Five tempestuous, hysterical days ended with Australia playing the old-fashioned way until desperation won the dayEveryone talks about big first hours. That’s because first hours need all the hype they can get. Nobody needs to sell the last hour of a Test match. And particularly not a Test on this epic, colossal, orchestral scale, a Test that shook you from its very first ball and never stopped shaking.Take the devastating tension of a tight Twenty20, the ebb and grapple of a really good one-day international, and then make it big. Stretch it out over almost a week. Throw in some random weather phenomena, enough booze to fill the Caspian, batters forced to bowl and bowlers forced to bat. Cricket: good....
Even if they win this first Ashes Test, the home team have a tender spot at wicketkeeper – bring back Ben FoakesAs the clock ticked past 4.36pm, the sun already burning through the mid-afternoon haze, there was some literal Bazball to be seen on lime-green Edgbaston outfield – raw, foraged Bazball – as Brendon McCullum took Jonny Bairstow for his wicketkeeping warmup before Australia’s fourth-innings chase.And of course it wasn’t about the catches, walloped into the gloves with a deliciously grizzled bat. This was all about the hugs, the words in the ear, the million-dollar smile, the sense of voodoo, bro-vibes, man-feelings. Continue reading...
Excellent bowling by captain Pat Cummins was counteracted by allowing tailenders to add 63 before losing Labuschagne and Smith at the deathFor most of the day, Pat Cummins under duress held things together. First it was in the face of Joe Root’s early onslaught, one that would have been withering not just for its rate of scoring but the cheerfully insouciant air with which it was carried out. England had piled on 49 runs in 39 balls before Cummins produced magic, the quintessential booming yorker that swung in at Vin Diesel pace and demolished Ollie Pope’s off stump. Root carried on with Harry Brook, at times making Cummins rejig the field every few balls, while also bowling a seven-over spell...
With his methodical batting on day four at Egbaston, did we witness the logical next step for Bazball? Hello meta-Bazball – or, conventional Test cricketBen Stokes walks to the wicket slowly. This is pretty much the only thing he does slowly these days. Harry Brook tries to say a few words to him as he arrives, but Stokes isn’t really listening. There’s a little poke and a nudge of the pitch, dust and debris swept away with a swish of his bat, a kind of purification ritual, like a sumo sanctifying the dohyo. He takes his time, makes us wait, makes us watch: a man who has long since made his peace with the gaze of others. This is his...
Even the old sorts can appreciate the sporting artistry of the manoeuvre that Root instigated for England at EdgbastonThe way Mushtaq Mohammad tells the story it all started in a one-day game at Vale Farm in Wembley, Middlesex against Rothman’s International Cavaliers, on 15 August 1965. You know it must have been a Sunday because Cavaliers were a hit-and-giggle exhibition team set up by Ted Dexter and Harvey Bagnall to fill the gap in the afternoon TV schedules on the sabbath. They paid Mohammad £10 a game to play, which, like the 209 Middlesex made off their 40 overs, felt a lot more back then than it sounds now.Fred Titmus was bowling, and Mohammad says he was wondering where, exactly,...