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Did you notice they played cricket this weekend? Wonder if anything interesting happened…
Yes, the Netherlands tied the West Indies! Then won a Super Over with their number 9 scoring 30 and bowling the opposition out. It was a big talking point, that’s for sure…
Oh, and there was that other thing. Words were had. Cultures clashed. Memes were made. The Prime Ministers got involved.
But until we’ve thrashed it out here, between The Roar’s cricket badger – they are nocturnal, after all – Tim Miller and our whinging Pom, Mike Meehall Wood, did it really happen? Let’s get to the bottom of it.
MMW: Tim, why are you all a bunch of cheats?
TM: It’s our convict heritage, isn’t it? Descended from thieves, rapists and murderers each and every one of us. Or perhaps we learned it from WG Grace the time he did exactly the same thing to *frantically Googles* Sammy Jones in 1882, riling up Fred Spofforth so that he went on to crush the Poms’ run chase and dawn the Ashes as we know them. Things come full circle, eh?
MMW: History doesn’t repeat, but it does rhyme…
Much as I’d love to continue my commitment to the bit, I thought it was out and my anger – righteous as it was – was at Jonny Bairstow for getting out in such a fashion, rather than Alex Carey for trying it on.
If we did the same I’d think it was hilarious (and I hope Stuart Broad runs out Steve Smith at the non-striker’s end in the next Test…)
Then I saw Geoffrey Boycott and Piers Morgan fire up, so I know that I’m on the right side of history on this one.
There’s a saying in soccer that the only thing better than beating your rivals with a last minute goal is finding out an hour later that it was offside.
In cricket terms, finding out that Michael Kasprowicz’s hand was off the bat at Edgbaston in 2005 only made it funnier, so I can begrudge Aussies this moment.
TM: This is fascinating, because I’m at the other end of the spectrum – the more I think about it (and I found the stumping – let’s get that right, it was a stumping – extremely funny at the time) the less I’m totally comfortable with it.
Because it’s the Ashes it’s been blown up to the nth degree and even the politicians are weighing in on it, but I think I’d be far less happy with Pat Cummins upholding his appeal if it had been Alex Carey doing it to some poor Zimbabwean fill-in at the World Cup rather than to a dangerous England batter at a crucial point of a must-win Ashes Test.
That said, I’ll take the dismissal, a 2-0 lead in the series and run for the hills!
Ben Stokes is consoled by Steve Smith after being dismissed for 155 runs. (Photo by Stu Forster/Getty Images)
MMW: On the actual cricket…at what point of Ben Stokes’ innings were you worried?
TM: When he walked out on Day 4? No, it was probably the first of the three sixes he hit off Cameron Green that took him to his hundred. Got about a third of it and still carried over the ropes – wow, that man is strong.
Having seen this movie before that’s when I started to fear we might be seeing the sequel – then I was resigned to defeat when Steve Smith dropped him just after lunch. My scream of fury could be heard from space.
MMW: He’ll do that. It’s the rugby league player in him. They should pick more of them, because the team with the most rugby league players is currently winning.
Stokes has been strange under Bazball because his batting hasn’t really been that great – in fact he’s the only player to go down in average under the brave new world – but, like Ian Botham and Andrew Flintoff, he’s the ultimate moment player. I wish it didn’t required things going so horribly wrong to provoke him into it.
Once again it’s a heroic defeat, which is really what keeps English sport going anyway. In many ways, having both a really distinct style that we can keep saying is morally superior, allied to a national propensity for glorious failure, is what will endear this team to the nation’s hearts.
TM: I’m thrilled to learn that despite what Bazball accomplished last English summer, they still remain the Washington Generals of our little rivalry! How long that holds up remains to be seen – I can’t shake the feeling that England and especially Bairstow are still yet to hit top gear with the bat. Headingley’s going to be fascinating.
MMW: It is against all learnings of the previous 25 years of watching this team for me to be confident, but if Australia pick Scott Boland, Mitch Starc and Todd Murphy in the team you might convince me of it. That lineup looks like it could go for a lot of runs and quickly. Remember, Bazball is like the Max Power way: the wrong way, but faster.
Speaking of: we’ve now bowled for about three times as long as Australia and might be forced to pick some other bowlers too. England know the series is on the line and will probably get *another* flat deck, but now with two genuinely fast bowlers. Are you worried?
TM: Mark Wood is a big point of difference going into the third Test – I’m surprised he wasn’t picked at Lord’s. If it’s another flat track and another bouncer battle he’s going to be much better equipped to trouble the Aussies than Jimmy Anderson, who I’m assuming will make way.
Moeen Ali probably comes back for, I guess, Ollie Robinson. Surely after all the *bleep* Stuart Broad talked at Lord’s he’ll absolutely blow a gasket if he’s rested out of Leeds.
England’s Stuart Broad grounds his bat as Australia’s Marnus Labuschagne and Alex Carey look on. (Photo by Adam Davy/PA Images via Getty Images)
MMW: That would be my suspicion. Then again. Robbo has this weird habit of bowling innocuous trash and still taking three-fer every inning. It’s a strange ability to have.
It’s got to be Wood for sure, and they can’t drop Josh Tongue really after that last game. Broady has been the best of the lot for mine and a little unlucky. In my mind, the bulk of the dropped catches have been off him.
You’ve touched on an interesting point though. Were it not for the stumping incident and Stokes’ fireworks, we’d probably be talking about how Test Cricket is being ruined by bouncers, right?
Parts of that Test was actually dire to watch for even people like me, who would watch any Test anywhere, because of the negative tactics from both sides.
The mind wandered to Rawalpindi again, with Nauman Ali bowling a foot outside leg stump for overs on end before someone stupidly tried to sweep…we’re going to get that, but with the ball flying over head height…was it like that for you?
TM: This is my biggest worry for the series – the first two Tests have been amazing because of the skill and gumption of the two teams involved, and nothing to do with two utterly pathetic pitches. If England were a normal team it’d be 0-0 at the moment and we’d be talking about the death of Test cricket – the two decks have been horrendous throughout 10 days.
It’s weird to me because I feel like England are missing a trick – scores will be lower on seaming decks but wouldn’t it then be more beneficial to be trying to score runs as quickly as Harry Brook, Bairstow, Stokes etc. can? And what we’ve learned from 20 years of touring England is that Aussie batters can’t handle a moving ball.
With a diminished Smith and Marnus Labuschagne in a down slump, plus Joe Root being Joe Root, I’m convinced a deck with a bit of life in it would suit England far better than the Aussies, so as poor a look as another dead wicket would be – and the dangers of absolutely cooking every fast bowler on the team so by the fifth Test it’s Darren Stevens versus a resurrected Peter Siddle with the new ball – it likely benefits my mob.
(Photo by Adam Davy/PA Images via Getty Images)
MMW: I’ve been following Yorkshire a fair bit – despite being from Lancashire – as one of my relatives is playing for them, and the bad news is that they’ve played three games there this year and they’ve all been dominated by the bat. You never know which pitch they’ll use, mind, but just an observation…
The crucial question is whether the pitches have dictated the tactics or whether the way that England play has. New Zealand proved that if you throw enough trash at England, they can’t resist it and will do stupid things.
England are also determined to play the moving ball aggressively and have had rewards over the last 18 months from doing so, which again incentivises not pitching it up.
It’s a bit silly to say that England were unlucky again in this last Test, because they were more dumb than unlucky, but I can’t shake the feeling that we should have won both games, but didn’t.
The law of averages suggests that such a thing will change eventually, but then 25 years of watching England fail suggests it won’t. Watching all the Bazball era, you know what England are going to do and it’s up to Australia to deal with it. So far they have. Can that keep going?
TM: I’d be shocked if England didn’t win a Test or two this series – Australia’s big credit is that they’ve had the kitchen sink thrown at them in both matches, had clearly the worst of the conditions at Lord’s, lost the world’s best overseas spinner in Nathan Lyon mid-match… and are still 2-0 up.
Right now, it’ll only take one poor session of batting for England, or a solid day’s worth of batting for Australia, for the series to be safe – and while 3-0 whitewashes over New Zealand and Pakistan prove England can come from behind, whether they will is another thing.
In any case, I said after the first Test that the series probably couldn’t get any more dramatic than this – safe to say I was proven wrong!
MMW: One thing’s for certain – they’re not going to change tack. In fairness, I watched England lose meekly for ages and suddenly they lose with style, so there’s that.
I realise this makes me sound like a cult member explaining why we’re all about to board a spaceship set for the heart of the sun, but hey – that’s Bazball.
TM: I hope at least they can have the decency of wrapping it up before midnight on Day 5 this time. I’ve forgotten what a good night’s sleep feels like.
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