Joe Root and Trevor Bayliss safe despite Ashes humbling but selectors’ emphasis on character over record and a reluctance to shuffle the pack needs scrutinyIt has been gruelling for England’s players but they should not forget this Ashes tour in a hurry. Every humiliation, every defeat should be stored away.Remember it well: the preposterous head-butt, the missed opportunities such as Australia’s 209 for seven becoming 328 all out in Brisbane and England’s 368 for four becoming 403 all out in Perth, Steve Smith batting, the Marsh brothers reuniting, the bouncer barrage at the tail, Smith batting, left-handers groping against Nathan Lyon, the hashtag “Beat England” everywhere and repeated on our screens by prime minister Malcolm Turnbull one moment, Usain Bolt, even...
The Australia batsman fired back at the criticism that has dogged his Test career with a memorable first Ashes century, achieved in his home townLazy. Soft. Doesn’t care. Mark Waugh heard it all and more from the moment he came out of the Test cricket womb until his final Baggy Green breath. It drove him mad. “Why on Earth wouldn’t I do my best when there’s so much at stake?” he wrote before retiring. “I’ve carried that ‘casual, lazy’ tag for years, a bit like England’s David Gower. It just isn’t true.” Speaking a decade on from giving it all away, it still riled him. “I got pigeonholed,” he said. “But you don’t play 100 Tests if you’re not a...
Australia No3’s decision to replace the natural with the essential pays off as he approaches a maiden Ashes century in the fifth TestUsman Khawaja learned to bat within a cover drive of the SCG. There was a natural romance to his Test debut at the ground against England seven years ago. It inspired a bout of full-blown Usmania. The local newspaper devoted more pages than have ever been written about a knock of 37. His mum sat in the Members Stand praying for her boy’s success. The nation watched on in the belief that the stylish left-hander was a worthy find from Ashes rubble.It took five years for Usmania to come again. Between times he conceded there were moments when...
The 20-year-old generated oohs and aahs from deliveries that troubled Australia’s batsmen and had Warne praising his line and ability to spin the ball hardThe second day of the fifth Ashes Test in Sydney was one of crisp blue skies and beautiful batting conditions, bringing with it a nagging sense of what might have been for England’s specialists after the previous evening’s two-wicket, nightwatchman-less cluster against the second new ball.Nevertheless, the tail wagged for the second Test in a row and 346 all out gave England a total from which they have never lost before at the SCG, even if we have learned over the last two winters that the current generation possess an ability to torch such statistical comforts...
The 24-year-old can look forward to his first year of uninterrupted Test cricket after an Ashes that looks to have laid to rest an injury-plagued start to his careerSydney is a city of celebration in January. A place that really loves a firework to see in the new year. What they enjoy more than that is the coronation of a rampant Australia finishing off a five-nil Ashes whitewash, or saying farewell to a champion (or three). But with neither of those joys available and the opening morning of the fifth Test washed away, it was all a bit drab until, with a late surge, the ground awoke.The best treat locals have had at the SCG in modern times was when...