Wow, that wasn’t quite what I expected, but it’s safe to say England will be the happier of the two sides in the sheds after the days play. The Aussies, when they reassemble outside the hospital doors, may be left a bit confused as to what on earth just happened to them.
England fans rarely have it easy, and today was no exception. For those of us brave enough, and with some annual leave to spare, the 2am wake up would go one of two ways….today it managed to go both.
When I heard England would be having a bat I began to sweat, cry and vomit. The PTSD of Rory burns crabbing across his stumps and getting castled first ball of the series fired up and I was prepared for history to repeat itself.
History didn’t quite repeat itself, Crawley played the first ball well, the 6th ball? Not so well. Oh fuck boys it’s happening again.
And happen again it did! Despite good starts for Duckett, Pope and Smith and with Brook batting well (I think?) to make his 50, for the most part we looked worryingly out of place.
The size of Aussie grounds is an issue I have tactfully decided to ignore until now. They are big though, really big, I dont think anyone in the stands could see Ben Duckett out in the middle.
Root I will excuse, you’d do a lot of awful things to avoid getting a ball like that early in the innings, go again Rooty.
But the rest of them? Hapless.
Credit where its due however, Mitch Starc was a cut above today, taking 7fer in the first two sessions of the series is special. They needed him, and golden boy Boland was nowhere to be seen, getting taken apart by a rattled England batting order.
With 172 on the board, I put an admittedly sarcastic “20 over par here lads” message out to a number of group chats, something I will now defend as a serious, well informed statement for the foreseeable.
We looked in big trouble, I could envision the Aussies putting 500+ on the board and killing the series in cold blood.
Then came Usman Khawaja. Towards the back end of the England innings….well actually when we were 6 down, but we all know that may as well have been 9, Uzzie had the sudden and painful realisation that he hadn’t yet completed the Friday Wordle.
Damned if he lost that streak, and with his boys seemingly in control of the situation, he tactfully told the physios he had a tight back, and off he went to the bogs for half an hour to get his guesses in.
When he reemerged having successfully completed the puzzle in just three attempts, he was quite surprised to see the innings nearly wrapped up. As Mark Wood sent his first ball skyward, you could see Uzzie doing some mental maths as the ball plopped down into Alex Careys mits. He wasn’t going to be able to open the batting.
This was far from ideal for the hosts, since Warner (well established prick) retired, they have been struggling to find a suitable partner for Khawaja. This time over they felt confident, Jake Weatherald has been in good touch and warranted his spot in the side, but Uzzie wouldn’t be at the other end.
Poor Jake had to walk out to bat with the second strangest creature on gods green earth, Marnus Labsddfkdgbsgbsh. Marnus’ is about as annoying as they come, loud but not in a funny way, devoid of charm and although occasionally a good player, quite a hard watch at the crease.
As Jake walked out to bat with Marnus chirping away in his ear, he probably wasn’t in the best mindset. Two balls later as he sauntered back to the pavvy with half his front pad blown off, I can confidently say his head was in the gutter.
It was at this point, the strangest creature on Gods green earth walked out to meet the fella he pipped in the rankings. Steve Smith is a very hard bloke to like, which is partially why I don’t like him, but is an admittedly good cricket player, even if watching him gives me seizures.
Smudge shuffled out to the middle looking “well fed” as described in the aforementioned group chats, and as twitchy as ever, taking guard against Archer, he and Marnus proceeded to bat out the next half hour in a disgustingly strange manner.
England were bowling incredibly well, Archer, Atkinson, Wood and Carse all bowling quickly and getting the ball to talk. Smith took a couple of big blows to the elbow, which I enjoyed very much, and looked troubled by the pace and bounce. Marnus looked as if he was actively trying to miss the ball.
When these two bat together, it is an assault to the senses. Two strange men who, when together, seem to make each other even worse. The shuffling, hand gestures and exaggerated shouting were awful but acceptable a few years ago when they were shitting runs together, but now it seems forced and sad. Aussies can’t actually enjoy watching that can they?
Well one person who didn’t enjoy watching it was Jofra, who got one to leap up at Marnus, catch his bat as he attempted to leave, and castle him. Thank fuck that’s over.
Smudge was gone shortly after to a brilliant ball from Carse, who impressed on ashes debut, mostly because he gave some verbals to Marnus early.
The Aussies were in trouble, and it kept getting worse. Khawaja came out with his tail between his legs, and 6 balls later went back to the dugouts having made his situation even worse, some of the Aussies were so upset with him they got the MCC membership on FaceTime and asked them to give him a good spraying again.
Travis head looked fucking awful to start, pretty bad in the middle, had 5 decent minutes then remembered he isn’t very clever and slapped an innocuous stokes delivery straight to Carse.
Cam Green looked good until he didnt, he had a bit of a scare when Mark Wood decided to stress test his helmet for him, nearly sending him crashing backwards into his own stumps, but it wasn’t Wood that got him, it was the skipper, and the rest of the story is the Ben Stokes show.
Ben Stokes plays cricket with his piece. He has been our best bowler over this year, and showed why with a five wicket haul today making light work of the middle/bottom order. He wasn’t the best of the bowlers, I would actually say that honour is shared between the whole attack, but Stokes just has a knack of taking poles when it matters.
The Aussies end the day 123-9 and England have their noses in front. If you’d told me that at 6am I might have kissed you.
It’s all to play for tomorrow, and I think it may well end before the day is out.
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