Undertaker’s cart is creaking across the cobbles but the ashes of these Ashes are not quite ready to be scatteredClang. Bring out your dead. There was something a little ghoulish about the spectacle down the wires from Adelaide as England’s last-wicket pair attempted to push the second Ashes Test into its final knockings on day five.An Australian Ashes summer always has a strangeness about it seen from 10,000 miles away: those bleached-out greens and blues bounced around the world and beamed out into the depths of a northern winter. Watching James Anderson and Stuart Broad fence and fend at the teeth-and-toes assault of the 6ft 6in, 92mph Mitchell Starc, it was hard to avoid the feeing of something hollow-eyed and...
A comprehensive victory achieved without their captain and two best bowlers means talk of Australia winning 5-0 again is not just for laughsFive-nil now has a life of its own. Whenever England come to Australia for an Ashes tour, it has become traditional to speculate about the prospect of a series whitewash. What started as a comedy routine by Glenn McGrath has become pre-series bravado from home pundits, a performative dance done on the ramparts as invaders approach the keep. On most recent tours, though, it has been the visitors who end up living in a state of siege. And after Australia went 2-0 up by winning the second Test in Adelaide, that scoreline is beginning to firm up in...
A series that means everything to both boards financially could easily be derailed by an outbreak at the wrong momentAs Jhye Richardson and Michael Neser went to sleep after the fourth day of the Adelaide Ashes Test, they could easily have been wondering about what might soon come to pass. Both have bowled well as Australia’s replacement fast bowlers, and over the first four days neither has outperformed the other.Richardson bowled aggressively in the first innings without a wicket, Neser more economically took one. Richardson has so far taken two in the second innings, Neser another. Patrick Cummins will definitely return for the Melbourne Test, Josh Hazlewood might. If there is still a vacancy, the fifth day in Adelaide may...
Pyrrhic victories and pointless triumphs were all the tourists had to hold on to on a sometimes comical day four in BrisbaneFor England, a day of pyrrhic victories and pointless triumphs. It was their first good bowling day of the series: unfortunately, it began with Australia almost 300 runs ahead in their second innings. Jos Buttler restored his fragile confidence with two fine sprawling catches, either side of the regulation chance he dropped off Steve Smith’s first ball.Rory Burns finally showed some fight at the top of the order, his 34 knocking off a little over 7% of England’s 468-run target. And the captain, Joe Root, courageously batted on despite receiving two painful blows to what was euphemistically described as...
All-rounder’s numbers are not too special but he has curtailed England by twice removing their talisman in these AshesDecades from now, when some awkward teenager in a biosecure bunker tries to forget about the grimness of the dying planet outside by scrolling through old cricket statistics on their settlement’s offline intranet, they will think that Joe Root in 2021 must have been kissed on the nose by a sunbeam. Not only did he get to spend time outdoors, above ground, with no concern for atmospheric chlorine or flying sharks, but he made runs wherever he went, against all-comers, racing up the record list like a 12-legged scorpion up a respirator pipe.For his final stanza, the tour of Australia, his numbers...