The England selector has his critics but a bold decision was fully vindicated by his ex-teammate’s imperious batting displayEd Smith doesn’t look as if he goes around punching the air much, at least not in public. But then, England’s national selector doesn’t really resemble an England selector either, traditionally the home of the florid, blazered eminence. Smith tends to look as if he’s stopped off briefly on a motoring tour of 1930s Tuscany, or like James Joyce has unaccountably been offered a job as senior vice-president at Morgan Stanley.New things, new people, new methods. Smith has also been the object of some ambient chuntering during these last few weeks of Ashes cricket. This is a chief selector whose picks have...
England are in charge of the final Test against Australia but apart from some feral behaviour it all felt a little subduedAt 4.17pm on Saturday Ben Stokes’s work with the bat this summer come to an end. Nathan Lyon, the bungling henchman to his superhero at Headingley, got one to dip into the pads, rag past the outside edge and kiss the top of off stump.It was a beautiful piece of spin bowling. But when a drowsy Oval crowd offered Stokes the polite applause that a score of 67 might usually merit, a chance to thank the all-rounder for his efforts during this epic home season felt slightly missed. Related: Joe Denly misses out on century but steers England to...
Left-armer brought intensity to an England side that have lacked bite in the face of Steve Smith’s remorseless brillianceAs the shadows stretched out at the Oval on a lovely soft, drowsy Friday afternoon, something strange happened. Sam Curran took the ball from the Vauxhall end, paced out his comically furious run-up, and began to whistle up an unfamiliar kind of energy.Curran, with his 81mph full-pitch swingers, is an unlikely enforcer. But his outstanding quality is his intensity of purpose. Steve Smith fenced and was dropped by Joe Root. Tim Paine drove at an away-nibbler. Pat Cummins went lbw to another full, drifty hand grenade. Each time Curran came leaping down the pitch punching the air. Related: Jofra Archer’s six wickets...
All-rounder is always a controversial pick but he swung the ball more than any bowler in the series to grab four England wicketsWhenever a team sheet appears featuring the name “Marsh” these days, you can hear a distant rumbling begin. It gathers pace across the Australian continent, growing in volume and intensity, as the voice of cricket followers swells into a storm of discontent. Bloody Marsh again, is the general tenor. How many times? What dirt does he have on the selectors? And so on, and so on.Whether the selection in question involves Mitchell, as in the fifth Ashes Test here at the Oval, or his older brother Shaun, who was part of Australia’s World Cup campaign, the response isn’t...
Root entered his own Bermuda triangle, once again, after passing 50 before getting out to a fearsome Pat Cummins ballTo receive one stump‑splaying, seam‑fizzing, late‑afternoon miracle ball from Pat Cummins might be considered a misfortune. To get two in five days starts to look like … well, what exactly?Bad luck for Joe Root, certainly, whose misfortune it was to face the opening ball of Cummins’s 15th over on the first day of this Oval Test. It was Cummins who had brought Root to the crease half an hour into the day, luring Joe Denly into a doomed push-drive against the new ball. Related: Jos Buttler rescues England after familiar collapse against Australia Continue reading...