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With heavy rain forecast for the fourth and fifth days of the Test, and Australia needing only a draw to retain the Ashes, they arrived at Manchester with a plan to bat England out of the match with their lengthened batting line-up.
Quite literally lengthened, of course, with the return of Cameron Green to the side, who, you may have heard, is rather tall.
Did it work? Well, kind of, yes. Here’s my report card for the fourth Ashes Test.
Grade: C
The extra batting didn’t work as well as hoped on the first day for Australia. Lots of batters got a start, but England kept fighting back to take wickets and prevent the visitors from putting the match out of reach, as they finished on 317 all out early on the second day.
On the plus side, at one point, the ball deflected off Steve Smith’s bat as he was completing a run and he held up a hand to signal to Marnus Labuschagne that they would be taking no overthrows.
A lovely gesture from Smith, and a timely one. After all, following the Jonny Bairstow stumping a couple of Tests ago, we were reliably informed that a display of the Spirit of Cricket would mean that English crowds would be won over by the Australians’ grand sportsmanship. All past misdemeanours would be forgiven and never again would an Australian cricketer be booed in England.
Or, as it turned out, this wouldn’t be the case, with, by my count, Smith (on dismissal) and Alex Carey and Pat Cummins (on arrival at the crease) all being heartily jeered.
In retrospect, Smith should have taken the overthrows.
Grade: F
Most of the booing of the Australians came from the ‘Party Stand’. It was unclear exactly what kind of party we were dealing with, but based on many of the comments heard throughout the day, it was the kind of party you definitely hope never gains power.
For example, most of the second day was spent listening to a grown man shouting ‘CHEAT!’ at random intervals and with little discernible provocation.
Did this become amusing after the 400th or 500th bellow? Alas, it did not. But kudos to this gentleman for giving it a red-hot go.
Could he have taken joy out of watching Zak Crawley and Joe Root put on a blistering double century partnership that swiftly overhauled the Australians’ total in the middle session and more or less ensured England could not lose this Test?
Sure, perhaps some cricket fans might get enjoyment from watching their team do so thrillingly well. But does that really compare to the exquisite experience of being able to scream incessantly at Josh Hazlewood that he’s ‘a f–king prick’? Of course not.
Cricket fandom comes in many forms, and we should appreciate all of them.
Grade: C
The blitzkrieg of the England batters continued well into the third day, as Australia brilliantly rope-a-doped Stokes and the England batters, allowing each of them to reach half-centuries as England leant deeply into the machismo of their entire Bazball ethos.
With milestone after milestone being racked up, Stokes could not bring himself to declare, the innings ending instead in perfectly comical fashion when Bairstow was left stranded on 99 not out after James Anderson was trapped LBW.
Would Stokes lose the Ashes because he was having too much fun watching his lads have a thrash to remember to declare in time to win the Test?
Well, yes, as it turned out, and that may be the most Bazball thing in existence.
Stuart Broad and Ben Stokes. (Photo by Nick Potts/PA Images via Getty Images)
Grade: C+
Australia lost four wickets in the last session and a half of the third day, before handing the job of retaining the Ashes over to the Manchester weather.
The weather dug in early on day four, before a lapse in (cloud) concentration gave England an opportunity. For suddenly, the middle session was dry enough to play. England could wrap up the remaining wickets, level the series and send us to the fifth Test for a decider.
Or, alternatively, Labuschagne and Mitch Marsh (a man who on close inspection this Test seems to have a body that’s too big for him. Or maybe too small. It’s hard to tell. Either way, it doesn’t fit properly) could bat mostly untroubled for a couple of hours, diminishing the deficit between the two teams and rarely looking like losing their wicket.
To be fair, under gloomy conditions, they were assisted by the umpires, who decreed that Mark Wood was too fast to be allowed to bowl. But to be even more fair, I’ve been saying this for ages.
Yes, a lot of England fans were using this partnership as justification for Stokes not declaring earlier on day three. ‘See?’ went their logic. ‘Australia would have survived anyway. And wiped off the deficit, so we would have had to bat again, regardless.’
Well, perhaps. But also things might have been different if he’d declared earlier. For one thing, Wood, their most dangerous bowler, would have been permitted to, y’know, actually keep bowling on day three, with a raucous crowd behind him.
Perhaps he might have burst through Labuschagne and Marsh in the late evening of a hypothetical third day in which a declaration took place and given England a small run chase they could have managed in the small rain gap on the fourth.
Or perhaps not. It’s all wildly speculative, and probably no matter which way Stokes went, there was never going to be enough time to force a win.
But as a general rule, if you need to take twenty wickets to win a Test that you know is going to be truncated by rain, you maybe start taking those twenty wickets as fast as you can, rather than leave it all for the period of play most heavily predicted to be burdened by apocalyptic rain.
Grade: A
That’s precisely what arrived on the fifth and final day of the Test, with no play possible as the Old Trafford surface instead slowly but surely turned into a namesake tribute to the two batters who would otherwise have resumed their innings.
It was deeply unsatisfying, of course, for Australia to retain the Ashes based solely on this rain-sodden draw. Oh, and also winning the first two Tests.
Or, at least, that’s what England fans and/or journalists assured us. On the other hand, whohastheashes.com?
Still, Old Trafford had given England an absolutely thumping moral victory.
Add in the two moral victories in the first (Ollie Robinson felt like they’d won) and second Tests (Bairstow was stumped when he would rather have been allowed to keep batting) and this series has been a total moral thrashing. Concerning for Cummins and his urn-retaining team.
Hopefully, they can scrap together a consolation moral victory at the Oval.