A spin bowler with no back-up is basically someone bowling slowly and hoping for the bestAt what point in the ledger of brutal, sapping days, of boundary-fumbling jeers and spiralling numbers, does a tour from hell tick over into something more human and manageable: a tour from limbo or purgatory, from the uneasy netherworld of the merely very bad?English spinners have tended to die the most public of sporting deaths in Australia. Take the long view and the realistic goal for these brave, lost boys, these gadabouts in Napoleonic uniforms marching in single file across the flatlands, is to avoid being the worst guy, the one with the quiz question numbers, the English spin bowler who gets to define this...
Centuries at the SCG showcased both sides of Khawaja’s game and could re-establish him as a Test regular beyond these AshesIf you’re going to make a statement, you might as well make it emphatic. That has been the attitude reflected in Usman Khawaja’s feats in Sydney at the fourth Ashes Test as he followed his first-innings 137 with an unbeaten 101. He joined the very rare club to have made twin centuries in a Test, alongside 16 other Australians, and in scoring his 10th Test ton he levelled up with Lindsay Hassett, Bob Simpson and Simon Katich.The first century was the work of an opener, even if in this match he was required to bat at No 5. Khawaja left...
Injury and illness left Australia with a job that needed to be done at No 5 – Usman Khawaja did it immaculatelyThere was a moment early in the second day at the Sydney Cricket Ground when Steve Smith looked nailed on for a hundred. Sure, it was a dot ball, and sure, he was on seven at the time. But there was something about the way he stepped into a straight drive back at Stuart Broad, the feet moving perfectly, the timing crisp with no attempt at power, the line so straight that the bowler bent to scoop up the ball. At the ground where Smith made three international centuries in the previous Australian summer, he looked like Smith looks...
At last there is a contest in this Ashes series, while action in New Zealand and South Africa shows the red-ball duel is in rude health: take note, ECBAnd here, as they used to say on TV game shows – as that tumble dryer, that golden fondue set, drifts off down the conveyor belt – is the Test cricket you might have had.Four distinct but interconnected things happened overnight as England and Australia played out the opening rain-addled day of the fourth Ashes Test in Sydney. First, England and Australia played out the opening rain‑addled day at the SCG, where Joe Root’s team produced their most sustained performance of the southern summer. Continue reading...
Dramatic rivalry should have been rekindled in Brisbane though England’s batting is so bad it would not have changed the resultWhen Stuart Broad took David Warner’s edge on the first day of the Sydney Test, into the slip cordon to be safely clasped, it felt like something clicked into place. This was the scent of a familiar dish, or YouTubing a favourite scene from a movie. The reassurance of the familiar, and the rightness of something that should be just so.At the same time, there was the unmistakable sense that thousands of people across the world were shouting at their television sets that they had told you so, or told someone so, and why had nobody listened? Continue reading...