By Nick Hoult at Edgbaston
English hopes rest heavily on the shoulders of Joe Root. He may no longer be the captain but he carries a burden of batting leadership and in English cricket that is often just as onerous.
With England 35 ahead, two wickets down, and Australia at last baring their teeth, the Bazball buccaneers face a test of their nerve like never before with the first Ashes Test on the line.
If they can bat for 60 overs they will score at a tempo that should give them a total above 265; then it is over to Australia to see how they respond.
England will relish this situation because they have clarity from the captain and coach about how to play. In the past they would have dithered, been tentative when facing a task like this against Australia but if they stick to their principles they can put themselves in a winning position. Brendon McCullum insists his philosophy is not slogging, it is about absorbing pressure and putting it back on opponents by being positive.
To give Root a helping hand in that task, Ollie Pope could do with improving on his second innings average of 16 (he averages 47 in the first) and sending a real message that he has arrived in Test cricket.
But it feels like Root, the form man with 30 hundreds to his name, and the best equipped to cope if the clouds roll in, who can give England their best chance of taking a 1-0 lead. He may then have a role to play with the ball too because Moeen Ali’s ripped index finger brings Root’s off spin into play.
It took gloomy weather for Pat Cummins to finally cast off his negativity. Up to that point England had made 26 easy runs, Cummins standoffish again with his fields allowing Ben Duckett and Zak Crawley to work their way into their second innings picking up 13 singles, rotating the strike against the best new ball attack in the world.
But the luck turned on England, an enforced rain break changing the dynamic. When the players returned, 22 balls of thrilling entertainment and forensic examination of English technique and ticker followed as Australia knocked over two wickets for two runs.
With the ball seaming off the pitch. Cummins found an extra yard and Scott Boland was transformed back to looking like he could take a wicket every ball.
It was dank and rain was in the air, the England openers cast longing looks at the officials but too often the umpires take players off at the first hint of rain. By keeping them out there it produced the most exhilarating passage of the Test.
Ben Duckett is more likely to leave a £50 note on the floor than a ball in Test cricket but he has to adapt quickly because jabbing at everything outside off stump cost him his wicket twice in this match. With Cameron Green at gully he has a gigantic figure to beat with his favourite guide/dab into the off side and it brought his downfall this time. He has things to mull over before Lord’s.
Zak Crawley batted out of his crease to Boland to nullify the seam movement but he pushed defensively at a straight one, feathering a catch behind.
Perhaps the most important flatline of the summer for England came when Australia reviewed an edge behind appeal off Root. Moments later the rain fell and England scurried to the sanctuary of the dressing room, relieved when the umpires finally abandoned play at 6.15pm.
It is unlikely England will review this match, McCullum is about living in the present not the past, but if they do then it is their own errors and the gamble on a declaration that will take up the most attention.
England’s five let go of five chances in the Australia innings costing them a combined 106 runs. Add another 30 or 40 on to the England total had they not declared so early and they could be out of sight by now.
They were itching to declare on the first night of the series for psychological reasons as well as cricketing ones. So far Ben Stokes’s hunches have paid off handsomely as 11 out of 13 wins attests. Boldness is as inked into his character as the tattoos on his body are to his skin and he cannot be faulted for his desire to entertain but in the wash up of this Test that call might be the one that haunts England the most; not that he will dwell on it.
Bairstow missed two chances on Saturday standing up to the stumps, which is when he was always going to be tested. But on Sunday he dropped Alex Carey off James Anderson, a chance he normally gobbles.
The debate over Ben Foakes will be given an airing every time Bairstow makes a mistake but his value to this side is undeniable. Bairstow is the right option to keep and bat at No7 as he proved with 78 on day one. He is a resilient, vastly experienced player and he can recover from these errors. Runs in the second innings will help his mood.
To create 15 chances on this pitch as England did was credit to Stokes’s electric mind. He is wired to taking wickets, and he never stopped thinking. Carey was bowled for 66, adding 40 from when he was dropped by Bairstow on Saturday night, but Khawaja was a rock and Cummins coped with the short ball ploy.
Australia chipped away at the lead and England were looking a little flat until Stokes brought back Ollie Robinson and reverted to his Pakistan flat pitch tactics of a screen of close catchers and it worked with four for 14 in a engrossing passage..
He positioned three fielders close on the off and leg side to Khawaja. He tried to advance on Robinson to squirt the ball wide on the off side but was yorked to lose his off stump and cop some abuse on his way past from the celebrating England pack. Stokes continued with the leg theory and Nathan Lyon pulled to deep midwicket. Stokes positioned a short leg and bat pad under the noses of the Australians and the short ball did the job on Boland who popped up a catch and Cummins who was finally beaten by a bouncer.
Analysis: 22 balls, 22 minutes and 2-2
By Tim Wigmore, at Edgbaston
Look up and, in between the floodlights, England’s batsmen could see skies that were as dark as a Kafka novel. Look down, and England’s batsmen could see a pitch that was now offering inviting seam movement. Look straight ahead, and England’s batsmen could see Pat Cummins and Scott Boland, two bowlers made for this moment.
Test batting in England rarely comes harder than what awaited Zak Crawley and Ben Duckett when they walked out to bat at half past three at Edgbaston. After two and a-half-days of largely placid batting conditions, suddenly they were confronted with a challenge of an altogether different order.
Before his teammates got into position for the first ball after play resumed, Travis Head sprinted towards the Hollies Stand. To anyone who had witnessed the Hollies’s treatment of Head over the first three days, it felt like a Christian running towards lions. But Head sensed that what his teammates were about to produce would quieten even the most raucous England supporters.
Notionally, Crawley and Duckett resumed with an hour and a half to go until tea. But with another burst of rain looming, the normal units of time, and overs, that batsmen think in ceased to be relevant. The clouds were not merely a menacing backdrop to the contest played out on the field; they were integral to it, imbuing each delivery with a greater sense of drama and jeopardy.
The sepulchral skies also heightened the challenge that Crawley and Duckett faced from 22 yards. There is a certain mystery to why a cricket ball swings - a confluence of physics and serendipity - but clouds create more lateral movement for bowlers to exploit. The moisture on the pitch also created the promise of more seam movement - especially with a new ball, only 6.5 overs old when play resumed.
While conditions helped them togenerate a little more swing, Australia’s attack are primarily seam bowlers. Seam is less flashy than swing but altogether more effective: a batsmen has less time reacting to a ball moving off the pitch than one that moves in the air.
Bowling at the speeds of Boland and Cummins, 85mph or more, a batsman only has 0.5 seconds between the ball leaving the hand and having to play their shot. But, the scientists Michael F. Land and Peter McLeod have shown, batsmen must commit to their shots 0.2 seconds before the ball reaches them. For the final third of a ball’s journey, a batsman is essentially flying blind. By the time a ball has pitched, it is already too late to adjust.
The best batsmen rely on visual cues, from the bowler, and watching the ball closely in the air just before it pitches to play the shot. But at Edgbaston, England’s batsmen had to make out the ball against the dark backdrop and artificial light. Good luck.
For Cummins and Boland the imperative was simple: pound out a consummate line, and trust in seam movement to do the rest. Here was belated reward for enduring the docile batting conditions on the opening day.
Cummins sensed the moment to refine the conservative fields of the opening day. England simply wanted it all to stop. As the skies became even gloomier and drizzle started, Duckett looked towards the covers, intimating that play should end.
The very next ball, Cummins found his probing line once again. Duckett shaped to play as the ball jagged away from him; his push was claimed by an astounding one-handed catch from Cameron Green at gully, once again making the magnificent look mundane.
Three balls later, Crawley shared his opening partner’s view that conditions were not suitable for play, looking to the covers and umpire while shaking hsi head. Too late.He had pushed forward at Boland - a shot that, on day one, might have hit the middle of the bat. Now, with extra seam movement - not lavish, but just enough - that push only clipped his outside edge.
One of Test cricket’s eternal fascinations is how, with the bowler, batsman and the 22 yards that separate them the same, the ball can behave in a completely different way. Compared to at the start of England’s innings, in this passage of play the ball seamed 50% more - about the difference between the middle of Crawley’s bat and his outside edge.
If the bowling that England confronted was better, the environment was infinitely harder. The very finite feel to this period of play is what made it feel interminable. The openers recognised that this was no time to bat at their normal tempos, defending more and using the crease as a way to try and negate seam movement, rather than a form of attack; it didn’t help them to escape.
The inversion of the balance between bat-and-ball balance that had hitherto reigned at Edgbaston added up to the most compelling cricket of this terrific match. Each delivery brought the promise not just of a wicket but, even more agonisingly for England, that it would be a wicket from the final ball before the players were taken off.
The eerie raw figures of this passage - 2-2 from 22 balls and 22 minutes - captures some of its ghoulish qualities. It might be a match-shaping period of the game. And yet, as heavy rain ended this brief but brutal session, you sensed that England’s overwhelming feeling was of relief.
England vs Australia first Test, day three: as it happened
