England’s final day in the field before they enter the Gabbatoir on Thursday could barely have been more chastening. They arrived needing six wickets, and ended up with one. Leaving the field at 4pm, when hands were shaken to terminate their toil, was emphatically not part of the plan. The opposition provided certainly look strong enough now.
There is some mitigation. The pitch was frightfully flat and Cricket Australia XI’s Jason Sangha and Matt Short, who put on 263, were superb maiden centurions. Indeed only Sachin Tendulkar, at Old Trafford in 1990, was younger in making a first-class century against England than Sangha, an 18-year-old from the Randwick Petersham club in Sydney (who David Warner and Usman Khawaja, lying in wait in Brisbane, have represented).
To boot, Sangha is the youngest first-class centurion in Australia for almost 25 years. The batsman then was one RT Ponting, also just a couple of months on from his 18th birthday, for Tasmania in January 1993. Trevor Bayliss was playing for New South Wales, the opposition, who also gave debuts to a couple of blokes called Glenn McGrath (he took a five-wicket haul, naturally) and Adam Gilchrist. At no stage in his previous three innings – which had brought a combined eight runs, including a second-ball duck in the first innings here – did he look a player close to a composed, classy hundred like this. His is a name worth jotting down.
England were largely listless, in plan and execution. Mark Stoneman dropped Sangha on 43 – a low Mason Crane full toss drilled high and hard to extra cover. Stoneman could only pop the ball up, Crane kicking the turf in frustration at the third dropped catch off his bowling this match. He knew not that he had four more hours of this coming up. England must taking such catches because they will seldom come along; it is also worth noting that they did not hit the stumps with a shy in any of the first warm-up games.
Crane and Moeen Ali were tidy enough, but the seam attack was benign and wicketless, with Stuart Broad anonymous, Chris Woakes cruising and Craig Overton flogged through ugly overs with ugly plans (it is no coincidence he has taken wickets when bowling a decent Australian length, not when ordered to fire bumpers to a leg-trap). They set about experimenting, with Broad at one stage having three men from silly mid-off to short extra-cover, as well as a silly mid-on.
November
• 15-18 Cricket Aus XI, Townsville
• 23-27 First Test, Brisbane
December
• 2-6 Second Test, Adelaide (day/night)
• 9-10 Cricket Aus XI , Perth
• 14-18 Third Test , Perth
• 26-30 Fourth Test, Melbourne
January
• 4-8 Fifth Test Sydney
• 11 Cricket Aus XI , Sydney
• 14 First ODI , Melbourne (d/n)
• 19 Second ODI, Brisbane (d/n)
• 21 Third ODI , Sydney (d/n)
• 26 Fourth ODI , Adelaide (d/n)
• 28 Fifth ODI, Perth (d/n)
February
• 2 Prime Minister’s XI , Canberra
• 7 T20 v Australia , Hobart
• 10 T20 v Australia , Melbourne
• 13 T20 v New Zealand, Wellington
• 18 T20 v New Zealand, Hamilton
The sense is that the Australians have the bowlers to take flat pitches out of the equation; England evidently do not. Jake Ball’s absence has certainly seen his stock rise and he fielded for the entire morning session before bowling 15 overs in the nets. Alastair Cook, meanwhile, stayed off the field all day.
Sangha and Short inflicted on England one wicketless session, then another. At 3.26pm, 256 minutes into the day’s play, Sangha went to sweep Crane, got a top edge and Dawid Malan took a decent catch tumbling forward at short fine-leg. Until then, the only thing that went to hand was a diving effort by a groundsman lurking beyond the boundary at long-on as Short tucked into Moeen.
Short survived to finish with a brilliant 134, to go with 51 in the first innings and four wickets, driving with confidence and pulling well too. He said after England lost seven for 42 in Adelaide that CA had found out a couple of their batsmen; he has now found out some of the bowlers too. The pair of them exploited gaps and drove England to distraction. The game ended with Joe Root and Malan bowling in tandem, taking as long as they could to complete their overs.
Bayliss, who said England’s XI for Brisbane is “pretty close in my mind”, was content, even after such a one-sided day. “We are always a bit disappointed when we don’t take 10 for 90 but the wicket was very flat, and those two young guys batted very well,” he said.
“Over the three games we have got as much about as much as we possibly could,” Bayliss said. “Today wasn’t the perfect game of cricket for us but it’s time in the dirt, and we will probably have another one or two of them in the Test matches. It was probably good to experience it and the heat as well.”
Still, the sight of Jonny Bairstow and Moeen padding up to face the bowlers who did not play – including Ball – in the middle was a reminder that England still have plenty of work to do.
