2 minute read
Finally, late on day three of the fifth test, the normal axis kicked in: flat pitch, hot sun… how do you deal with this? Australia handled it with bats in their hands. England tackled it the way they have so often tackled it in the past: with an endlessly rotating cast of right-armed fast-medium bowlers who tended gloomily towards military medium as the day progressed.
“How can the ball hurt you?” Brian Close once asked. “It’s just for you for a little while.”
It’s one of cricket’s greatest ridiculous quotes, but there’s some truth to it. Brevity brings a different kind of pain. How could the first Test defeat in Perth have hurt you, England fans? It took less than two days. At a very fundamental level, England’s worst Ashes defeats have always been so much more than that.
We railed against the idea that Perth was an all-rounder. The second Test in Brisbane was even worse, we reasoned, because it was a more comprehensive failure.
Even if it wasn’t a classic. With no Australian batsman making a hundred, there was a lack of those long, hopeless sessions with no end in sight. England also had a fast bowler. There were plenty of opportunities to make things worse.
But now we are here. We succeeded. One opening bowler is not an opening bowler. The other hasn’t really played cricket since the summer. The fast bowlers are gone. The spin bowler does not exist. Left hands are purely for temple rubbing after Travis Head sends another short, wide one to the fence. It’s the Ashes we all know so well!
England ends up looking a bit fast-medium.
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