At lunch on Day 2 of the first Ashes Test, England were cruising at 1/59, leading by 99 runs, and with an iron grip on a series-defining 1-0 lead.
Mere hours later, the Test was Australia’s, by an emphatic eight wickets to boot, after a second collapse from the tourists in as many days on an Optus Stadium surface surely not reflective of the carnage carried out on it, sharp fielding and aggressive captaincy from Steve Smith … and more than anything else, a whirlwind century from Travis Head equal to anything seen before in Ashes history.
After watching 30 wickets fall for 466 runs before being promoted to open the batting amid more concerns over Usman Khawaja’s fitness, Head rollicked – there’s no other word to describe it – England to all parts of Perth, making the attack which skittled the hosts on the first evening with the quickest session of bowling ever sent down by the old enemy look thoroughly second-rate.
Victory was secured within two days, a chase of 205 sealed in just 28.2 overs – bad news for Cricket Australia’s gate receipts, or anyone with tickets for Sunday’s play, but joy for an Australian team hoping to add Pat Cummins and perhaps Josh Hazlewood to the line-up for the second Test in Brisbane, now nearly two weeks away.
The only negative was that Head wasn’t around for the winning runs, having finally fallen by the sword that had so thoroughly carved up England to a skied catch in the deep – but his 83-ball 123 had already well and truly entered the Ashes pantheon.
If there was a defining shot, it was the towering six down the ground over Jofra Archer’s head, one of four hit to go with 16 boundaries – but whether throwing hands at the ball to swat to third man, or deflecting the pace of Mark Wood fine and square to threaten the ropes some more, the result made England’s Bazballers look poky in response.
His 69-ball hundred is the equal third-fastest by an Australian in Tests, the quickest since Adam Gilchrist muscled Monty Panesar and co. for his infamous 2006/07 Ashes ton a few doors down at the WACA – and must surely go past the 2021/22 series-defining century struck at the Gabba, and alongside his World Cup final whirlwind from two years ago, as the South Australian cult hero’s finest hour.
By the end, England had to resort to first bowling short, then shorter still simply to put the ball beyond the 31-year old’s reach – not that it worked: the sight of Gus Atkinson sending two bouncers far enough over Head’s head to be called for a wide in between fuller and wider offerings hammered down the ground and over point for more boundaries told of a batter with complete mastery over the opposition.
Riding along in his slipstream was first Jake Weatherald and then Marnus Labuschagne, the pair rejoicing in the open fields and ragged bowling forced by Head’s heroics.
The debutant survived an early dismissal for caught behind via a DRS review that confirmed no bat was involved, before looking composed in far more favourable circumstances than those he found himself in on his first evening as a Test cricketer on Friday.
While his 23, throwing away a start by spooning Brydon Carse to cover, has far from locked his place down, the Tasmanian will be relieved to be off the mark at Test level, and given a chance to show the shot-making that earned him his chance.
More expansive was Labuschagne; coming in with the score 1/75 in the 11th over instead of opening, as was the case 24 hours earlier, the right-hander took a leaf out of Head’s book, almost matching him stroke for stroke by the finish.
The classic Labuschagne textbook was all but abandoned: backing-away swats over cover, emphatic pull shots and even an audacious uppercut over the slips off Archer saw him finally find a way to score after being merely content to survive on Day 1.
But while Head’s heroics will take centre stage in the aftermath, and in the history books, it was Australia’s bowlers who turned a Test that looked every chance of slipping away from the hosts earlier in the day.
The nine extra runs added by Nathan Lyon and Brendan Doggett for the final wicket to begin proceedings looked valuable when Zak Crawley completed a nightmare match by chipping his fifth ball back to Mitchell Starc for a stunning caught-and-bowled and dreaded pair; then decidedly less so when Ben Duckett and Ollie Pope settled in aiming to bat Australia out of the match.
By lunch, the partnership was 59, the lead 99, with Australian brows furrowed further by a hip injury sustained by Lyon while batting.
The tide-turner was Boland, who after producing perhaps his worst day of Test cricket on Day 1, found his length and Duckett’s outside edge to present a catch to Smith at second slip.
The danger man gone, the Victorian added a second in successive overs when Pope feathered an edge behind, before the moment the Test slipped from England’s grasp: Harry Brook, the tourists’ best on Day 1, pushing too insistently at Boland’s trademark length outside off for Khawaja to catch at first slip.
MORE TO COME
Tim Millerhttps://https://ift.tt/UfcjI5Q trumps Bazball: 1-0 Australia as Head’s all time ton follows second England collapse
Post a Comment