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The first Test was a tale of emergence and regression. New players emerged from obscurity, established players emerged from the wilderness, and England emerged from a perilous situation to eventually reach sanctuary unscathed. Other things, including curatorial prowess and the form of a certain heavily-tattooed Western Australian, went swiftly into reverse.
By late on the second day, the pitch had subsided into a formless slab with all the variety and verve of a Powderfinger album.
Before that, we had a match, whose first and most stunning emergence was that of Peter Siddle. Through his last few series, Siddle has been the man without luck. He would beat the bat, take the edge, hurry the batsman, be lauded at the end of each day as one of the best, and struggle to pick up more than a wicket.
“He’s so nearly a great bowler,” said the sage beside me at the bar. “He’s just missing that last one percent.”
On a day with just a little moisture and movement, Siddle finally cashed in. He took 2/16 in his first spell, then came back to take 4/15 in his first three overs back, including the first Aussie hat-trick since Glenn McGrath a decade ago.
Nor was it a tail-end clean-up.
A well-set Alistair Cook edged to slip for 67, the dangerous Matt Prior saw his stumps demolished next ball, then Stuart Broad was nailed on the toe by a swinging yorker.
Siddle’s six wickets could have been seven had Haddin not dropped a simple catch from James Anderson. “Looks like he found that one percent,” said our friend into his beer.
Xavier Doherty emerged from obscurity to vault into the Test team, and his first ball yielded more turn than Nathan Hauritz’s entire career. Doherty looked at home, beating Ian Bell with spin to skew a catch, and nailing Anderson’s stumps when the Englishman tried to get cute.
Bell was the other big emergence of the innings, though. Since first spotted in 2005, he has always looked terrified playing Australia. Shane Warne used to laugh when Bell came to the crease, and they way he toyed with the youngster was almost cruel.
That first Test at Lord’s, Warne’s glaringly obvious set-up before pinning him for 8 with a slider was watching a spinner at the height of his art, and at a batsman at the depths of his confidence. A rabbit in the headlights would give the oncoming Mack a sterner contest.
But this was a different Bell, aggressive from the outset without being rushed. His strokes were crisp and assured. Most of all, the look on his face was serene. As teammates fell around him, Bell top-scored with 76, falling while pushing the pace batting with the No. 10.
Mike Hussey also emerged from his personal period of trial, finding form with a new personal best of 195, while Brad Haddin has hopefully emerged as a more mature cricketer, playing a comparatively responsible hand of 136 in concert with Hussey.
The two put on 307 to guide Australia to safety, at that point a record partnership at the ground. Being passed just two days later, it may also set the record for shortest-lived record.
Finn took six wickets too, though his performance didn’t match Siddle’s. While the England youngster does look like he was drafted straight from Hogwart’s, there wasn’t much magic about his bowling: continually plonked down the other end until a late innocuous series of short balls got a fortuitous rush of top edges.
Anderson had the more important emergence, despite a modest return of 2/99. He bowled with intelligence, purpose and pace, looking dangerous until the pitch died, and will now feel a lot more confident about bowling in Australia.
In the second dig, Andrew Strauss and Cook also emerged from a land of pre-series doubt. Cook shook off indifferent form to notch the highest score at the Gabba with 237*.
Strauss shook off his first-innings duck to score 110, just the fourth time in Ashes history that an England skipper has made a hundred in the first Test of a series. Australia has had fifteen such innings.
Then along with Jonathan Trott, their epic score of 517/1 marked the second time England’s top three have all scored hundreds in an innings. The previous instance was in 1924, featuring the rather more eminent names of Sutcliffe, Hobbs, and Woolley.
The only other things to emerge for Australia were worries. For the first time in many years, the fielding could be described as dismal. While the pitch was flat, five catches went down. Each batsman was dropped before his century.
Mitchell Johnson’s confidence was also at rock bottom. After trundling without menace, bowling at around 135 kmh, and making a duck in Australia’s first innings, Strauss chipped Doherty to Johnson at mid-on.
It was the most pivotal of moments. Strauss had 69. England were still over a hundred behind. Dismissing the English captain would have buoyed the team, made Doherty feel like he belonged, and been a big psychological blow.
Instead, Johnson let the ball slip tamely through his hands and drop behind him. Even as he hit the ground, the look on his face wasn’t anger or frustration, but embarrassment and resignation. He looked like a cricket field was the last place he wanted to be. It was a look of defeat.
Surely he needs a spell to decide whether this is really what he wants to be doing with his life.
Michael Clarke needs the same. He was clearly hampered by his injury, fielded awkwardly at mid-on for much of the Test, and his one innings of 50 balls for 9 miscued runs was as ugly as Joe Hockey in a mini-dress.
Two of the dropped catches were his, unthinkable until this week. One was a straightforward take at slip. The other at point was generously described as a fingertipper, ignoring the fact that Clarke lumbered to his preferred left with all the grace and ease of Quasimodo in swimfins.
The last thing to emerge was how dire curatorial standards now are in this country.
My generation of cricket fans has been raised on the myths of thirty years ago: that the Gabba is a greentop; Adelaide a dustbowl; Sydney a Bunsen burner; the WACA a trampoline under the scorching whip of the Doctor.
These days they’re the same immaculate roadways, with about as much spice and variation as Kraft Singles.
While curators are inclined to flirt with adventure in the Sheffield Shield, an imminent Test match immediately sees them retreat to safety. Apparently a three-day Test would bring the administrators’ wrath down on their heads.
It would probably also bring more than the pathetic crowd of 7000 who traipsed in to watch the last day, a duller series of formalities than your sister’s graduation ceremony.
Granted there’s still good bounce and pace, and a modicum of turn, that great bowlers of the last two decades were able to use to dismiss timid batting line-ups. But the current Australian projectile brigade are not the former, just as England are not the latter.
It shouldn’t just be a matter of panning Aussie toothlessness.
From the moment Marcus North was dismissed, shortly before the pitch completely surrendered, England could only prise out three top-order Australian wickets over their next 132 overs, while conceding 455 runs.
The great cricket of the first two days had been entirely undermined by the conditions, and a potential classic fizzled out. It’s too late for this year, but let’s hope some common sense emerges from next year on.