By Andrew Wu
Recap all the action from day three of the Gabba Test here
Brisbane: Australians saw in Perth what happens when Bazball is played without brains. On Saturday, it became evident what happens when there is no boldness either.
Of all the bad days England have had in the field on these shores, few would have matched Saturday for meekness and mindlessness.
A team that has too often tipped over into recklessness with the bat – and did again – bowled with no sense of adventure or imagination. They copped their right whack. Defeat will come, probably as early as Sunday.
The time to attack for England came long before openers Zak Crawley and Ben Duckett strode out to bat as the floodlights began to take effect. It arrived hours earlier – at 2.44pm local time, to be precise – when Alex Carey nicked off with the lead at a not insignificant but still manageable 82.
With only Nos.10 and 11 to accompany Mitchell Starc, and a pink ball just three overs’ old, the end should have come swiftly. Instead, the lead more than doubled, due primarily to the 75-run partnership between Starc and Scott Boland. No ninth-wicket pairing for Australia has scored more at the Gabba.
Days ago, Ben Stokes bristled at Mitchell Johnson’s description of his team as arrogant. The England captain was proven right with his deferential approach to Starc.
Starc is a capable lower-order batter who has a 99 and now 11 other half-centuries to his name – but he is still a No.9 – and one who had passed 20 just once in his previous 18 innings. Rather than viewing him as such, Stokes’ men afforded him the respect saved for Steve Smith.
That was close: Ben Stokes takes the catch to dismiss Mitchell Starc, despite a near collision with Ben Duckett.Credit: AP
England will disagree they had given up on dismissing Starc, but their approach suggested otherwise. They have attacked Starc the bowler with more gusto than Starc the batter. Neither worked. It was almost as if they believed by making him bat for longer, it would sap him of the energy to bowl.
With the second pink ball still newish, Stokes spread the field for Starc, deploying four boundary riders, and no one to save a single. He may as well have passed Starc a note saying, “We can’t get you out”.
“They were trying to allow him to take the single and do what he wanted to do,” England assistant coach Marcus Trescothick said.
“We were then trying to bowl in a way that would hopefully force an error or cause a mistake and it didn’t happen in the fashion we wanted it to do, the bowlers being more tired at that stage. Nonetheless, he played well.
“Credit to him how he went about his business. He made it tricky for us and got Australia into a position where they are now.”
Starc, whose 77 was Australia’s top score and his best knock in nine years, has regularly dictated proceedings with the ball but seldom with the bat, yet here he was marshalling England like a traffic cop, choosing at his pleasure when to allow them through to bowl at Boland.
Of the 16 overs Boland was at the crease before lunch, he faced more than two balls in the over just three times. England could not string enough deliveries together to build the pressure around the No.10. He and Starc added 75 for the ninth wicket, a record for Australia at this venue.
“That was odd,” Australian Test great Adam Gilchrist, a commentator for Kayo Sports, told this masthead about the tactics to Starc. “They didn’t try to get him out, they didn’t even bring the field up for the fifth ball, and he’d take one. It was all a bit odd.
“I’m not sure what the tactic was, it didn’t work and allowed Mitchell Starc time to keep his eye in, feel more and more comfortable with every ball. He was always going to hurt you because he’s a very skilful player when he gets the opportunity.
“It was an error in judgment, I think.”
Starc shunned his natural aggression to adapt to the game, one of the traits which stand-in captain Smith said defined the Australian way of playing Test cricket.
“We always talk about playing at our own tempo,” skipper Pat Cummins said during a calling stint on Kayo Sports. “We want to drive the game, and control the game. I think this morning was the perfect example of that.”
England’s Bazballers read the game like it is written in hieroglyphics.
Take Ollie Pope’s reflex shy at the stumps from short leg, which gave Starc an overthrow to get off strike on the fifth ball of an over and see out the final over before tea; or the desperate dive right on the break to save a boundary, resulting in a three which gave Starc the strike first up after the interval.
Scoring was not Australia’s main objective. Minutes mattered as much as runs to an Australian team which wanted England to start their innings at twilight or, better still, under lights.
Ben Duckett chopped on off Scott Boland’s bowling.Credit: Getty Images
The payoff came in the final session when England’s batters, their minds frazzled by the extra hours in the sun and the ugly set of numbers on the scoreboard, repeated the mistakes they made two weeks earlier. Their third, fourth, fifth and sixth-wicket pairings added half that of Starc and Boland.
“Tactically, Australia today have played it perfectly,” Gilchrist said. “They started their approach from the start of the day with the end of the day in mind.”
England was the chess novice unaware their opponent was several moves ahead. It’s too late now to avoid checkmate.
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