Reaction: day one at the Oval

Preamble
The Ashes are won and the fifth Test at the Oval is a dead rubber. To a point Lord Copper. In fact, quite a lot is at stake. Broad themes and subtle nuances have yet to be resolved and the denouement could yet have a profound affect on the teams and many of the players.
Alastair Cook’s series average is a modest 31.85, but it’s fair to say that he’s looked in better touch than his stat. The same cannot be said of Michael Clarke, who has had a wretched tour, scoring just 117 runs at 16.71. In his case, the stat has told the whole story; it’s been typeset, sent to the printer, bound and sold on Amazon. Clarke has been out-batted and out-thought by his opposite number. Hunky skipper comes of age. Funky skipper done by age.
When Clarke walks out to the middle it will be much like a champion boxer in the final stages of a bout too many. Badly mauled, bloodied and dead-rubber legged, but determined to stay on his feet for the final round. After 114 Tests, there is little he can do now to alter his legacy – however those cards may fall – but he will draw on the last of pretty depleted reserves and seek to land some blows of his own.
If Pup can tap into his inner dog, he will restore some personal pride and maybe drag his team to a better place, too. The reception he gets from the crowd as he leaves the field for the last time will stay with him for years, one way or another.
Only Ponting, Border and Steve Waugh have scored more Test runs for Australia than Clarke, yet there is a feeling, especially in his own country, that he somehow falls short of being one of the great Australian cricketers. Clarke needs an unlikely 222 runs to finish his Test career with an average of more than 50; 172 will do if he is once out only. Without something special, he may drift into retirement when he deserves to go with a big splash. I doubt the Test will feel much like a dead rubber to Michael Clarke.
Cook is looking like a man on his uppers who’s just won the lottery. He has found some form with the bat without quite pushing on, and his captaincy has assumed a level of competency with the arrival of Farbrace and Bayliss.
Andrew Strauss, on his appointment as Director, Cricket, hinted that Cook might step down after the Ashes. With a cartload of monkeys off his back, Cook has promised to go on and on. There can never have been a better time for him to play his natural game and score a boatload of runs. A daddy hundred would complete his series very nicely, thank you. I doubt the Test will feel much like a dead rubber to Alastair Cook.
Jos Buttler and Adam Lyth also have some cause to wonder if their names will appear on the flight manifest when the players search out their business-class seats to the UAE. Lyth, especially, probably needs a big fifty at the very least to keep his place. This is no dead-rubber to him.
Apart from the series win against India last summer, which had the feel of dead-cat bounce, Alastair Cook’s so-called new England team has done little to merit some of the guff and hyperbole that has surrounded its meagre-to-mixed results since the 5-0 trouncing in Australia.
England went into this series as second favourites and played like it at times. Joe Root’s imperious batting and bowlers finally finding good areas in good conditions allowed England to come good. Frankly, Australia played like third favourites and its Dad’s Army did not like it up ‘em.
There is no doubt that England have, in Paul Farbrace’s own words, stumbled upon a more positive style of play. Root and Ben Stokes, in particular, have intuitively imposed themselves in key sessions of matches. Not all the players have yet managed to synthesis this new-found intent with their natural style of play or the game situation. But in Farbrace and Bayliss, one feels England have mentors capable of evolving the team.
When Wood took the final wicket at Trent Bridge to secure the series win, Nasser Husain’s Sky cry of “Rejoice, rejoice, rejoice,” or something like that, seemed to be an attempt to herald a Cook-inspired redemption after nearly two years of deceit and disconnect. It was no such thing of course, but it was an Ashes regained and a solid platform for likely demanding series in the UAE and South Africa.
England’s ambitions should be beyond a simple series win. All the hurt since Sydney 2014 has been carried by each player and packed along with bat and boots in a bag sponsored by BUPA. England will want proper revenge. Three-two will be a set-back, a dilution of the achievement, a witchetty grub in the cucumber sandwiches. It will be Michael Clarke inviting the England team to his dressing room for a Fosters.
While England have never won more than three matches in home Ashes, nothing short of 4-1 will do. A win here and the rest of the world will sit up and take notice, according to Brendon McCullum, suggesting that anything else will be snoozeville.
An England win will trade roles with Australia not just in terms of the final humiliation suffered in Sydney and the miserable fragmentation of the team that followed, but England will leapfrog Australia in the ICC Test rankings. Who could have imagined England as the No 2 ranked Test team after the loss at the Kensington Oval last May? As Jim Royle might have said, “Dead rubber? My arse!”
Day One
Clarke said in his column for the Sydney Daily Telegraph:
The pitch the Oval has prepared for the fifth Test is the greenest I’ve seen this entire series, and I believe there’s every chance we could see a third consecutive match finish inside three days.
He is an unhappy man. He’s never had the pitches he’s wanted, the team he’s wanted or the weather he’s wanted. If the odds were already stacked against him, they toppled over and fell on him at the toss. With overcast, muggy conditions, Cook, now a very sure-footed skipper indeed, decided to have a bowl. No one chooses to bowl first at the Oval, do they asks Twitter?
England unchanged from Trent Bridge. Australia bring in Siddle for Hazelwood and Mitchell Marsh for his brother Shaun. The first is a surprise, as Cummins was expected to earn a second cap. The second probably rights a wrong from last time around.
Outside the Hobbs Gate, fifty or more fans, led and inspired by Sam Collins and Jarrod Kimber, held a silent vigil in protest against the usurpation of the ICC by the “Big Three.” Barmy Army talisman, Billy “the trumpet” Cooper, played the Last Post in poignant recognition of the loss portrayed in the Death of A Gentleman film. Inside the Oval itself, a full house showed Test cricket to be in robust health. If only it were so simple. Picking up the mood outside cricket, Laura Wright serenaded the players on to the outfield with a peculiarly mournful rendition of Jerusalem.
Australian openers, Rogers and Warner, approached their task with watchful caution, with an array of shots straight out of the Cook batting locker marked effective and phlegmatic – the leave, the dig out and the defensive prod. Apart from an edge by Rogers off Wood, which dropped short of Cook, play could be best described as dourly attritional or proper Test cricket, depending on your point of view. Maybe England’s bowlers could have bowled a tad fuller to make best use of early swinging conditions.
After an hour’s play, Australia were 19-0, with no boundaries. With a similar number of overs bowled at Trent Bridge, Australia were nine down for five boundaries and not much else. At drinks, the Aussies will have quaffed their Gatorade with the greater satisfaction.
Whatever demons Alastair Cook may have seen in the pitch, they soon got bored with the lack of meaningful activity, upped sticks and probably moved into the skipper’s thoughts as he contemplated his decision to bowl first.
The hour to lunch yielded 63 runs, with the openers looking increasingly comfortable. Finn did find a thick edge by Warner, but it dipped short of Root fielding at a composite fourth-slip/gully position. There was surprisingly little carry off the Oval pitch, which suggests it was slower than expected.
The pips on Warner’s epaulettes seem to suit him. The slash-and burn-shots were mostly kept in check, and he brought up a disciplined half-century with a boundary off Finn. Wood largely bowled well without luck; Broad not so much. Australia went in to lunch on 82-0, and the session belonged to the baggy greens.
Wood continued his good work after lunch, and, seven overs in, put his back into one that coaxed a little extra bounce from a flat pitch. A surprised Rogers nicked off to first slip, caught by Cook, after a bit of a hot-cake routine, for 43.
Steve Smith came in immediately looking every inch a former best batsman, whose last four innings were 7, 8, 6 and 5. After reinventing unorthodoxy and bending it to his will, Smith’s now gone about un-reinventing it and looks a mess. Even his low scores are non-sequential. There’s no method in it. Constantly squared up like a sandstone block, but without any of the golden solidity.
While Smith resembled a prototype of his former self, the new-model Warner looked certain to reach an assured century. The bowling plan pushed under the door of Cook’s hotel room last night clearly took a while to sink in, but the skipper eventually brought Moeen Ali back on, and within a couple of overs he had his man.
An uncertain Warner nicked off to the slips where he was caught by Lyth for 85. This is the fourth time Ali has snared Warner in the series. Joe Root should consider wearing the comedy beard again just to push home the point. This was Warner’s fifth half-century of the series, but the first made during the first innings. If the pattern holds, he could be devastating next knock!
Michael Clarke made his way to the crease through a guard of honour courtesy of applauding English players. Once upon a time, they may have been glad to see the back of him, not so much these day. Still, it was a nice touch. The crowd made a loud, appreciative noise, too. The occasion could have avoided a spirit-of-cricket mawkishness had Ben Stokes spiked the moment with a well-delivered salute, but there is no humour in the man.
Clarke looked untroubled during the half-dozen overs before the interval, and as the outgoing and incoming captains made their way to the pavilion for a well-deserved cup of tea, Australia’s 184-2 put them firmly in the box seat.
The sentimentality lasted 29 balls. Clarke’s inner dog failed to wake after a heavy tea. The last of a couple of airy wafts to Stokes got a wafer-thin edge to Buttler. It wasn’t meant to be like this. Exercising captain’s prerogative for maybe the last time, Clarke indulged in a Watto. Hotspot remained disdainfully cold, but the tiny noise detected by Snicko in party-pooper mood was symbolically louder than the reception given by the crowd just a short time before. Clarke was confirmed out for a less-than-characterful 15 as Australia reached a fairly conventional 186-3.
In the meantime, while the drama unfolded at the other end, Steve Smith began to metamorphose from clunky caterpillar to blossoming butterfly, from ugly duckling to majestic swan. You get the picture. He reached his half-century before anyone noticed the transformation.
Just to reinforce the point that this game had taken on the guise of what used to be known as a traditional Test match, a few balls after evening drinks play was interrupted for 25 minutes by rain. We just need a late wicket from a poor ball and the slow trudge on by a nightwatchman to complete the scene. May as well go the whole hog and keep the pitch uncovered overnight.
Voges did not look comfortable early up, with a zippy Wood in particular causing him problems. One went right through him, another cut him in half. If Voges had been a cartoon character, his disparate body parts would have littered the wicket with Wood sniggering like Muttley at the end of his follow-through. But there was enough modest bowling by Broad and Ali to keep the scoreboard ticking over at a decent rate.
Play meandered to an early close in a gloomy light two clicks before the new ball was available. It was undisputedly Australia’s day, going in at 287-3 at stumps.
The day is probably best defined as hard work for both sides. Australia have established a terrific platform without ever getting away from England. Wood was the best bowler by a couple of lengths. Broad was economical without ever really hitting his straps. Moeen does not look like the spinner we hoped he’d be on a pitch that was offering some spin and bounce. England may yet rue     the continued teasing ostracisation of Adil Rashid.
The only thing certain about this match is it won’t finish within three days. Well, almost certain!
Tregaskis
@Tregaskis1

13 comments

  • Good sum up.

    I really struggle to see moeen Ali as a front line bowler to me he’s a batting allrounder – more than a part time spinner but not really a specialist although he does seem to have Warner’s number.

    Finn was perhaps unlucky not to get a wicket but was pretty expensive. I still have my doubts about him despite his explosive return at Edgbaston.

    Smith I think demonstrated what we will see more often once he is captain a determination to get runs for the team even when he’s not playing as fluently as he can.

    Will be interesting to see if eng can make the new ball count tomorrow and keep Aus to 400 ish. Aus will be hoping for a Lords replay of course.

    I also think that Australia got today all the luck they didn’t get in that debacle at TB.

  • Nice write up.

    With the new ball due, and a decent weather forecast, the first hour tomorrow morning might well determine the outcome of the match.

    England continued toying with Rashid bemuses me.

  • I really hope that someone on TFT is busily dissecting the hefty does of tripe TMS served up for lunch in the form of Tom Harrison’s interview:

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p030701c

    Ever on-message, Harrison spouts the usual drivel about how this summer’s win has “reconnected cricket to the public” and how the ECB wants to “take privilege out of the game” without providing the slightest indication of how he thinks this might be achieved (unsurprising, given it’s impossible if so few people can see it). Most extraordinarily, however, he attempts to justify the India-England-Australia coup at the ICC on the basis that the revenues generated for India will “help build following in that country”! Even on an ECB absurdity scale, this is extraordinary. Anyone who’s ever been to India (and Harrison has worked there) will know that it is the one country in the world where there is no need to build following whatsoever. Cricket is an obsession there for over 1 billion people, to the point that Test matches from 20 years ago are still broadcast in full! Nonsensically, Harrison suggests that without the deal, India would have broken away from the ICC. To play whom, exactly? There would have been riots. “Imagine Test cricket without India…” he babbles, failing to spot the irony that the tripartite structure may instead lead to Test cricket without West Indies, New Zealand or Pakistan.

    Listen, and weep.

    • Many thanks, HP. Yes, we will take a detailed look at Harrison’s interview after the test, but in the meantime we welcome any comments about if people would like to make.

      • Would also be interested in your take on the ECB moaning about how the counties aren’t financially self-sustaining (because they’re handicapped by the ECB’s completely insane competition structures) and saying they will no longer be the “bank of last resort”.

        Surely they understand that if they’re not willing to help the counties out financially, then what right do they have to tell them how to organise their season?

        If I was the counties I’d tell the ECB to stick their sky money up their arse and organise our own, more commercially viable, county structure, sell the rights to local tv stations, and form a joint bargaining agreement that charges the ECB a small fortune to host international games.

    • “Nonsensically, Harrison suggests that without the deal, India would have broken away from the ICC”

      My god, if he’s that easy to bluff, I would love to play poker against this guy.

      Who did he think India would play against, Mars? What a class A fucking moron.

  • so a lead of 287-3, on a pitch exhibiting uneven bounce and assisting the spinner means that day 1 is even. Granted that England won in 1997 on such a track but then they had Caddick and Tufnell.

    • You say Caddick like he was an asset….

      He’s a funny player really. From an Australian point of view he was a running joke, you simply could never believe that for a ten year period this guy kept getting picked. He averaged 45 up to his last game against Australia when he took 10 for and dropped his average vs Aus to 40. No one who has taken 64 wickets or more in ashes tests has as poor a bowling record (by a fair margin, Anderson at average of 35 is second worse on this stat)

      Was incredibly surprised to see many years later that he had a sub 30 average overall. Which means his average vs rest of the world outside Aus was 26, which is obviously quite good and now makes more sense why he kept getting picked.

      • Hee hee…Caddick played for England between 1993 and 2003, when England were very bad and Australia very good. I expect most bowlers’ averages vs Taylor, the Waugh brothers, Ponting et al suffered during that period. Overall, Caddick was a decent bowler who formed a pretty strong partnership with Darren Gough. Those two were by far the best we had in that period – alternatives included Ilott, McCague, Mullally and Giddens. Caddick’s main weakness was that he had a poor first innings record. Overall he came out with a record similar to Merv Hughes…but then Hughes didn’t have to play vs Australia…

        • I do know the cupboard was pretty basic in that era. Darren Gough though was highly respected by Australia unlike Caddick. Angus Fraser though was good I that era but not liked by selectors for some reason.

  • I think that James opined that Voges did not look like a Test match batsman…2 successive 50s is more than Cook has done, even more nthan most other people in the English team.

    • Voges looked better at TB but I wasn’t impressed with him at all yesterday. On a pitch with a little more carry, he would’ve been caught behind several times so far in this innings. He can’t seem to drive. Don’t rate him. His record in country cricket wasn’t particularly great either.

      The lack of pace in the pitch is the single biggest reason why Australia had a good day yesterday. I can’t recall seeing so many edges fall short of the slips.

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