England are 1-0 down in the Ashes after careering to a defeat inside two days at Perth.
This time yesterday, England were ahead. They had one wicket to take to secure a first-innings lead, and their bowling attack had blasted through Australia to leave them battered and bruised. Usman Khawaja’s dodgy back was the proof of pre-series jibes over Australia’s ageing squad, and it didn’t matter that England’s batting was bad, because so was Australia’s. England’s bad was better.
Twenty-four hours later, it’s England who are shell shocked. Up until Lunch, they were in the driving seat, marching towards a spectacular victory – their first in Australia for almost 15 years. That significance would have been dwarfed by the vindication that the plan they’ve been fine-tuning for three years had worked: sack off the attritional approach, and hit them harder and faster. Instead, they’ve been left exposed, baffled by Travis Head, who showed England’s approach was the right one, he’s just better at it.
Going 1-0 down in Ashes series Down Under is almost always terminal for England. Of their five postwar series wins in Australia, only one of those came after losing the first Test. However, and stay with me here, that might not be as important this time around. England make the Tests they play volatile, and the same criticisms levied at Australia before the Perth Test are still there. What’s changed now, is all talk of England claiming the favourites tag has been silenced. Nevertheless, there were some fleeting positives – yes, positives – to take from the series opener as an England supporter.
It will get easier to bat at some point
Don’t get me wrong, England were the makers of their own calamities with the bat. But, the Perth posed its challenges. The Perth Stadium was expected to bring a fast, bouncy surface, emulating the beloved WACA pitch it’s replaced. There was plenty of grass left on for the first day, ready for Mitchell Starc to exploit with the new ball, and so he did. Cracks were starting to develop at the end of day two, but quite simply, neither team batted long enough to take whatever bite there was fully out of the surface.
The role of the pitch shouldn’t be overplayed – Head’s innings showed that – but England will get easier conditions to bat in over the rest of the series. The flip side of that is the Australia will get them too.
Despite the carnage, Brook and Pope did well enough
Again, hold the pitchforks. If you take Harry Brook’s first innings dismissal in isolation, it’s horrible. A nothing ball which Brook chased, and then tried to stop himself when it was too late. But, at the point he came in when Joe Root had gone for a duck and England were 39-3, he did what he does best – flipping the script when England were in too deep. For about half an hour when Brook and Pope were together, it looked like they were going to pull it off. With Starc snorting from one end, the best bowling conditions of the game, the collapse already having happened, sitting and weathering the storm in wasn’t going to produce the desired result.
As it happened, Pope missed a straight one and that was that. But, when Australia batted, they’d scored 76 runs when they lost their fifth wicket in the 30th over. At the same point, England were 153-5. England stayed in and ahead of the game as long as they did in part because of Brook and Pope’s adrenaline-fuelled counter-attack.
England’s pace attack fired almost exactly as hoped
England have been carefully crafting their bowling attack for this series for years, wrapping Archer and Wood in cotton wool, pushing James Anderson into retirement to bring Carse and Atkinson through, and leaving out English medium-pacers tearing up the Championship in favour of true quicks. Despite Head’s final session onslaught, it’s worked. England have a pace attack capable of troubling Australia at home. Marnus Labuschagne and Steve Smith, two batters who have scored with ease against England in Australian Ashes series past, looked powerless against Atkinson and Archer, and spent most of their first-innings partnership in survival mode. Smith was whacked on the elbow twice, Green copped a blow to the head. They weren’t at their best on the second evening, but when they’re on, they’re awesome.
England are winning the Moral Ashes
The inaugural moral Ashes ended in a dead heat in 2023 – here’s a reminder of the score breakdown – but England have taken the lead in the rematch. A truly baffling piece of TV umpiring saw Jamie Smith given out despite umpire Sharfuddoula declaring minutes before, and it was minutes with an S, “as the ball passes the bat there is nothing there”. The previous day, a small movement on the Snicko when the ball went past Labuschagne’s bat didn’t require such a close look. Smith may well have hit the ball, he walked and the murmur appeared within one frame of the ball passing his bat. Nevertheless, umpire Sharfuddoula has handed England a 1-0 lead in the most important contest of the winter.
We might get to see Matthew Hayden walk nude around the SCG
You can decide for yourself whether this is a positive. Regardless of which way you swing on that, Joe Root’s campaign to right his century record in Australia has started on a bum note. He looked jittery in his seven-ball stay at the crease on day one, flashing at Starc before nicking off for a duck. He was better on day two but still had his stumps stripped out of the ground when he under-edged to continue the collapse. Hayden has terrorised many-a Englishman Down-Under, but perhaps the threat he’s holding over Root will turn out to be his greatest contribution to Australian cricket.
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