England’s Ashes despair is Steve Smith’s relief

If Steve Smith had written the blueprint in advance it could not have gone more perfectly for him on the final day.

Australia celebrates victory after Mitchell Starc of Australia took the wicket of Jonny Bairstow at Adelaide Oval

As the players walked to the middle on a beautiful afternoon in Adelaide — the skies a piercing blue and the possibilities tantalising and limitless — the electronic scoreboard, which sits next to the old listed equivalent at the Cathedral End of the ground, announced a scoreline to the thousands who had taken advantage of the $2 deal for entry. “0-2” it read in stark, bold lettering.

It was not, sadly, referring to the scoreline in the series, rather the relative DRS standings, as play was about to start. England had two reviews remaining, Australia none, one further sliver of hope to which England’s supporters had clung as they massed along Hindley St in the morning, as well as being the stick with which they had hammered Steve Smith the night before.

Within the small matter of 54 balls, just nine bleak overs in all, the DRS scoreline looked very different, given that Chris Woakes and Moeen Ali had both unsuccessfully reviewed decisions that had gone against them, Woakes a caught behind to his second ball of the morning, Ali leg-before to the sixth he faced from Nathan Lyon.

(England had not actually lost their review for Ali’s dismissal, given that it was adjudged to be clipping the stumps only, but we are in the realm of semantics here.)

Worst of all, sandwiched in between them, was Joe Root who had chosen not to review a bottom edge off Josh Hazlewood from the ninth ball of the morning he received. Like Woakes, Root did not add to his overnight score, his fortitude and excellence on the fourth evening not exactly forgotten but a receding memory. Rarely can hope have been punctured more rapidly: the delicious anticipation of very different kind of Steven Smith press conference from the Gabba, no longer a possibility.

Until the final morning, Smith had endured a difficult second half of the match, letting England off the hook with his decision to not enforce the follow-on, failing in the second innings, dropping a catch and a little too eagerly grasping at reviews, but his judgment on the final morning was precise. If he had written the blueprint in advance it could not have gone more perfectly for him.

Mitchell Starc and Lyon might have seemed the logical choice to get things underway but, no, Smith chose Hazlewood instead. He chose well. If there was a sliver of doubt running through the home team it was not apparent in the way Hazlewood bounded to the crease, hammering out an unerring length. He sometimes gives the impression of lumbering in, arm low and unthreatening, but from the start he looked sharp, the second ball a beauty to Woakes that straightened and clipped the edge.

All the bowlers took their cue from this start. Starc found some reverse swing with the old ball. Lyon furthered his reputation as a slayer of left-handers, by removing Ali for the fourth time in four innings in the series, and Cummins providing little respite until the new ball was due. It took Starc just one ball to strike with that, too, when a perfectly pitched inswinger trapped Craig Overton in front.

With Stuart Broad to the crease, it was just a matter of when, then, and possibly how ugly things would become. Quickly, and not very was the answer: Broad edged Starc behind and Anderson, who the night before had said that if he came to the crease needing about ten to win England stood a chance, arrived with his team still a massive 130 runs in arrears.

At the other end from all this, stood Jonny Bairstow, the focus of all the noise at the end of the Brisbane Test, but almost in splendid isolation now, forced to shepherd the tail again. One thing is clear enough: number seven is too low for him. Whether he moves up one in the order, to split the left-handers, Dawid Malan and Ali, so making life a little more difficult for Lyon, or whether he moves more permanently up the order to play as an out-and-out batsman is an argument for another day.

Bairstow had too much to do and too few comrades for company, and duly had his middle stump flattened by Starc who finished with 5/88, a measure of the riches and potency and variety at Smith’s command. With a week off and Perth to come, these three quick bowlers will be eager to get together again to finish England off.

Just shy of a session, then, 22 overs in all. After that final wicket, the electronic scoreboard screamed a new reality, not of DRS standings this time but of the scoreline in the series: “2-0” it read now, and 2-0 is not the kind of score, which, in these parts, away teams come back to win from.

The Times