Ashes second Test: England’s bowlers make up for batting failures

England’s batting was so bad that it allowed the bowlers a chance to redeem themselves under lights later on.

Nathan Lyon dives to take a catch to dismiss England batsman Moeen Ali in the second Test. Picture: AFP

An Australian tour occasionally requires a grasping at straws, the search for silver linings. Here goes: England’s batting in the first innings was so bad, that, along with Steve Smith’s reluctance to enforce the follow-on, it allowed the bowlers a chance to redeem themselves under lights later on. As a result, England ended the day in a rather better frame of mind than they deserved to be, massively behind in the match but not completely out of it.

Having found himself under the spotlight for his own decision-making at the toss, how Joe Root must have enjoyed the tables being turned on his opposite number last night, after Smith elected to bat again in the juiciest conditions of the match instead of going for the jugular. England’s bowlers then revelled in the conditions, revitalising a team that had, until then, appeared done for.

Given that England were bowled out shortly after the long break, just as twilight was about to descend, Smith must have contemplated making England bat again. After some late resistance from Craig Overton stretched his bowlers’ workload — it took Australia 23 overs to finish off the final three wickets of England’s innings — he followed modern custom instead. Smith then became one of four victims to fall, as Jimmy Anderson, in a lengthy opening spell of eleven overs, and Chris Woakes took two wickets apiece, making the ball move devilishly and late.

So England had an unlikely spring in their step at the close considering they had earlier endured a dreadful first session in which four cheap wickets fell to a combination of challenging fast bowling, high-class spin and some shots unbecoming of the situation or the conditions. As a result, the ignominy of the follow-on hung in the air like a rank smell throughout the day.

It finally enveloped England shortly after dinner, and at that stage the embarrassment was little diminished by Smith’s decision not to enforce it. Gallingly, to highlight just how poorly they had bowled on the first day, Anderson and Stuart Broad then gave Australia’s top order the most searching examination with the pink ball, locating the full length that had eluded them on the first morning of the match.

Well in arrears, the pressure was off by then, not that Root will take any comfort in the likely explanation, nor Cameron Bancroft, who fell cheaply for the second time in the game. After Usman Khawaja fell leg-before, David Warner was caught at slip, and DRS failed to save Smith for a second time, Australia suddenly found themselves keen for the close, an unlikely state of affairs given England’s earlier shortcomings.

Even if red, white and blue were running through your veins, you would have been hard pressed to find excuses for England’s batting in the first two sessions. The clouds were fluffy, high and unthreatening, the sun shone for the first part of the day, and the pitch was utterly blameless. Conditions were at their best, ripe for batsmen to show their true colours, but, my, what a struggle it was.

Menace from one end, guile from the other: ingredients that were missing from the arena during the first two days were present and correct and a permanent threat on the third. For those who trudged around Australia in 2006-07 and 2013-14, this was a familiar, well-worn path, with late resistance unable to draw a veil over earlier failings. Having put Australia in and been forced to contemplate a third new ball, England’s batsmen could neither muster through to a second, nor raise a half-century between them.

Mind you, some of Australia’s out-cricket was compelling: two return catches in particular from Nathan Lyon and Mitchell Starc were of the highest class. Lyon flung himself to his left to pocket a one-handed stunner off Moeen Ali, just after the first break, while Starc pouched a firmly hit drive from Jonny Bairstow on the rebound and on his less favoured side. They were the kind of catches that confirm which way the tide is running.

England were already in the mire by then and there were some worrying signs in the morning that led to it: the waft which brought James Vince’s dismissal in the second over of the day was unbecoming of a number three facing his fourth ball of the morning. Root, yet to stamp his authority on the series, succumbed to an equally loose stroke from Pat Cummins, albeit off front foot not back.

Most troubling, perhaps, was the stranglehold Lyon continued to exert. He came on first change from the Cathedral End and he bowled unchanged through to lunch, allowing Smith to keep his seamers fresh and rotate them from the City end. Eighty-four deliveries spun off his right index finger in that period, most of them curling and dropping onto a precise length, creating a web from which England could not easily wriggle free.

It was thought that England might try to be more proactive against him, but although Dawid Malan skipped down the pitch occasionally — and not with the conviction of a man who was sure of his intentions — 62 of those 84 balls were not scored off. One of them dipped and spun enough to defeat Alastair Cook’s hopeful prod — Smith the recipient at slip — and another might have done Ali, had not the bounce defeated Tim Paine’s attempted catch. Cook had been playing better than at any time on tour, and to be beaten when set was a feather in Lyon’s cap.

Having come on after the fall of Root, Lyon settled into a rhythm against England’s left-handers, Cook, Malan and Ali, and it was not until the last ball of his 11th over, that he was forced to alter his line. All told, just nine balls of his 14 overs prior to lunch were bowled to a right-hander.

It was noticeable how Australia’s control dissipated when Smith removed him from the attack, once Overton joined Woakes. The intention was clearly to bully England’s lower order into submission again, but Overton held firm, played some lusty shots, and looked likely to take England beyond the follow-on, until Woakes misread the length of a ball from Starc and spliced a return catch.

Lyon by this stage had been recalled again to restore order. A sharply spun off-break accounted for Broad and Anderson fell sweeping. That took Lyon to 55 Test wickets for the calendar year, the most by any bowler. For all Australia’s accent on pace, he remains the key to Australia’s attack.

The Times