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Archer and Curran rip through Australia

13th September, 2019
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13th September, 2019
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Only another Steve Smith masterclass saved Australia from obliteration last night, as Jofra Archer and Sam Curran ran amok on day two of the fifth Ashes Test.

Australia started the day brightly by swiftly killing off England’s first innings, which ended on 294. That looked to be a below-par total on a nice deck for batting until the tourists subsided against some quality pace bowling.

David Warner (5), Marcus Harris (3), Matt Wade (19), Mitch Marsh (17) and Tim Paine (1) all had little to no impact.

Smith once more made batting appear elementary in spite of the laboured efforts of all his top seven colleagues bar Marnus Labuschagne. The disparity in this series between the returns of that pair and the remainder of Australia’s batting unit has been gobsmacking.

Labuschagne, increasingly, seems to be copying Smith’s approach. Most noticeable is the way in which he is trying to coax bowlers to feed his pet shot – the flick off his pads through the on side.

The Queenslander, in this series, has made a point of getting across his stumps, although not as far as does Smith. In doing so he clearly feels that anything outside the line of his body will pass harmlessly by the stumps, which helps him to leave the ball, something he has done expertly this series.

Then when the bowlers target his off stump he is already positioned perfectly behind this line, allowing him to play it late and under his eyes, whipping it to the leg side.

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At first glance it looks like a risky approach, one that would make him a regular LBW victim. But if a batsman is well balanced, and is strong enough through the on side, then it could be argued it is less dangerous than staying leg side of the ball and attempting to drive such deliveries through the off side, as many textbook-reliant batsmen do.

Virat Kohli and Cheteshwar Pujara, two of the stars of Test cricket, are similarly prolific in the way they works balls from the off stump through the leg side.

While piling up 339 runs at 56 in this Ashes, Labuschagne has scored almost half of his runs in front of square on the leg side. In a sign of his ability to learn and adapt, Labuschagne began his Test career poorly while relying heavily on drives through the off side.

This series he has been sparing in his use of those strokes, while concentrating on scoring off his pads. Although it brought about his downfall yesterday, when Jofra Archer had him LBW, this
strategy has been a resounding success for Labuschagne.

Earlier, Australia’s openers failed miserably yet again, continuing Australia’s remarkable run of failures at the top of the order in this series.

After making seven single-digit scores in his first eight innings in this Ashes, things hardly seemed as if they could get darker for David Warner. In truth, they could and they did. There was a play and a miss, an edge for four past third slip and then a cross bat thrash at a wide, short ball from Archer.

England appealed for caught behind from that last stroke but the umpire shook his head. Replays seemed to show clear air between bat and ball but the third umpire overturned the on-field decision based on a spike on snicko. Right now, Warner has no idea where to locate some luck.

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Then his opening partner Marcus Harris was worked over by Archer. The young Englishman continued his stunning debut Test series last night, operating with a rare and potent mix of pace, intimidation, accuracy and lateral movement.

He has been far too good for Harris in this series and so it was again last night. Harris was squared up, pushed at the ball with stiff wrists and nicked to Ben Stokes at second slip.

While Warner appears certain to be retained for Australia’s next Test due to his awesome home record, Harris likely has one innings left to avoid being axed for the second time in his brief international career. Granted, he has encountered elite new ball bowling in this series. Not to mention that every other opener, bar England’s Rory Burns, has also flopped.

But right now Usman Khawaja and Joe Burns both are shaping as better options to partner Warner in the home Tests against Pakistan in just over two months’ time. Australia’s brittle batting line-up is ripe for change. It is being held together by just two batsmen, the same story that was told last night.

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