As the 2023 Ashes moved to within two days of its scheduled close, there was no escaping the reality for Australia that it was happening again. That feeling of being slapped around the chops, too dazed to get the thread of what to do next. England with the bat running the game in their own way, setting the terms that Australia had to respond to. This, above all, has been the idea behind Bazball: not all about hitting sixes or bowling bouncers, but making opponents react rather than act.
It was there on the first day of the series at Edgbaston, when England made 393 in audacious style before declaring within sight of stumps, but the eight wickets that Australia took that day made it feel like the visitors had just about kept control. It was there on the final day at Lord’s as Ben Stokes hit six after six, but that time felt like Australia had enough of a cushion to withstand a big hundred, and so it proved.
Both matches ended in Australia’s win column despite those sessions, but things have changed in the three Tests since. At Headingley, Australia again looked bereft of ideas as Stokes and Mark Wood started belting them into the stands, making a first-innings lead evaporate in a way that ultimately turned the match. At Manchester, those push-and-pull situations became all push, England squashing Australia into the rain-induced mud.
All the while, the Australians proceeded as though convinced that England’s fortunes would turn for the worse. The batting dissolution that happened in England’s first innings at Lord’s would have to happen again. Probability demanded it. Convention demanded it. If Australia kept turning up and bowling their normal stuff, a normal innings would eventually follow.
But in the third innings at The Oval, England’s last bat of the series, there it all was again. Thirteen runs from the opening over, the most expensive six balls ever bowled to start an Ashes innings. After 10 overs, 55 runs. After 15 overs, 76 of them. England at five an over just like the first innings, wicketless until the score reached 79, one wicket down by lunch while making 130 in the session.
When England’s style works, new-ball pressure doesn’t exist. The first 10 or 12 overs of an innings are usually the time when bowlers settle into their work. Batters opt for circumspection to protect their wickets. This has been the unspoken contract since the game began. In this team, Zak Crawley and Ben Duckett go after the bowling like one-day openers. There is no time to settle. Mitchell Starc was off after two overs. Suddenly bowlers have a deep backward point, a deep square leg. Suddenly bowlers are the ones under pressure.
Of course, there have been attacking openers before, but they have tended to be boundary blasters who also offer chances to conventional catchers. What England have done at Old Trafford then again at The Oval is something a little different. Once the fielders scatter they continue their one-day method, easing off the boundary hitting by picking off runs in ones and twos. The scoring stays at five an over while the risk calculus comes down. Bad balls still get attacked but good ones don’t become dots that help the bowlers. Nobody gets 12 balls at the same batter. The short left-hander and the tall right-hander swap over constantly. They differ wildly, but Australia have not demonstrated very different plans for either.
Dementia charity drive
For the second year a day of the Oval Test was dedicated to supporting Alzheimer’s Society. For the first year, the day actually happened – last year’s events were planned for 9 September, when all cricket fixtures ended up being cancelled following the death of Queen Elizabeth II. One of the charity’s Singing for the Brain groups performed Jerusalem while England’s players wore each other’s shirts “to draw attention to the confusion often experienced by people living with dementia”, and one stump from each end was removed to “raise awareness of the reality that 1 in 3 people born in the UK today will go on to develop dementia”, before being replaced by Marcus Trescothick, the England coach whose father suffers from the disease. “I’ve seen the damage caused by dementia and know the pain it can cause,” said Moeen Ali. “This series might not have delivered the memory we’d most like to cherish – regaining the Ashes – but thanks to the money raised at the Oval it is great to know many more families will get the support they need.”
Barber’s hair-raising stats
Herewith follows a list of England openers who have averaged more than 35 with a strike rate above 70 in any Ashes series (where strike rates can be accurately calculated): Zak Crawley in 2023 (average 53.3, strike rate 88.7), Ben Duckett in 2023 (average 35.7, strike rate 75.9) and a ghost from the distant past in Bob Barber, who averaged 41 at a strike rate of 74.5 in 1965-66. Barber’s opening partner in that series, Geoff Boycott, wrote in his autobiography that he “was amazed at Bob’s apparently cavalier approach to the game. It was obviously a source of pleasure and entertainment to him, as it was supposed to be to other people.” Sound familiar? Less than two months after that series ended Barber stepped back from full-time cricket to spend more time working in business, then retired altogether at 33 to make a fortune selling toilet cleaning tablets. Appropriately, thanks to the Alex Carey hairdressing hoax at Headingley, this is the first series since that one to have a barber in the headlines. Simon Burnton
It must be so deflating for the opponent. It visibly was for Australia on this day. Imagine it: you graft and grind and absorb good bowling, you build partnerships, you see your lower order ride their luck, and putting all this together you secure a precious 12-run lead. Then the other team wipes it off in an over. They gallop past a hundred in a session, then flow on beyond it. What took you a day to assemble, they pass in a cruise.
To make it worse, they look like they’re having fun doing it. Your hard-won gains are their weekend entertainment. And they’re not scoring quickly by desperate swiping and a massive run of luck. They’re doing it with a sense of purpose and clarity, mitigating risk in a way that they did not to start the series. England’s openers set the foundation, and on the innings went from there: Stokes, Joe Root, Jonny Bairstow, Moeen Ali all coming in to add their part as the lead swelled past 300.
Above all, it must leave Australia with that feeling. Not just the daze of being whacked, but a little extra insult when it comes to the manner of the impact. England doing things exactly the way they want, Australian players doing things the way they think they must. With a massive run chase to face on day four, this England team would be happy to give it a shake. The day three version of this Australian team already looks like a side that won’t.
