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Opinion
England’s Bazball tactics pushed Australia all the way but the lingering doubts about whether they’ll stand up to the world Test champions remain after the tourists claimed a dramatic two-wicket win at Edgbaston in the Ashes series opener.
Ultimately it was the class of Usman Khawaja and Pat Cummins which proved the difference for Australia with England left thinking what might have been.
The hosts had the huge advantage of batting first on the benign batting wicket but let the Aussies back into the contest with some poor shots by their batters, a controversial day-one declaration and Jonny Bairstow’s bumbling effort with the keeping gloves.
Australia now head to Lord’s with the upper hand and will likely bring Mitchell Starc back into their line-up while England will need to decide whether their quickest bowler, Mark Wood, should be brought into the attack, whether Moeen Ali’s finger injury will be right for Test workloads and if Bairstow should be given another chance as the specialist keeper.
Jonny Bairstow. (Photo by Visionhaus/Getty Images)
Bazball’s philosophy is bold and it shouldn’t have been too much of a surprise that England captain Ben Stokes declared late on day one to get a crack at the Australian openers in a tricky little session before stumps.
But it backfired. Joe Root was motoring on at 118 at the time and after Moeen, Stuart Broad and Ollie Robinson had been able to swing freely on the batting featherbed, they could have added at least another 50 runs to the total of 8-393 if they continued on into day two.
The state of the pitch should have been the over-riding factor when Stokes and Brendon McCullum were weighing up whether to declare.
“I’m a captain who saw it as an opportunity to pounce on Australia,” Stokes said. “I don’t think any batter likes to go out 20 minutes before the close of play. The way in which we played, and took Australia on, actually allowed us to be able to do that.
England’s Ben Stokes reacts during day five of the first Ashes Test at Edgbaston. (Photo by Martin Rickett/PA Images via Getty Images)
“I could also turn around and say, ‘If we didn’t declare, would we have got that excitement like we did at the end of day five?’ I’m not 100 per cent sure but I’m not going to be looking back at this game as ‘what-ifs’. The reality is, we just didn’t manage to get over the line this week.”
Even David Warner with his troubles against Broad was unbothered as the Aussies made it to stumps without losing a wicket.
And after getting the tourists in a spot of bother at 4-148, a Bairstow blunder to miss a Cameron Green stumping before he’d scored let the Aussies get back to parity on the first innings.
He missed a few other chances in both innings which proved extremely costly for the England side. The extra runs he delivers as a batter at No.7 compared to Ben Foakes will not outweigh the inferior glovework if Bairstow cannot get back to his best as a keeper as soon as possible.
Pat Cummins celebrates after hitting the winning runs. (Photo by Stu Forster/Getty Images)
Cummins was roundly criticised for negative tactics on day one with his defensive field settings but what was he supposed to do?
The pitch was so flat that batters with modest Test records like Zak Crawley were walking down the wicket to the Australian pace attack and hitting through the line like they were playing a social T20 game.
Cummins went wicketless in the first innings but added a valuable 38 with the bat while combining with Khawaja to ensure the Aussie total finished just shy of England’s tally.
He then produced the ball of the match with a Waqar Younis-like in-swinger to uproot Ollie Pope’s off stump and kept bringing himself back into the attack to bag 4-63 as England were dismissed for 273.
And then he finished the match with the not insignificant matter of an unbeaten 44 to lead his side to what will be a famous Ashes victory in the ever-expanding pantheon of thrillers between cricket’s oldest traditional rivals.
Khawaja came into this Test with all sorts of questions about his record in England, which only grew louder after his twin failures in the World Test Championship final against India at The Oval.
But in response to the Bazball onslaught, the 36-year-old left-hander dropped anchor to last 321 deliveries, two minutes short of eight hours at the crease, in compiling his player of the match innings of 141.
And it wasn’t like he didn’t attack – he hit 14 boundaries and three sixes but when his team needed someone to hold up an end to prevent England from sparking a collapse, Khawaja was a rock.
He did likewise in the second innings with 65 from 197 deliveries in more than five hours of resistance before inside-edging an innocuous Stokes delivery onto his stumps.
Usman Khawaja of Australia celebrates his century during Day 2 of the LV= Insurance Ashes 1st Test match between England and Australia at Edgbaston on June 17, 2023 in Birmingham, England. (Photo by Stu Forster/Getty Images)
There was considerable confidence cursing through the veins of the English players on the back of their 11 wins from 13 Tests in the Bazball era.
Harry Brook, before the first Test, embodied that by saying he wouldn’t back down to the Australian bowlers and singled out their spinner, Nathan Lyon, as someone he wanted to blast into the stands.
“If he bowls a good ball then I’m going to respect it but other than that, I’m going to try to take him on,” he said.
Well, Lyon got his wicket in both innings. Firstly, when the cricketing gods dished out a dose of karma when Brook’s forward defensive shot ballooned up and trickled onto the stumps when he was on 32.
And in the second dig, Brook didn’t follow his pre-game mantra of respecting Lyon’s good deliveries by trying to force a pull shot that went no further than Marnus Labuschagne at mid-wicket, throwing his wicket away on 46 at a crucial time to leave England on 5-150.
Robinson shot his mouth off a couple of times – he dropped the F-bomb in a foul-mouthed send-off for Usman Khawaja after the veteran opener’s superb knock of 141 and he also claimed the Australian tail was filled with three No.11s in Lyon, Scott Boland and Josh Hazlewood.
The English tail of Robinson, Stuart Broad and James Anderson is hardly a batting juggernaut.
Robinson was unable to dismiss Boland during his frustrating 53-minute nightwatchman vigil or Lyon as he peeled off an unbeaten 16 as he and Pat Cummins guided Australia to victory with a 55-run ninth-wicket stand.
Talking the talk only works when you walk the walk afterwards.
For the Aussies, it looks pretty straightforward for the Lord’s Test, which starts next Wednesday.
Starc will come in for Boland, who has played the past two Tests, and Hazlewood, after a successful return from his side issue will have no issue staying in the side.
David Warner hasn’t done enough in his four Test innings in the UK to prove he’s still up to the task but in the eye of the national selectors, he doesn’t yet deserve the tap on the shoulder.
They only selected this squad until the end of the second Test but even so, they will likely not change much, if anything, when they announce who will be remaining for the final three matches of the tour.
England have several dilemmas. With their bowling attack, they lacked raw pace so Wood will surely get a run at the St John’s Wood venue.
Broad was the most threatening bowler so Anderson or Robinson will likely make way for him.
Or they could go all-out pace with Moeen’s finger injury looking like it will be an ongoing problem.
Teenage leg-spinner Rehan Ahmed, who made a roaring Test debut in Pakistan, Liam Dawson, Will Jacks and Liam Livingstone are their other spin options but none of these would keep the Aussie batters awake at night.
Stokes, particularly with his inability to get off the ground as he grassed a difficult late catch off Lyon, is operating at well below capacity with his bowling due to his knee problem so England probably need to have a spinner who can soak up plenty of work to give the frontline quicks a breather.