England’s Ashes dream hangs by a thread

Joe Root and his team are 2-0 down in the Ashes and running out of answers

A tour two years in the planning has unravelled in nine days of cricket. Only one team in the history of the Ashes has come back from a two-Test deficit to win and that was one inspired by a cricketer, Don Bradman, regarded as the greatest the game has seen.

If the history books provide glum reading, then present viewing is not much better, despite the spirit so evident on the final afternoon as England clung doggedly to the hope of a draw.

There was fight, of course there was. After the early dismissal of Ollie Pope, all England’s batsmen had to be prised from the crease and the way in which they made Australia work for their gains only added to the regret from the night before when their best batsman, Joe Root, was dismissed by the final ball of the day. Had he survived that examination, who knows what might have been on the final day?

Although a beating competitive heart is the minimum expectation of an international team, England carried the game far, far deeper than many thought possible once two wickets had fallen in the opening hour. It wasn’t until after tea, with the shadows long lengthened over the entire ground, that Australia administered the full stop when Jhye Richardson accounted for James Anderson after he fended a short ball into the gully.

That the day carried any residual interest at all was due to Jos Buttler who, one day, when the pain has subsided, will be able to tell his grandchildren about the time he blocked like Geoff Boycott. Playing his second-longest Test innings, Buttler defied Australia through much of the morning, all of the afternoon, and until two overs after the tea break, by which point he had brought some hope where previously there had been none. There were 24 overs remaining when he was dismissed.

The freakish nature of his dismissal only added to the pain. Pushed onto the back foot by the pace of Richardson, who took his maiden five-wicket haul by bowling quickly and with great spirit, Buttler misjudged the depth of his crease, dislodging the bails when his back foot brushed the stumps. It was a cruel way to go after an innings of astonishing self-restraint (26 from 207 balls, including only nine runs in the extended afternoon session), although after a duck in the first innings and three dropped catches, Buttler knew he had ground to make up.

He is old enough and experienced enough to know that the encomiums that will follow his fine rearguard action could have been obituaries for his Test career instead, had Alex Carey accepted a chance before he had scored off the eighth ball faced. Such is the game: Carey, who had not put a foot wrong until this point, would have fretted as long as Buttler was out there fighting for the cause, while Buttler has now been given an opportunity to turn his tour around.

To say Carey dropped the chance created by Mitchell Starc would be an exaggeration, as he allowed the edge to slip by without attempting to intercept it. As the edge flew between him and David Warner at first slip, Carey feigned to go and then stopped, at which point Warner simply stepped aside to allow the wicketkeeper room to dive and the ball flew to the boundary. Had that been taken, England would likely have subsided by lunch, but Buttler did not give another chance until dismissed.

There was only a sliver of hope for England at the start of the day, reduced further when Pope and Ben Stokes fell in the opening hour. Pope’s tour has not started well. His defence has looked shaky against Nathan Lyon, resulting in a tempo the wrong side of the line between assertive and frenetic, and in the second innings here he failed to cope with the angle of Starc, fencing at a ball fully two stumps wide. As the ball nestled in the hands of Steve Smith at slip Pope did a small jig of frustration — this was a sucker punch.

Stokes had defended resolutely against Lyon, with plenty of close catchers for company. His method was to play deep from the crease and move across to off stump, to negate the spin, so Lyon varied his pace and the amount of side and over-spin put on the ball to try to deceive Stokes in the air. He finally did so, after an hour, with a ball a little quicker and flatter than before, producing a thunderous appeal and a leg-before decision upheld on DRS review.

The expectation was for a quick kill, much as had happened at this ground in 2017, when Australia’s victory came in a rush on the fifth morning. It was Chris Woakes who stopped the rot, by joining Buttler in the 57th over of the innings and staying with him until eight overs after the second new ball had been taken. Woakes’s bowling has been ineffectual throughout the opening two Tests, but his simple batting technique compares well with his top-order colleagues.

Woakes’s was one of only two wickets to fall in the afternoon, as the ball softened and the pitch fell to sleep, and Smith continued to search for the breakthrough. It needed a good ball to beat Woakes and Richardson provided it with a sharp break-back that crashed into middle stump. Ollie Robinson lasted 39 balls before edging Lyon to slip, bringing the off spinner level with Shane Warne for wickets taken on this ground. Tea came with 26 overs remaining and two wickets required. Hope was snuffed out with Buttler’s dismissal shortly after the break.

Given Lyon’s success, and the way he combined with Starc to shackle England, one of the odd sights in this game was to witness Robinson lumbering in to bowl off spin on the fourth day. Once an off spinner at the Kent academy by all accounts, he was requisitioned into action by the stand-in captain, Stokes, in the absence of a first-choice spinner, Jack Leach, and Root, who was off the field having his injury attended to.

Now, no one in their right mind would account for England’s present predicament on the basis of Leach’s absence from Adelaide, but his non-selection reflected much of the woolly and flawed thinking that has characterised the touring side’s Ashes campaign so far. Would Leach have made a difference? Probably not. Should he have played? Of course he should. Mark Wood was rested, they say. But for what? England are now 2-0 down.

Robinson bowling off spin, Lyon ripping it square and England’s spinners sat on the bench. You couldn’t make it up, really.

The margin of defeat was a mighty one, and the fighting spirit on the last afternoon should not camouflage the fact that England, for the second time in as many Tests, have been out-thought and outplayed. Once again the batting has been completely underwhelming and they will face a returning and refreshed Pat Cummins next after Australia announced an unchanged squad for the Boxing Day Test. Root’s Ashes dreams hang by a thread.

The Times