Birmingham: Close observers of the Rumble in the Jungle in 1974 reported that, following the end of the first round, Muhammad Ali took a moment to compose himself. He was reckoning with how, after months of buildup, he finally knew what it was like to be in the ring with the powerful and merciless George Foreman.
“Ali looked into himself and said ‘this is the moment, this is what you’ve been waiting for, this is that hour, and do you have the guts’,” Norman Mailer recounted in When We Were Kings, “and he kind of nodded to himself like ‘you really got to get it together, and you will get it together’...”
Joe Root reverse scoops for six.Credit: Getty
This compelling day one of the Ashes was a similar kind of experience for Australia’s cricketers. Fielding in front of a raucous crowd at sun-drenched Edgbaston, they were finally face to face with a supercharged England batting lineup, playing the Bazball inspired by their mercurial leader Ben Stokes.
At the centre of it all was Joe Root, who crafted a hundred of top quality – his first against Australia since the 2015 series, which was also the last England won.
Viewed live, the reality of England’s batting, especially in conditions as docile as the pitch laid out here, is that it is skilful and calculated aggression with plenty of physicality. Not merely in terms of the shotmaking, but with a constant hustle between the wickets much more common to white ball games.
During their stand of 121, Root and Jonny Bairstow often made the Australians look old and slow in the field.
Thanks largely to Nathan Lyon, England’s innings did not truly get away from Australia, but in reaching 393 followed by Stokes’ declaration with half an hour to go, the hosts had set down a marker. The day’s tally of 407 runs was precisely the same amount scored by England at Edgbaston in 2005.
The striking image of the day was not so much any single piece of memorable play, although of those there were several. It was the sight of Australia’s fielders haring around the Edgbaston outfield, trying and sometimes failing to save boundaries, prevent twos or take catches. Captain Pat Cummins, Travis Head and Alex Carey each grassed difficult but catchable chances.
England have proven they can maintain this tempo for the whole series; it will be a considerable physical and mental challenge for Australia to keep up.
“I don’t think there was too much slogging. I don’t think there’s been a whole lot of slogging over the last 12 months either, to be honest,” Bairstow said.
“The little things you’re able to press on and have an impact on, like the running between the wickets ... you can hustle between the wickets, turn those ones into two and you’ve got 20 extra at the end of the day.
“That’s something that as a group we want to be known for, that hustle, that endeavour to get back on strike, endeavour to run the three, and put your fielders under pressure.”
Zak Crawley’s imperious cover drive from Cummins’ opening ball of the Test – obligingly full and wide – was the equivalent of a punch in the mouth in the opening seconds of a heavyweight bout, but just as telling was the field set beforehand.
Cummins and head coach Andrew McDonald have worked at formulating multiple plans for all of England’s batters. But to start the Test with a boundary sweeper was a jarring sight for many, even if England had themselves used the tactic with success against the fast-scoring Australian team of the 2005 Ashes.
While Ben Duckett’s flaws outside off stump saw him swiftly dispatched by Josh Hazlewood, and Ollie Pope was outsmarted by Lyon, England hit only 12 boundaries in the morning session but were able to collect 54 singles.
Many of these came through a vacant midwicket, and Cummins regained a significant measure of control once he placed one close enough to hunt for catches and stop the strike rotating.
It was after this adjustment that Crawley, who had driven the ball with tremendous poise and power, gloved Scott Boland behind after receiving one of few deliveries that seamed and jumped from a strip that was more redolent of IPL surfaces than those seen in English Ashes Tests.
Control was also harder for Cummins to maintain because, for the first time in his brief but glittering Test career, Boland found himself under sustained attack. Harry Brook advanced to clout Boland over cover, and Root reverse-scooped him for the first six of the series. It felt a little like watching Kevin Pietersen and company take Jason Gillespie apart 18 years ago.
Joe Root and Jonny Bairstow hustle between the wickets.Credit: AP
Bairstow, having missed England’s winter with a broken leg, was the ideal counterpoint to Root. Holding the gloves at number seven, he is part of a batting lineup even further elongated by the return of Moeen Ali to bat behind him and ahead of the “Nighthawk”, Stuart Broad. Australia, by contrast, have Lyon as high as No. 9 after choosing to leave out Mitchell Starc.
Root’s innings featured a couple of narrow escapes: he was given lbw reverse sweeping Lyon, only for his review to reveal a slight graze of the glove before the pad. In the 70s, he was millimetres away from edging Hazlewood behind, throwing his head back with relief.
There were, of course, moments and passages in which Australia demonstrated how they might be able to corral this England side. Lyon was outstanding, varying his pace and degrees of spin with typical skill – it was no easy feat to deceive Bairstow and then Moeen for stumpings. And Hazlewood’s return for his first Test since January at the SCG was of high quality, including the rapid defeat of Stokes.
Before play, many of those who have seen England up close for the past year predicted the day would either result in a surfeit of runs or a very rapid rush of wickets. As it turned out, the match swung one way then the other throughout; there was a resilience in this England performance that merited genuine respect.
Famously, Ali absorbed a flurry of Foreman’s punches on the ropes in Kinshasa before breaking through to land a knockout blow in the eighth round. Australia’s cricketers, having finally been confronted with the fearless tactics and mindset of England, now have a firsthand idea of what their own path to Ashes victory will have to comprise.
Watch every ball of the 2023 Ashes series live and exclusive on Nine and 9Now.
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