce Willis and not Baz.”
At least it’s not the Bonfire of the Vanities.
5th over: England 26-0 (Crawley 5, Duckett 21) Crawley is beaten by an immaculate delivery from Starc, angled across from over the wicket. Starc has bowled excellently with the new ball and could easily have made an early breakthrough.
“Another quiet (anonymous) hello from the floe,” writes Mr Anonymous. “If you have a spare moment (maniacal laughter) please thank Gary Naylor, both for his regular contributions and specifically for tonight’s reference to Soap, watching of which helped keep me sane during midnight feeds with the sonchick a mere 35 years ago…”
And thank you both for – I’ve no idea when this last happened – making me feel young.
4th over: England 21-0 (Crawley 2, Duckett 19) Cummins, bowling around the wicket, is slightly too straight to Duckett, who picks him off behind square for four.
Cummins adjusts his line and slips a good delivery past the outside edge. Duckett lashes a boundary through extra cover and then inside edges past the stumps. It’s been a mixed start from Duckett, with four emphatic boundaries and a number of false strokes.
In case you missed it, Tanya Aldred’s piece on the 1936-37 Ashes is as good as you’d expect.
3rd over: England 12-0 (Crawley 2, Duckett 10) Duckett chases a short, very wide delivery from Starc and is beaten. Careful now. He plays a much better stroke next ball, thumping a length ball to the cover boundary. A single off the pads takes Duckett into double figures for the fourth time in five innings this series; the problem for England is that he hasn’t reached 30. Yet.
2nd over: England 7-0 (Crawley 2, Duckett 5) Pat Cummins will take the new ball on his return to the side. He last bowled competitively in Jamaica five months ago, though by all accounts he has looked frighteningly good in the nets.
Duckett edges an excellent delivery just short of the slips, then forces a boundary through extra cover to get off the mark. Nicely played.
“Obviously, in order to make it to the very top of any sport, you have to have a pretty well-developed sense of self-confidence,” writes Matt Dony. “Even the ‘nicest’ elite sportspeople have a steely determination that the rest of us can only imagine. But, even in that world, Ben Stokes’ strength of personality seems incredible. To the point where I simply can’t imagine trying to argue with him on the cricket pitch. Jofra Archer is an astonishing bowler, but does he really think that engaging in a dialectic discussion with his captain will lead to him getting his own way?”
I quite like that Jofra gave as good as he got, even if it was an exercise in futility.
1st over: England 1-0 (Crawley 1, Duckett 0) Zak Crawley pats the first ball of the innings into the leg side for a single. The rest of Starc’s over is majestic, with Duckett beaten twice outside off stump – first by a bit of extra bounce, then by some late movement. Fabulous start.
“Chat GPT has a 120-run win by the 2010-11 team over the 2005 team,” says Chris Paraskevas. “I agree with that: they won in our backyard and without the huge amounts of luck of the 2005 team, though the former will always be more… iconic.”
The 2005 team beat a much better Australia side though. I find it really hard to compare those two England teams, partly because they were so different in style. I suppose a more important question is: WHY DO YOU EVEN NEED TO COMPARE THEM, SMYTH, YOU JOYLESS, ANAL, BACKWARDS-FACING, LIST-OBSESSED f$%&!$.
Right, here we go. Mitchell Starc. First over. You know the drill.
“In the days of old TV, when there was no competitive cricket (because of rain), they used to show replays of old matches,” writes Alisdair Gould. “I was wondering if you could do OBOs for previous matches, once England have ended all competitive cricket for this series by the end of today?”
Why wait till the end of the day?
WICKET! Voges c Stokes b Broad 1 (Australia 21-5)
What. A. Catch. Voges goes, driving squarely to Stokes’ right, but it’s miles away from him so he can’t possibly grab it can h…OH HOLY MOTHER HE CAN! Sensational grab, and Broad’s figures currently read 2.1-1-6-4. Decent.
WICKET! Australia 371 all out (Lyon LBW b Archer 9)
Five wickets for Jofra Archer! Nathan Lyon plays all round a straight one, and Archer is so knackered that he can barely turn round to appeal for LBW. The finger goes up, Lyon reviews – might as well try your luck – but it’s umpire’s call on height and Australia are all out for 371.
That’s a quite outstanding performance from Jofra Archer: 20.2-5-53-5 on an Adelaide shirtfront. The other England bowlers took 5 for 301 between them.
Now it’s up to England’s batters to give Archer some time off. If he has to bowl again today, Archer will be fifty shades of filthy. And rightly so.
91st over: Australia 371-9 (Lyon 9, Boland 14) Ben Stokes turns to his hoover, Josh Tongue. Boland is beaten by a good ball outside off stump but the rest of the over is survived without alarm.
“Without commenting on the score, I’m fascinated by how optimistic Graeme Swann is when commentating,” writes James Walsh. “I know he had a personality that wasn’t for everyone, but I wonder if even in elite sport you need enough of those glass-half-full characters, especially if combined with Swann’s singular talent.”
That’s a very good point, especially as he played in a relatively grizzled and cynical team. I wonder who’d win a match between the 2005 and 2010-11 Ashes winners.
90th over: Australia 370-9 (Lyon 8, Boland 14) Lyon has plenty of time to stand tall and back cut Archer for four. This pitch is flat, certainly for the seamers.
“While it’s good to see Stokes getting a bit animated,” says James Brough, “I’m not sure why he’s having a go at the bloke who’s taken 4 for 40-odd when the rest of the team’s taken 5 for 300.”
It’s not the first time they’ve argued about the field since Jofra returned to the Test team. It looked like Stokes was saying he didn’t want to set a field (in this case by putting in a deep point) for bad bowling. I can see both sides!
89th over: Australia 365-9 (Lyon 4, Boland 14) Carse rams in a bouncer that forces Boland to take evasive action. Just one run from the over.
88th over: Australia 364-9 (Lyon 3, Boland 14) Boland edges Archer over the slips for four to move into double figures. Archer is chasing his fourth Test five-for: he took two against Australia in 2019 and a slightly weird 5 for 102 from 17 overs at Centurion in 2019.
Boland ends the over with a sweetly timed back cut for four. These runs are a mixed blessing for both teams because they suggest a beautiful surface for batting.
87th over: Australia 356-9 (Lyon 3, Boland 6) Boland drives Carse sweetly through mid-off for four, more evidence that this is a very good pitch.
“Pouring petrol on the fire, but it’s worth remembering the on-field umpire gave Alex Carey not out,” says Rowan Sweeney. “Yes, there was a technological cock-up, but the correct decision was made by the third umpire based on the evidence available.”
Agreed. While it’s far from ideal, the potential impact hardly compares to John Dyson’s run-out that wasn’t at Sydney in 1982-83 or even some of the dodgy LBWs against Australia at Trent Bridge in 2005.
86th over: Australia 348-9 (Lyon 1, Boland 0) Archer and Ben Stokes had a very animated chat while celebrating the wicket. I think it was about the field setting: Archer wanted a deep point for Starc, Stokes didn’t agree.
The No11 Boland is beaten by a beauty first up.
WICKET! Australia 348-9 (Starc b Archer 54)
Sheesh, England needed that. Starc slapped Archer for another boundary, his fifth of the morning, but was cleaned up by an excellent delivery that came back to hit the top of middle and leg. Archer is one wicket away from his first Test five-for in six years.
Another fifty for Starc!
85th over: Australia 344-8 (Starc 50, Lyon 1) Mitchell Starc is batting like Garry Sobers. He slams a back cut for four off Brydon Carse, then times another boundary through point. A clip off the pads takes him to a superb fifty, his second in a row, from 73 balls. He’s hit 17 off 10 this morning.
“Regarding yesterday’s delicious Phantom Snicko, I think we’re missing an elephant in the room regarding the technology,” writes Chris Paraskevas. “Forget 4K resolution, forget 1200 frames per second and forget digital altogether. “It’s time we introduced Howard Hawks Eye, which will be shot in Kodak Panchromatic Negative from the 1930s and only played back to the third umpire after it’s been chemically processed, treated and able to run properly through a film projector.
“One of the positives of this system will be that a batter might actually be given out four days after the Test match has finished, which ensures the game moves forward quickly in the short term/one of the teams can have plenty of excuses for their poor bowling.
“PS. A bit warm in Sydney today, perfect conditions for the parrot and newly minted puppy to go ballistic. Couple of drinks on the cards for sure.”
84th over: Australia 334-8 (Starc 41, Lyon 0) Jofra Archer opens the bowling to Mitchell Starc, who is averaging 63 with the bat and 14 with the ball in this series.
Starc’s batting average rises to 67 when he hits Archer for two boundaries, a slash over the slips and a beautifully timed push through the covers.
Here come the Australian batters, Mitchell Starc (33*) and Nathan Lyon (0*). England need to get rid of them quicksmart.
“Dear Rob, writing from Tokyo where it’s a crisp sunny morning and 7°,” begins David. “I note it could reach 39 in Adelaide? Cue the wisdom of Pvte Hudson in Aliens: ‘Yeah man, but it’s a dry heat.’ We’re gonna be OK, right. Snaffle the last two wickets. Lyon and Starc are tailenders, right? Then score 600. Easy.”
Have you been watching the Old Trafford 2023 highlights again?
The consensus is that today and tomorrow will be the best days to bat. England need to go huge, because they won’t fancy chasing too many against Nathan Lyon on day five.
“As the cliche has it, it’s a crucial first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh hour,” writes Gary Naylor. “Are Australia bringing 871 Test wickets into an already winning team or imbalancing their attack with a couple of rusty bowlers? Are England Bazball zealots or pragmatic pros? Did 2006 happen at all? Feels like the opening credits of an episode of Soap.”
England have had a review reinstated after yesterday’s Snicko cock-up. That means they have two left for the remainder of this innings.
It’s already 33 degrees in Adelaide, with temperatures expected to reach 40 degrees. In short, England’s seamers will be utterly filthy if the batters don’t give them the day off (once they’ve taken the last two Australian wickets).
Tanya Aldred
Neville Cardus was covering the tour for the Manchester Guardian, his beautifully written reports later gathered together within the pages of Australian Summer. In his own cracking book The Great Romantic, Duncan Hamilton reports that Cardus told England captain Allen the night before the third Test: “For heaven’s sake clinch the rubber at once. Bradman cannot go on like this much longer.”
Cardus’s premonition was right. The third Test was at Melbourne, where, similar to the recent pink-ball Test at Brisbane, playing the conditions was as important as playing the ball. Thick, fat rain started to fall late on the first day and into the second, and the players were presented with a classic sticky dog. Bradman declared at 200 for nine and England were soon all in a tangle.
With wickets falling quickly, and desperate not to have to bat again that afternoon, Bradman instructed his bowlers to send the ball wide of the wicket and dispatched his prowling close catchers away into the outfield. The next day was to be a rest day and the weather forecast was for hot sunshine. But Allen refused to gamble on bowling Australia out for a second time. He pressed on, and on, till England had lurched to 76 for nine, batting out precious overs as he did so.
Barney Ronay
There is no doubt some parts of the Australian cricket mind have struggled to understand England’s best bowler. “This is where Jofra Archer NEEDS TO STEP UP for his team,” the interchangeable Channel 7 punditry voice rasped just after lunch. At that exact moment Archer had two for seven, everyone else 87 for one. Reality: everyone else needs to step up and support the only person currently doing it.
Tell me, what was it that first convinced you the only black Caribbean-born player on either team was somehow not to be trusted? But then the idea is always out there that Archer somehow isn’t trying, has the incorrect body language, or is uniquely guilty of not bowling his absolute fastest all the time.
It takes a degree of willed ignorance to maintain that a man who has worked his way back from serious injury, who came up as a self-made cricketer, no pathways, no academy, just hard work, is flighty and weak. And yes, it comes back to the chain, which Australia has been a little bit obsessed with on this tour in an oh-no-dad’s-making-an-unfortunate-remark kind of way.
Geoff Lemon
Chalk it up to fates or fortune or a quirk of probability, whatever your inclination. If Australia’s first day of the Adelaide Test was a jigsaw puzzle hurled into the air, most of the pieces landed face up in the right place. It has been a pattern for Australia in this Ashes series: monstered by England’s bowlers in Perth, only to create an even greater collapse; sliding in Brisbane, rescued by the lower order.
England, meanwhile, brought a gameplan built on the surety that they couldn’t win in Australia with medium-fast seamers and a keeper up to the stumps, then lost to medium-fast seamers with a keeper up to the stumps. They were given the gift of no Pat Cummins, no Josh Hazlewood, no Nathan Lyon (in Brisbane) and still managed to lose twice in six days. Their third encounter brought the next gift: Steve Smith missing with an inner-ear problem, their own personal Ghost of Ashes Past replaced in the middle order by a creaking, squinting opener whom Australia had already tried to drop.
Ali Martin
After the pandemonium of Perth and Brisbane’s pink-ball palooza came a more familiar opening day at Adelaide Oval. It was also roasting hot out in the middle – 35C on the mercury – and when the toss went against Ben Stokes and his embattled England players, they could easily have melted.
Instead, despite some sloppiness and Alex Carey’s magical century on the ground he calls home, the tourists kept plugging away with the fight that Stokes called for at 2-0 down. At stumps Australia were 326 for eight from 83 sapping overs – runs on the heritage-listed scoreboard, granted, but short of ambitions when the returning Pat Cummins got the choice first thing.
England are considering a formal complaint over the Snicko technology being used in this Ashes series after Alex Carey received a lifeline en route to a telling century on the opening day of the third Test.
Carey, who made 106 in Australia’s 326 for eight by stumps, was on 72 when Josh Tongue believed the left-hander had edged behind. He was given not out on the field and the third umpire, Chris Gaffaney, felt he did not have enough evidence to overturn the decision despite a spike showing up on the review.
Preamble
Hello one and all. There’s need for any hype ahead of today’s play in Adelaide – everybody knows that it’s on the Brobdingnagian side of huge. The likelihood is that, in the next eight hours, either Australia will take a decisive grip on the 2025-26 Ashes or England’s much maligned batters will breathe new life into the series.
First England’s bowlers need to take the last two wickets. Australia will resume on 326 for 8, a score that should have been better but could have been worse. Most of their batters got themselves out; on the flip side, their top scorers Usman Khawaja (82) and Alex Carey (106) were both dropped and Carey benefitted from a Snicko controversy.
If the pitch is as flat as everyone thinks – Justin Langer called it “a road” – England will hope to take a significant first-innings lead. Given the potential influence of Nathan Lyon in the fourth innings, this is the moment for England’s top eight to deliver. Next time, there’ll be no next time.
