The lights were on, English openers frazzled in their glare, as the dark clouds not so much closed in on Edgbaston but rolled menacingly over its fringes, like curious children peering into a well.
The Dukes ball, too, had found its inquisitive sense, finally daring to veer off the straight and narrow out of Pat Cummins’ hand. And here at last, after two-and-a-half days of Birmingham sun beating on a Rawalpindi-import road, emerged the England that Australia have come to know and, at times like these, can only love.
In a thankless 20-minute spell in the gloom, a storm hovering at the door when Zak Crawley and Ben Duckett would have welcomed its crashing intrusion, England’s top two succumbed, Cummins and Scott Boland wresting this most finely poised First Ashes Test a fraction back in Australia’s favour. Invention and persistence had seen England skittle Australia before lunch to retain a narrow first-innings lead, but by an early close, the advantage had been extended only to 35 for the loss of those two wickets.
One brief rain delay having already passed, Travis Head streaked eagerly out to his fielding position in front of the Hollies Stand ahead of the mid-afternoon restart, in what seemed a moment of can’t-beat-em-join-em high jinks, the batter having copped flack on the rope all match. Soon, though, an alternative excuse for his haste became clear.
Cummins, too, sensed a rare opportunity before the inevitable downpour, the cautious fields that had persisted throughout England’s first innings and returned at the start of the second, abandoned as Australia’s captain went in for the kill.
Boland beat Crawley, Cummins foxed Duckett, the batting pair clinging on in acceptance that even at England’s rate of scoring, there could be little gained from fighting fire with fire in the narrow window before rain’s reprieve. For neither, though, did it come soon enough.
Three slips were in but it was at gully that Duckett was snared, in predictably brilliant fashion by Cameron Green with a low grab that even Shubman Gill would have to stand and applaud. Crawley lasted only into the next over before feathering Boland behind.
Now Australia were in the game, all eleven of them, as green-trimmed sweaters swarmed around the wicket having spent so much of the first day as strangers at distant outposts in the field. Anything close was met with raucous appeal, anything not earned a sarcastic equivalent from the Hollies, though at an increasingly nervous rumble.
The damage was not yet fatal. England’s openers are seen as tone-setters more than run-machines and this team have long found ways to make competitive, even match-winning totals, without top-order contributions. Until the start of the Bazball revolution a year ago - and on first-innings evidence, perhaps even now - the exact opposite could be said of Joe Root, which explained Australia’s gambling review in what turned out to be the final over the day. Blessedly, England’s kingpin was found not-guilty of edging behind. He and Ollie Pope will return tomorrow, both on nought and praying for kinder surrounds.
TWO wickets in THREE balls for Australia! 🌪️ pic.twitter.com/qixOYs9b9c
— Sky Sports Cricket (@SkyCricket) June 18, 2023
Until that passage, the first in the match in which ball has had a clear edge over bat, it had been another day of near-equal ebbs and flows. England were wasteful in the first hour as Australia, resuming on 311 for five, closed on parity, then clinical in the second as the last four wickets fell for just 14 runs. Had England not willingly surrendered their final two - including that of Root unbeaten on 118 - on the first evening, the margin might have been greater.
Who had suffered more collateral in getting to the halfway mark virtually on terms? England’s bowlers had 116 overs in their collective legs, 38 more than their counterparts, with more than a quarter of them bowled by Moeen Ali on Test return. Little surprise then, that the red-ball and its harsher seam had left a mark, the spinner forced off the field with a grim-looking blister bound to inhibit his bowling in a fourth innings where it ought to play a significant part. Whoever is running in, Jonny Bairstow will have to be sharper behind the stumps, the ‘keeper grassing Alex Carey’s inside edge in the first over of the day for his third wasted chance of the innings. Buyers of Ben Foakes stock have had a lucrative weekend.
Knowing they must bat last, though, Australia will have been aggrieved not to edge ahead, Usman Khawaja’s extra 90 minutes at the crease this morning adding just 14 to his overnight score of 126 as England, save a couple of rank full-tosses from a struggling Moeen, did well to apply the squeeze. The set man removed by Robinson and a Mighty Duck field, the efficiency with which Ben Stokes’s scheming took care of the long touring tail bodes well for Tests to come - remember, it was on this ground four years ago that England allowed Australia to more than double their score from 122 for eight.
Their innings broken open, England must return on Monday to launch a recovery of their own.
