Australia v Bangladesh, First Test, Day One

Featuring elevolution, Google alerts, selves and cheering Scott Boland

Elevolution
Grade: C

Australia’s mad run of 20 (maybe 21) Tests in less than a year of cricket began in the obvious time and location of August in Darwin. As a sign of how seriously Australia were taking the first match against Bangladesh, they selected a full strength lineup, including a reunion of ageing boy band bowling attack Josh Hazlewood, Mitchell Starc, Nathan Lyon and Pat Cummins.

Fair enough, too. It’s one thing to have three-quarters of your esteemed attack wander in as they please to play an average of one Test each against England. Obviously, you can get away with that pretty easily. But you need to take Bangladesh a little more seriously, and it’s good to see that George Bailey was doing so.

On the other hand, given the rareness of Test cricket in a city named after Sir Charles Darwin, should Australia have taken the opportunity for some evolution of their eleven? A theory of elevolution? Something to consider.

For now, though, rather than a survival of the fittest, it was more a case of a survival of the finally fit.

Google Alerts
Grade: D-

Just prior to the toss, a Google alert popped onto my phone, confirming that Australia had a win probability of 94%, compared to Bangladesh’s 3%. And, look, perhaps based on history, home ground advantage, ICC rankings, reputation of personnel and the prevalence of large language models in the Google algorithm, maybe there was a case to be made for these numbers.

But, if so, why not extrapolate this to other areas? Post the over rate as nine overs behind before the first ball is bowled, for example.

Nevertheless, despite the mad confidence of Google, Australia’s top order seemed determined to continue the Darwinism theme, overriding the guiding patient hand of Bailey, to get some more natural selection going.

On the back of some persistent Bangladesh bowling, Jake Weatherald, Travis Head, Marnus Labuschagne and Cameron Green all went before lunch, with Green just scraping in to that group via a desperate waft to mid-wicket from the final ball of the session.

Head, meanwhile, who went into the match as the number one ranked Test batter in the world, based on the savvy decision of not actually batting in Test cricket since January, will surely be rueing his mad folly of returning to the middle.

Selves
Grade: B+

But standing tall and typically weird amid the collapse was Steve Smith. Fed up with my increasingly strained references to Darwinism and evolutionary theory he somehow knew I was weaving into this report card, and wary that I might start wandering into the general realms of fossilisation, Smith instead went full selfish genius.

Not selfish in the sense of ‘selfish batting’ - that’s not a concept I think I believe in. I mean ‘self’ish in the sense of a self-evidently self-absorbed, self-assured, self-obsessed, self-contained, self-frisking, self-fulfilling, self-sufficient, self-inflicted, self-appointed, self-parodying genius.

Y’know, Steve Smith.

So, as wickets fell all over the place - Alex Carey, Beau Webster, Pat Cummins and Mitchell Starc in the middle session - Smith motored along, trajesturing his way to another half-century.

It was only when Nathan Lyon joined him and the Bangladesh field spread that Smith was undone. Believing he’d spotted a gap in the field, and hitting the ball into it, he belatedly realised that the theorised gap was vertically above him. And, with gravity proving as rigorous a law of nature as evolution, he was caught for 71, a fifth wicket for the brilliant Hasan Mahmud, who went on to finish with 6/55.

Cheering Scott Boland
Grade: B-

Australia all out for 198, and one could perhaps understand why the biggest cheer of the day had been reserved for Scott Boland, engaged in the simple act of walking around the boundary edge to head out to the nets.

(At least, I assume he was heading out to the nets. Maybe he just felt the urge to be cheered. If so, mission accomplished.)

Still, you can’t judge a pitch until both sides have batted on it. Or bowled on it. Or fielded nearby it. So, obviously a big first over for Bangladesh, who needed to see off Starc’s first over.

But mission accomplished for them, too. And, confidence built, they effortlessly made their way to 1/96 at stumps.

Given all this, it’s very possible that the alert that crawls out of the primordial Google ooze and onto my phone screen tomorrow morning might also have undergone some mutation.