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Dave Tickner's Five-fer: First Ashes Test, Brisbane
Dave Tickner's verdict after day five of the first Ashes Test at the Gabba.
Brisbane Five-fer: Day five
Having polished off the formalities in Brisbane with minimal fuss, Australia head to Adelaide with a 1-0 lead and a spring in their step. England, so good for three days and then so very, very bad, have to regroup and fast.
With little to report from day five beyond Cameron Bancroft batting like a champion and then doing even better in the press conference, let's instead slightly break Five-fer convention and instead look at five problems facing England and, rather trickier, five reasons to be cheerful.
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Reasons to be fearful
Back-up bowling
This is the biggest single issue for England to address, and it's almost impossible to see how they do it. Chris Woakes, Jake Ball and Moeen Ali offered neither control nor penetration for Joe Root - who, worryingly, was himself England's third-best bowler in this Test.
Injured finger or not, Moeen was desperately disappointing. It would have been a worrying effort in a normal, pace-dominated Gabba Test. In one where Nathan Lyon was such a huge factor, it becomes even more so.
He's worth his place in the side right now as a pure batsman, but the whole balance of the side requires him to be a genuine member of a five-man attack. He was outbowled by Root. England will not win the Ashes that way.
James Anderson and Stuart Broad cannot do it all by themselves. Something must change.
Bairstow and the tail
There are good reasons why England have decided to go with Jonny Bairstow with the tail. In normal circumstances, he is very good at batting with the tail. He runs hards, finds gaps, farms the strike and can whack the ball as hard as anyone. With Stokes at six, Moeen at eight and Chris Woakes at nine, Bairstow is a perfect number seven.
But he's also probably England's third-best batsman. Can they afford the luxury of him batting at seven when Ball, Broad and Anderson cannot reasonably be relied on to survive 30 balls between them against the inevitable bumper barrage that awaits them.
Twice in Brisbane, Bairstow was dismissed trying to force the pace. It feels like a waste of his talent.
Alastair Cook
He's had five mediocre Ashes campaigns and one incredible one. Number seven is not off to an auspicious start after a tentative nick behind for two and an early mishook to the deep for seven that evoked rather too many memories of four years ago for comfort.
Pitch battle
England will console themselves with the correct assessment that they were bang in this Test for three days. The gloomier assessment is that on those three days Brisbane often felt more like Headingley.
When the Gabba bared its teeth as the sun shone and pitch quickened, England were blown away with bat and ball.
In reserve
The problem to top off all the other problems: there aren't any obvious solutions. Neither Ball nor Woakes have done anything to merit selection for the Adelaide Test. Yet what option do England have? Would Craig Overton or Tom Curran really be any better, or offer something decisively different?
The hubris of thinking they could select a second spinner to learn the ropes in Australia has already come back to haunt, and the reserve batsman is another left-hander for Nathan Lyon to go tat, who also has a questionable technique against very fast bowling.
It's hard to see what England can do other than go with the same again in Adelaide. Assuming everyone is fit, Overton for Ball is perhaps the only really plausible change in personnel. It would slightly stiffen the batting, but that's all.
Switching the middle-order to Bairstow at five, Malan at six, Ali at seven may also have some impact, but it smacks of tweaking the Titanic's outdoor seating arrangements.
Reasons to be cheerful
The Unnameables
Yes, the caveat about the pace of the Gabba pitch on the first couple of days in particular remains valid, but there's no doubt that half-centuries for each of James Vince, Mark Stoneman and Dawid Malan is good news for England.
They have little option but to stick with that trio anyway, but at least all three now know they can at least hack it in Ashes cricket. England's 11 may not bat as deep as we've become used to, but there were at least signs that the top seven can do a presentable job.
Creating chances
When a struggling striker keeps missing chances, commentators are contractually obliged to note "at least they're getting chances". And England had their chances here. They were on top on at least two distinct occasions in each first innings, and while the failure to take any of those opportunities is a major problem, it's a better one than they faced when being destroyed in 2006 or 2013.
Broad and Anderson
Their brilliance in the first innings here - the damage was done by the second dig - is in danger of being taken for granted when set against the struggles of the rest of the attack.
Both were absolutely sensational in the first innings, proving they can bowl in these conditions and hurt an Australian batting line-up that still retains a soft underbelly.
In the pink
Australia are obviously big favourites for the second Test after a victory of this scale. But there can be little doubt that a combination of Adelaide, floodlights and a pink ball give England their best possible shot of redemption.
Yes, the idea that Broad and Anderson will get the ball to sing is a double-edged sword with Mitchell Starc around, but if England can't get 20 wickets they're done for anyway.
If it's flat during the day and swings under the lights, England have a great chance if the fates fall their way.
Root's captaincy
It was genuinely exciting to see an England captain with real plans and keen instinct for the game as Root shuffled things around, rotated his bowlers, changed his fields and never stopped thinking on his feet. Did everything he try come off? No, but enough did. Australia's batsmen are not flawless - well, apart from one of them - and England have the plans and means to expose those flaws under a genuinely inventive leader.
First Ashes Test links
Brisbane Five-fer: Day four
The decisive swing
After three days of cut and thrust, ebb and flow, the decisive swing of the pendulum finally arrived on a torrid day four for England at the Gabba.
England, on top as recently as lunchtime yesterday and still very much in the game until just before tea today, only just managed to avoid defeat inside four days.
When things go wrong for you in Australia, it can all happen very quickly. It was desperately disappointing for England, especially after so much hard work, but these are the realities of Test cricket here and they must regroup quickly.
Half empty/half full
The fact remains, though, that England can regroup. This is an ultimately disappointing defeat. But everyone loses here, especially when modern schedules force them to arrive here undercooked and underprepared. While the eventual margin of defeat may well be 10 wickets this has not been the crushing blowout of four years ago when England were Mitchell Johnsoned out of the series almost before it had begun.
England’s disappointment here is of a different kind. It will be frustration at opportunities missed; but the glass-half-full interpretation is that at least those opportunities have been created: 246-4 in their own first innings, 76-4 and 209-7 in Australia’s. Even in a disappointing second innings, the “Wobblyline” dismissal of Moeen Ali came at a time when Australia were just starting to worry about what chasing 240 or 250 might be like. (The ‘controversy’ over that dismissal, for what it’s worth, should be ended by Moeen’s own verdict: “If I were bowling, I’d want it to be out.”)
England’s batting has been more encouraging than their bowling. The new boys all now know what Ashes cricket is, and can all move on to Adelaide having shown they can handle it.
And a day-nighter at Adelaide is the perfect next stop for England. They have been left with a two-man attack in this Test and, brilliant though Broad and Anderson have been, that was never going to be enough. But if England are bowling at the right time in Adelaide, then things could well be very different there. Essentially, the point is this: after the Brisbane Tests of 2006 and 2013, 5-0 already looked a reasonable prospect. Here, it remains an outside chance. That’s something, at least.
Tailspin
Whatever encouragement England can take from the efforts of their top seven at various points across the two innings, the tail is a huge concern. For the second time in the match, they’ve been blown away and it’s hard to see how that changes. Seven out, all out is going to be a feature of England’s efforts in this series, and that’s big added pressure. Australia added 119 for their last three wickets in the first innings here; England might not get that many in the whole series.
However futile it may be, it’s impossible not to lament Ben Stokes’ absence. A six-nine of Stokes, Bairstow, Moeen and Woakes is the best in the world, but the all-rounder’s absence means as soon as the fourth wicket falls England are looking nervously down at what’s to come.
The absence of one player has turned one of England’s key strengths into a weakness, and there is no solution. The Ashes may well have been lost on the morning of September 25.
Left back
Mark Stoneman and Dawid Malan have both shown they can play at this level, but both must come up with a plan that allows them to counter Nathan Lyon if they are to reach their potential over the next six weeks.
Both men may be international rookies, but at 30 they have been around the block and know their games. Both have scored plenty of runs, and will have scored plenty of those runs against off-spin. Lyon may be better than most they have come across, but they must have had strategies to attack.
England generally cannot afford to just let Lyon bowl, because that allows the three quicks to get a rest. If Lyon’s also taking wickets, England are cooked.
Moeen Ali, a contemporary of his fellow southpaws but vastly more experienced at this level, showed the way. While he was eventually dismissed by Lyon, he at least gave the bowler plenty to think about. He used his feet to get right forward and right back, he attacked anything loose and worked the ball into gaps. When Lyon did find the edge of Ali’s bat, the ball looped up towards the very spot where short-leg had been moments before. Ali’s aggression had removed the fielder, another benefit of a pro-active approach.
It is harsh, perhaps, to pick on Malan. He did use his feet to get off the mark against Lyon in this innings, and got something approaching an unplayable delivery, far straighter in initial line than the one that got Stoneman, who had also been at the crease far longer without any attempt to take Lyon out of his comfort zone. Both must do so in the weeks ahead.
Converts
Much is made of Joe Root’s conversion of 50s to 100s, but it really is a problem. The major point of difference in this match remains Steve Smith’s ability to turn a good score into a great one, while England have lost six batsman for scores between 38 and 56.
Turning 50s into 100s has been a general problem for England for quite some time. Since 2012, they have turned only 64 of 267 half-centuries into three-figure scores (24%). Between 2004 and 2011 when they were going about the business of becoming the best side in the world, they converted 35% - 129 out of 365. (See @ZaltzCricket for more such statty loveliness)
And Root, as captain and star player, exemplifies the problem. 13 hundreds out of 46 scores over 50 is inadequate. Getting out to the very next ball after reaching his half-century today will have infuriated him, as will the manner of it.
Root had played beautifully today, and appeared all set to cash in on his brave effort the night before. Five not out from 28 balls had become 51 off 103 when his head fell over to the offside as he played around a Josh Hazlewood nip-backer to be palpably lbw.
He’s got two good balls in this Test, but having the same flaw exposed in both innings of a Test is never good. It’s not an isolated incident. Eleven of Root’s last 30 Test dismissals have been lbw; only seven times was he trapped in front in his previous 71 efforts at this level.
First Ashes Test links
Brisbane Five-fer: Day three
Ultimate Test
Without getting all misty-eyed or nostalgic or sentimental about “proper cricket” and the days when Tests reigned undisputedly supreme, it’s still worth mentioning during this insanely good Test match just what an insanely good thing Test match cricket is.
Whatever happens over the coming two days and even the coming four Tests, this week at the Gabba has been a victory for the format, because what we’ve seen so far shows that it’s the format (and the pitch) rather than the players that make Test cricket great.
This is already a great match, but these are not great sides. They have brilliance and mediocrity within them, they are flawed and inconsistent. But such is the brilliance of the five-day format that it doesn’t need two champion sides to produce a match of the highest drama.
The run-rate has almost never been much north of 2.5 an over but at no point has it been anything less than captivating, and it’s still far from certain what will happen over the next two days.
Captain Marvel
The highest compliment to pay Steve Smith’s batting over the last two days is that only after he’d reached three-figures was England’s bowling to him anything less than exemplary. They had plans, they bowled to those plans, and did so for hour after hour after hour.
It got them nowhere. They restricted Smith to 17 runs from 66 balls in the morning session, but they couldn’t break his spirit, technique or mind as he twice led recoveries from 76-4 and 209-7 to secure an unlikely first-innings lead while England tried to bore, bounce, tease and tempt him from his bunker.
This was the slowest yet best of Smith’s 21 Test hundreds, a reminder that he has a will of steel to go with a great eye and unique method.
Before they managed to Flintoff him in 2005, England’s plans for individual Australian batsmen famously included a single question mark against Adam Gilchrist’s name. Having drawn a line through five or six decent ideas here, England are back in that situation once more with Smith.
The former leg-spinner’s record is now firmly in all-time great status. Nobody has ended a career longer than Smith’s with a better average than his current 61.23, while that average is also moving only one way. He now averages a preposterous 72.46 as captain against a mere 51.83 in the ranks. And that tally of 21 Test hundreds is truly extraordinary when you consider his first didn’t arrive until the final Test of the 2013 Ashes at The Oval. Joe Root, by comparison, already had two by then, has been consistently brilliant ever since, yet still only has 13 Test hundreds against his name.
Greats and not so greats
It’s not exactly shocking that the two England bowlers with a combined 900 Test wickets were better than the three with under 200, but the extent of the difference is a worry for England.
James Anderson and Stuart Broad were magnificent, offering threat and control with combined figures of 54-20-99-5. Chris Woakes, Jake Ball and Moeen Ali had their moments but if they can’t offer more than 72-16-218-4 then England are doomed. Ball in particular was too expensive, going at over four an over on a pitch where 2.5 has been par, while I’m not sure Moeen Ali is 100 per cent fit. After the gimme wicket of Usman Khawaja he never threatened a second and bowled with little fizz or menace. Certainly he extracted far less from the pitch than Nathan Lyon.
Grand Plans
It’s already abundantly clear that Joe Root is going to be a tremendously exciting England captain until it eventually breaks it as it does all who accept its challenge.
Here's the field for Smith v Woakes... #Ashes pic.twitter.com/lA05AaMKcg
— cricket.com.au (@CricketAus) November 25, 2017
He and England were exceptional in the morning session as plan after carefully constructed unorthodox plan came together. At one point on commentary Michael Vaughan noted approvingly that Root had set a field not based on a coaching manual or traditional fielding positions, but on where he thought the ball was likeliest to go. It says something of cricket’s innate conservatism that this seemingly obvious policy is wildly unorthodox and even, dare I say it, funky.
Few balls were going into the slips on a slow surface with no lateral movement so Root dispensed with them. The catching chances that were coming were in front of the wicket, so that’s where the men were. Sometimes it was a six-man Yorkshire wall with three catchers on either side of the wicket, at others it was a six-man leg trap with three men in and three men out.
Sadly for England, though, they were unable to carry that intensity into the afternoon session as Smith and Pat Cummins wrestled back the advantage.
We were told by England that, despite visual evidence to the contrary, James Anderson was not carrying an injury, so quite why neither he nor Broad were seen with ball in hand in the first hour after lunch is a huge mystery and has to go down as the first major black mark against Root’s leadership on the tour thus far.
Tale of the tails
England were at one stage 246-4, Australia were at one stage 209-7. That the hosts emerged with a small yet significant first-innings lead must therefore be a concern. We know that both sides have fragility in their top six, and runs from seven to 11 may prove absolutely crucial to the outcome of this series.
It's been an area of recent strength for England and weakness for Australia, but it’s a big early tick for Smith’s side here.
Brisbane Five-fer: Day two
Short story
The true value of England’s first-innings 302 will become clearer as this arm-wrestle of a Test match plays out, but it was both less than it should’ve been and more than it could’ve been.
The reason, in both cases, was the short ball. Australia, who had been utterly dismal for an hour-and-a-half as Dawid Malan and Moeen Ali helped themselves to an extra 50 runs, were all out of plans when they brought back Mitchell Starc to bowl bouncers from round the wicket at the left-handers.
It would be churlish to criticise Malan too much given the quality of his innings and the fact he’d already got a couple of meaty pulls away to the boundary, but at the time he top-edged Starc to deep square-leg Australia were, as Damien Fleming put it on commentary "five overs from bowling for run outs".
It currently stands as the game’s pivotal moment. But did Australia persevere too long with the short-ball barrage? The headline numbers of England’s collapse may be losing their last six wickets for 58 runs, but there was a recovery of sorts within that collapse; the last three wickets added 50, of which 20 were swiped and swished by Stuart Broad.
Australia barely bowled a ball at the stumps while Broad and James Anderson were together. In a relatively low-scoring game, their willingness to spend 32 runs buying the final wicket may look an expensive gamble.
Root’s manoeuvres
Joe Root has already impressed with his leadership on this tour, his first overseas assignment as captain. Today he was able to show the quality of his captaincy on the field.
He made use of the extra seamer available to him by rotating all his bowlers in strict, short spells and England’s plans for individual batsmen came off splendidly.
Usman Khawaja’s problems with offspin are well-known, but it was still a bold move from Root to turn to Moeen Ali as early as the ninth over. It took Moeen two balls, one spinning past the outside edge into the keeper’s gloves and one skidding past the inside edge into the batsman’s pads, to get the job done.
Dave Warner, too, fell in a style England will have talked about, with the strangely half-hearted, half-pull, half-flick shot that frequently got him into trouble in England 18 months ago this time landing in the hands of a man positioned right for it at a catching midwicket.
Peter Handscomb, batting deep in his crease, was pinned on the back leg by a full James Anderson off-cutter. The recovery from 76-4 engineered by Steve Smith and Shaun Marsh came despite rather than because of anything England did.
Right up to the last, Root was trying things. He brought himself on. He ended the day deploying a Yorkshire Wall with four men catching in front of the wicket. This series already promises to be closer than expected, and a lot of that is down to how well England have done their homework.
From the front
The one question to which England could not find the answer, though, was Steve Smith. They are far from alone in that. He was fantastic here, patiently, carefully extracting his side from a genuinely tricky predicament.
Smith was not sucked in by any of England’s plans, whether they involved hiding the ball outside his off stump or targeting the always moving target that is the Australian captain’s pads.
While watchful, he pounced on scoring opportunities whenever England offered them and in a match where so far the supporting artists have taken centre-stage become the first headline act to really stamp their class on proceedings. A fine day for both skippers.
Off form
Australia appear to have a serious problem with Usman Khawaja. His dreadful record outside Australia can chiefly be explained by his problems against off-spin bowling.
While this atypical Brisbane pitch didn’t help him it’s now clear no matter what surfaces the rest of the series is played on that a) England will immediately introduce Moeen Ali when Khawaja gets in and b) his wicket will follow soon after. There has been some eye-catching turn and bounce on this pitch, but so discombobulated does Khawaja appear when faced with off-spin it’s hard to imagine he could thrive against it on any surface.
He has now been dismissed by off-spinners 12 times in 37 Test innings, and the only surprise is that the ratio isn’t higher. By the end of this series, it may well be.
Expectations: Defied
The pitch hasn’t done what people expected, the Australian bowlers didn’t do what people expected. England’s batting Unknowns didn’t do what people expected.
It was almost a relief to see England’s batting collapse on day two just for the reassuring familiarity of it all.
But with Shaun Marsh, currently enjoying his staggering eighth recall in a 24-Test career, looking as good as any other batsman on the first two days surely things have finally gone too far. James Vince and Shaun Marsh have emerged as key men in a game that looks perfectly set up to be two-fifths of the way to a cast-iron classic. Which, based on all that we’ve seen so far, means we must now assume that it won’t be.
Brisbane Five-fer: Day one
Reverse Nasser
There must have been a temptation. The pitch had a tinge of green. There were clouds overhead. The stifling temperatures and humidity of the Gabbatoir were absent.
Given England’s fragile top order and the prospect of some early help for the bowlers, Joe Root could’ve been forgiven for thinking about bowling first after calling correctly at the toss, as Nasser Hussain infamously did in 2002. Australia ended the day 364-2 and Simon Jones ended it in the hospital. It probably wouldn’t have been that bad this time, but it surely wouldn’t have been good.
Late wickets as shadows lengthened took the gloss off England’s encouraging, battling day, but batting first was a correct, brave call. There will surely be more pace in the surface tomorrow, while the ball is already spinning sharply for Nathan “Ender of Careers, Destroyer of Worlds” Lyon.
Coming of age
But having won the toss and batted first, there was one thing England wanted to avoid above all others: Alastair Cook trudging off, and James Vince marching to the middle. After 15 balls, that was England’s reality.
What happened next will shock you. Vince, recalled on the back of a county season averaging 33, looked a million dollars. Of course, we’ve seen this before, followed by the tame edge to slip for 32. Not this time.
Vince drove when the ball was there to drive, defended when it needed defending and, crucially, left when this was the correct option to take. This felt like a genuine breakthrough innings for such a hitherto flaky talent.
While a misjudged single and a moment of brilliance from Nathan Lyon left Vince still waiting for a first Test century, that now appears an event that has moved from “if” to “when” after such a mature, controlled performance.
Nothing to fear
On the scoreboard, it’s probably just about an even day. A slow, spongey pitch, damp outfield and batsmen with careers on the line combined to keep the run-rate low all day until Moeen Ali and Dawid Malan tucked into a few loose ones from a tiring attack.
But the fact that attack had been tired out means England will probably be the happier. They have put 20-plus overs into the legs of all three seamers and that will bring dividends somewhere down the line. The so-called “Pace Cartel” was blunted with no evidence of the fear that Lyon so gleefully spotted four years ago.
This attack is at Mitchell Johnson’s level, just not his 2013/14 level. England’s inability to get away from Australia means the two wickets in the evening session carry more weight but overall this was a hugely encouraging start for England at a ground where they have so often been out of the game before it’s begun.
The identity of the men who starred for England is also crucial. Had England made this same score with 83 from Joe Root and 53 from Alastair Cook they could have been happy enough. That the runs came from those against whom questions were raised makes it all the better.
Nice, Garry
There was plenty of focus on Lyon after his outspoken comments in the build-up, but he certainly played his part on day one. The run out of Vince could yet in hindsight prove the decisive moment of this opening day, while his bowling both shut England’s scoring down – as he must in a four-man attack – while also posing serious threat. The turn was largely slow, but it was significant and on another day he’d have had three or four.
Could England have attacked him more? Possibly. Not until Moeen Ali laced a slog-sweep for an astonishing flat six did anyone really make Lyon think or have to try anything different. But for this England side having the top three laying a foundation for a middle-order attack seems a perfectly sound tactic; whether it was the right one here will depend on whether Ali, Malan, Bairstow and Woakes can turn 196-4 into 400 tomorrow.
Paine-ful
It almost had to happen. Tim Paine had been having a perfectly tidy day on his controversial return to the Australia Test wicketkeeping slot, then he dropped a catch and everything started to go wrong.
The catch offered by Vince off Lyon was not a dolly. The ball bounced and deviated significantly off the edge. Yet there’s no denying Paine’s hands were slow to get in position and hard and unforgiving when they did eventually get there.
Perhaps affected by that missed chance, or perhaps an inevitable by-product of his lack of recent time with the gloves, his work grew steadily more ragged as the day progressed. In the battle of the hunch picks, it’s advantage England after day one in Brisbane.