Australia’s off-spinner made knocking off England in their second innings look a simple operation while his England counterpart will not be sorry to leave EdgbastonAgainst Australia in particular Moeen Ali has days like these. Days like the fourth of the Edgbaston Test when he started his bowling for the morning with a beamer looped at Steve Smith’s head. The former Australia captain usually bats like he is being attacked by wasps but this time even more so as he swatted his bat around at face height. He went on to take 57 runs from Moeen in the innings as the spinner went for 130.Days like the third day at Edgbaston when Moeen, on nought, left alone a ball from Nathan...
Head hits early and often, Wade is ready to chance his arm – perfect players to ride shotgun alongside Steve SmithCricket teams are all about balance. Right-handers with left-handers, leg-spinners with off‑spinners, the range of personality and style and temperament and approach that make a team a complex and evolving creation, reflecting light from its varied facets.After the fourth day of the Edgbaston Ashes Test, my colleagues in these pages have doubtless described Steve Smith in terms of a computer or machine, having calculated Australia’s course through the match. At the same time he was accompanied by two players who are extremely human. The balance was just right: one-part organism to one-part mechanism. Related: Australia take control of Test after...
Australian’s second hundred of Test shows he is a sporting phenomenon to be treasured whatever your passportWell, what did you see my blue eyed son? And what did you see, my darling young one? I saw a man batting without a chance for 149 overs. I saw Joe Denly bowling in mid-afternoon. I saw a thousand pad-roll fiddles and five hundred box-flicks. I saw a game and a series and a career defined.And yes, like everyone else I saw quite a lot of Steve Smith. The fourth day of this first Ashes Test may have ended with England’s openers battling for survival, set an impossible 398 to win and a day to play out for a draw. But once again...
It makes no sense that James Pattinson can hit the England captain’s stumps but not take his wicket simply because the bails remain onIt’s the end of the 21st over of England’s first innings at Edgbaston. The Australian quick James Pattinson is finishing his seventh. He’s been rapid, moved the ball through the air, threatened constantly. He bowls the England captain, Joe Root, a combination of all three. Angle in towards the stumps, a hint of swing. Straightening off the seam to beat Root’s shot as he steps across to try to cover the line. A wooden sound, and the umpire gives him out caught behind.Root’s review reveals a spike on the waveform sound-tracking graph. But not when the ball...
The Australian batsman was booed on his way to the crease, but 144 runs later left to applause from all around the groundThey came for one kind of story. What they got was another entirely. Under gloomy Birmingham skies Steve Smith produced an innings of rare and compelling brilliance, ending on 144 out of 284 and transforming through a combination of craft and will the direction of this first Ashes Test.It came, of course, in the most extraordinary circumstances. We booed him out – and we booed him back in again. And then in again. And then out. And then again at 4.44pm as Smith sprinted off the field, only to come haring back on again as the covers were...