Australia v England Fourth Test, Day One Report Card
Featuring particular sets of skills, lashings, The Madness That Is Harry Brook™ and Scott Boland opening
Particular Sets of Skills
Grade: C
With this ridiculous Ashes series wrapped up after just eleven days, this fourth Test promised the opportunity for both teams to become even ridiculouser. Between Tests, video footage had emerged of a shitfaced Ben Duckett wandering around during England’s now infamous Noosa trip that has since been described as a ‘stag do’, looking for his hotel room with the single-minded intensity of a daughter-seeking Liam Neeson in Taken. Except, y’know, drunker.
(What are Ben Duckett’s particular set of skills? Based on the evidence of this tour, ‘getting out cheaply’. And, improbably, ‘occasionally getting out earlier than Zak Crawley’. Duckett also has a predilection for wearing dreadful bucket hats, which is maybe also a skill? Or if not a skill, then my new best guess for what Brendon McCullum is talking about when he says that his coaching methods are less about technical details and more about sorting out the ‘top two inches’ of his players.)
The point is that the walls are closing in on England and their Bazballing ways. And I, along with 94,000 other fans, were there to pop up our heads like the Dianoga in the Death Star trash compactor, to have a quick peek.
What we saw was Ben Stokes winning the toss and choosing to bowl on a green MCG pitch that had been left with an ominous ten millimetres of grass on top of it. That’s a centimetre to you and me. If you stacked two hundred of these MCG pitches on top of one another, you’d have grass as tall as Cameron Green! Talk about a green top!
Lashings
Grade: D
After the anthems - and, as an aside, England, surely if you were able to so effortlessly swap out ‘Queen’ for ‘King’, you could just as easily do something about that ‘victorious’ bit - the visitors proceeded to give Australia what I like to call ‘a Josh-lashing’.
By which I mean, Josh Tongue took 5/45 as the home side were bowled out for just 152 in 45.2 overs. Tongue continued his outstanding record against Steve Smith, having dismissed him in every first class match they’ve played against one another. Smith takes great pride in mentioning at every opportunity that Jofra Archer has never dismissed him. Weirdly, he’s less quick to bring up his record against Tongue. What’s the matter, Steve? Cat got your Josh?
The other highlight of the innings for a long while was that Australia were being dismissed in batting order. A thrilling turn of events, that if they’d completed it would have been roughly a 1-in-1000 opportunity. Ten wickets, more or less a 50-50 chance of which batter goes next, translates to a 1-in-1000ish overall likelihood of all the batters falling in order. If anything, the odds should be slightly longer - the lower batter in the order being the one more likely to fall in any given partnership. So, definitely one of the more exciting things to keep an eye on during the day.
Which is why it was such a nuisance when Mitchell Starc came to the middle, took one look at the pitch and decided he’d much rather be bowling on it than batting on it. He tried to hit every ball he faced out of the ground and was eventually caught at mid-off for one before Michael Neser, who’d come in before him, could fall.
Boooo! Terrible stuff from Starc. Strip that Player of the Series award from him.
The Madness That Is Harry Brook™
Grade: A
Having received his wish of being allowed to bowl on the pitch rather than bat on it, Starc took the first wicket to fall, that of Duckett. It did, however, take him nine balls before he picked up that initial wicket of the innings. A long and exhausting series for him.
Jacob Bethell, in the side for Ollie Pope, performed papally, out for just one, followed immediately by Crawley, to have England 3/8.
Time, then, for The Madness That Is Harry Brook™. The England vice-captain arrived at the crease and immediately charged Starc first ball. Sure, he missed it, but that didn’t hamper his intentions one iota, as he continued to swagger and swashbuckle like a rum-soaked pirate, while Joe Root calmly tried to leave everything at the other end.
The end result? Root - 0 (15), Brook - 41 (34).
Maybe he’s not such the crazy fool after all, young Harry.
Still, when he fell, England were 5/66, which soon became 6/68, as Jamie Smith’s stumps were skittled by Scott Boland. (Why is Boland allowed to bring skittles onto the ground? Something for the match referee to look into, for sure.) Will Jacks soon followed, and it was 7/77.
Nevertheless, the heavily lubricated Barmy Army, to their credit, continued to sing and chant merrily away in the sun, remaining boisterously upbeat despite the carnage unfolding in front of them. Sure, it was a little weird to see Duckett down there among them, but why not?
Less appreciative of the Army’s antics, however, was the Australian gent behind me, who responded to a renewed chant of ‘We are the army… the Barmy Army…’ by yelling out ‘sit down, you’re seven for fuck all’.
Scott Boland Opening
Grade: A
England were all out for 110, with twenty wickets falling in the day, in one of the more thrilling Boxing Day ODIs ever seen.
However, Green, whose spot in the side had been much speculated on in recent days, put another black mark on his name. Earlier, while batting, he’d decided to run himself out for no good reason, found short of his ground by the bowler Brydon Carse while scampering through for a brazen single. To be fair to Green, he was no doubt expecting Carse to throw the run out attempt short and wide outside the stumps.
But now, with just eleven minutes left in the day, Green decided to borrow Boland’s skittle and knock over Gus Atkinson’s stumps with it. As a result, Australia had to face one final over. Yeah, good one, Cam. Thanks so much.
Still, no matter. Captain Smith simply ordered Boland to throw that fucken skittle away, for goodness sake, and pad up to open the batting alongside Travis Head. Yet another new opening partnership for the Australians.
Nevertheless, a magnificent ploy, and one met with raucous approval from the MCG crowd. Even more so when Boland survived the entire over, which included such highlights as:
fending his first ball over the top of Duckett at short leg, in a needlessly cruel jab at his height
holding up an unnecessary ‘no run’ hand to Head who barely bothered to look up from the makeshift non-striker’s end hammock in which he was relaxing
summoning a dropped catch to Bethell off the penultimate ball of the day
squeezing out a last ball Steve Waughesque boundary
Australia therefore finished the day 46 runs ahead, as a ridiculous series continued to get ridiculouser and ridiculouser,