Dave Tickner's verdict on day five of the second Ashes Test at the Adelaide Oval.
Adelaide Five-fer: Day five
Josh bomb
Two balls on the final morning was all it took for all England’s overnight hopes and dreams to start falling apart. Within 17 balls, all hope was gone.
Josh Hazlewood ended the match with the worst figures of all Australia’s bowlers, taking only three wickets for 105 in the match. But he got the two that really mattered, when it mattered. All Australia’s bowlers were absolutely exemplary on the final day, but it was Hazlewood, charging in with the old ball first thing this afternoon like some crazed fast-forward Glenn McGrath, who set the tone.
First he jagged one away from Chris Woakes to find an edge so fine that Hot Spot missed it but, crucially, snicko did not. Then the big moment of the day as another one moved away and kept a fraction low on Joe Root to take the bottom corner of the bat on its way through to Tim Paine.
Both England’s not out batsmen dismissed without adding to their scores. Game over. Series over.
Jonny five
With the game gone, Jonny Bairstow set about his usual task of scoring as many runs as he could muster before the innings was all over. He got 36 good runs this time before he was last out to hand Mitchell Starc a five-wicket haul.
England’s reasons for liking Bairstow with the tail are sound. He’s an aggressive player, a deft manipulator of the ball and lightning quick between the wickets. The problem is that England, in these conditions against this attack, have no tail for him or anyone to bat with. Bairstow at seven (eight here with the nightwatchman) is a luxury they simply can’t afford. It’s like having a Maserati and only using it to try and shave 30 seconds off the school run.
Bairstow has been out attempting to force the pace in all four innings so far in this series for nine, 42, 21 and 36. He’s been the eighth wicket to fall twice, and 10th once. It can’t go on.
There is no obvious personnel change England can make for Perth – the talk of Mark Wood being parachuted in should be a non-starter; he’s coming back from injury and it would be an insult to Craig Overton – but they must surely tweak the batting order.
The fix appears straightforward: Bairstow to five, the gutsy Dawid Malan to six and Moeen Ali to seven appears a far better use of England’s current resources. It promotes a man who currently looks their second-best batsman into the top five, and gets another right-hander in there as well to try and at least delay Nathan Lyon’s middle-order southpaw fun.
Lyon’s roar
Speaking of which. Lyon took six wickets in this match, every one of them a left-hander. He has dismissed Moeen Ali in all four innings of the series, and Alastair Cook in both innings where the former England skipper has lasted long enough.
All six of England’s left-handers have fallen to him at least once in the series. Of Lyon’s 11 victims, Chris Woakes – bowled through the gate in the first innings at Brisbane – is the only right-hander.
It might not be top of England’s to-do list given the WACA’s fearsome reputation for pace, but the left-handers have to find a way to survive against Lyon while the right-handers have to accept the responsibility to take him on and try to hit him out of the attack.
Starc warning
Mitchell Starc was nowhere near his best in England’s run-chase, and ended with figures of 5-88. Which is pretty revealing.
He struggled with his line and length for much of the fourth day, but today he was right on it. The second new ball may not have been as crucial to the game as might have been expected, but it certainly made short work of England’s tail.
Craig Overton ended a fine debut Test being crunched on the pads by the very first ball of the 81st over, an unplayable late inswinger at 90mph. Stuart Broad was tormented like a mouse under a cat’s paw before finally being dispatched, before Bairstow was the last to go as he gamely attempted to make something of a cause long lost rather than settle for red ink.
Whitewash?
England are apparently refusing to mention the word “whitewash”, in the wrongheaded belief that ignoring it might make it go away. The time has very much come to face up to the very real prospect that this series will end 5-0. It remains only a prospect rather than the near certainty at 2-0 down four and 11 years ago.
What can England do to avoid it? They must show the fight, skill and application they have shown for long periods in the first half of the Brisbane Test and the second of this. They will rarely dominate this Australian side, but they can match them. They simply have to do it for longer.
There are cracks in this Australian side. England have been able to expose them, but never bust them open. The pressure must be applied from ball one and maintained.
This is all obvious stuff and easier said than done, but a whitewash against this Australian side would be ignominious. England should be good enough, must be good enough, to avoid it.
Adelaide Five-fer: Day four
Test cricket
What a brilliant, ridiculous sport this is. Never, ever forget that. The administrators might not get it, but forget about them. People might lolz it up about a sport that lasts for five days and ends in a draw or stops for sandwiches, and they may get their hilarious tea-towels out. Forget about them. It is their loss. No other sport on earth has this capacity for drama, theatre, and making damn fools of everyone daft enough to express an opinion on it.
Despite four staggering sessions for England, Australia remain firm favourites to win this match. But the fact that England have a chance at all from a position of 142-7 in reply to 442-8d is nothing short of ridiculous.
For England, though, a worrying prospect: they will likely end tomorrow having matched or bettered Australia in half of each Test yet lost both convincingly.
