It is difficult to recall any Ashes build-up where so little of the talk has concerned the home team’s best player, never mind a series that has generated as much talk as this.
But on a gripping first day here at Edgbaston, Joe Root stepped blinking into the light, his 30th Test hundred but first in Ashes cricket for almost eight years leading the home side to 393-for-eight before Ben Stokes called in one of history’s madder declarations with half-an-hour left to play.
The captaincy had proved a heavy burden for Root across two Ashes pastings abroad and a drawn series at home four years ago and relieved of it by Stokes last summer, the 32-year-old has since admitted to at times puzzling over his new role as the relative conservative in a power-packed lineup.
Here, though, it was played to perfection, Root’s unbeaten 118 from 152 deliveries the innings’ defining contribution alongside punchier half-centuries from Zak Crawley and Jonny Bairstow, the latter creaming a run-a-ball 78 to pick up where he left off last summer in his first Test knock since the broken leg that threatened to curtail his purple patch.
These days, all the former skipper need do is what he does best, the decisions left to Stokes. But even by the all-rounder’s cavalier standards, the move for 20 minutes at Australia’s openers came as a shock.
Their slightly frazzled running between the wickets suggested Usman Khawaja and David Warner had, unsurprisingly, been caught on the hop but the pair survived a period in which any jeopardy came from the drama rather than deliveries to reach the close 14 without loss.
Even before then, it had been a strange day to try and get a handle on, but the kind which, one senses, we may have to get used to this summer.
True to their billing, England provided the entertainment and scored at five-runs-an-over, the tone set by Zak Crawley, who nailed Pat Cummins’ first ball of the series through cover to leave even his skipper on the England balcony with mouth agape. Drawing narrative from the opening salvo of a sporting contest can often seem a too-obvious, lazy approach but this series has a decent record when it comes to foreshadowing, as messers Burns and Harmison will attest.
Australia, though, were good enough to hang in, keeping their hosts on a slack leash and hauling them back into view with key wickets each time they threatened to scamper clear. On a belting pitch, the world’s best attack grafted hard, Nathan Lyon copping endlessly unflattering comparisons with recalled local lad Moeen Ali from a raucous Hollies Stand but, in reality, the pick of the bunch. The spinner’s 29 overs were an admirable effort on the first day of a Test and, even at the cost of 149 runs, four wickets a grand return, albeit that of Harry Brook was rather freakish and those of the charging Bairstow and Moeen gifts.
The battle between English batters and Australian bowlers, as well as being the subject of most tension, always looked the most evenly poised and so it proved. The suspicion is that the touring batters have a clearer edge in the other half of the equation and the likes of Steve Smith and Marnus Labuschagne will have seen little in this surface to disrupt a sound kip tonight.
Bar Stokes, who made just one, all of England’s batters reached double figures and that only Root went on to three told of plenty of opportunities missed.
The failure to cash-in here may yet haunt Crawley most if more challenging wickets lie ahead, but this was still a fine start to the series for the batter in England’s line-up least secure of his place. The Kent man drove beautifully throughout his 61 before gloving the expensive Scott Boland behind on the stroke of lunch.
Until then, he had coughed up only one scare when Australia failed to detect a feathered edge behind and perhaps had Cummins been less conservative with his fields, a helping ear may have been close enough to hear it. The Australian captain was defensive from the outset, third slip in his post for less than two overs at the start of the day and as many as four men stationed on the fence in a bid to deny England’s top order boundaries.
That particular ploy worked but scarcely slowed the scoring, generous singles too freely available, and if Australia had come with the assumption that England’s reputation has been built through slogging then they ought already to have been put right. It does not matter how the runs come, so long as they come quickly.
Root has long been the poster boy for quiet, rapid accumulation but still cleared the ropes four times, though twice after reaching his century and twice before that with the scoop shot that, in the batter’s mind at least, is among the least risky in his arsenal.
As if it was needed, with Stokes’s declaration came an early reminder of England’s inclination towards a gamble.
