Another miracle is required here for England to keep the pursuit of the Ashes alive. They began their second innings half an hour before the close and the ball was tossed to Pat Cummins, rather than Mitchell Starc, who had had that privilege in the first innings. This proved a good option that may well have decided the destination of the Ashes.
Cummins’s third ball, delivered from around the wicket, was not his best. It was too much to the leg side yet somehow via a leading edge Rory Burns skewed the ball gently into the hands of Travis Head. The fourth ball from Cummins was of higher quality. It was propelled at Joe Root. It was full of length and drifted into the right-hander before kissing the turf and moving away to clip the top of off stump.
Thus Root became the first England captain to register three ducks in a series; Cummins was on a hat-trick and England’s chances of saving this game had plummeted. Jason Roy, peculiarly required to face before Joe Denly, his replacement at the top of the order, had taken guard, defended the next delivery successfully.
Serious damage had been done. Burns and Root had provided the only serious obstacles to the bowlers in England’s first innings. Now both were gone. Roy and Denly have career-enhancing chances to prolong their Test futures on the final day of yet another engrossing Test match.
Until that over by Cummins, the headline news concerned Steve Smith. He failed. He was out for 82, his lowest score of the series. In the process he ensured that his captain could declare with a lead of 382. There had been the odd moment when Australia were 44 for four in their second innings when a declaration may not have been necessary. As ever, Smith took control.
It was a busy day, encompassing three innings. In the morning England added 101 runs, which meant that they just passed the follow-on target, a landmark of sorts but not one of great significance since it is highly unlikely that Australia would have enforced given the chance. This was less than they wanted, more than they feared.
All three of their remaining batsmen threatened – and Jos Buttler did manage his highest score of the series, 41, before becoming the last man out – but none of them could do any serious damage to the Australian gameplan.
Starc, armed with the second new ball, imposed himself for the first time in the series. Against Jonny Bairstow he found extra swing and he induced a leg-side drive, which never made contact with the ball. Bairstow gets bowled far more frequently than specialist batsmen. In his last 37 innings this has been his mode of dismissal 15 times, evidence that he might reproduce as justification for maintaining his wicketkeeping duties. Next Starc dispatched Ben Stokes when Smith took a regulation catch at second slip with absolute certainty. Mortality returned for Stokes with the bat and he was still suffering from a sore shoulder.
For much of this game Archer has appeared off the pace – an impression consolidated when he ambled a single from his first delivery, which dribbled away on the leg side. If the throw had hit the stumps at the non-striker’s end, Archer would have been out by an embarrassing distance. Soon afterwards he swished at a short ball from Cummins and was caught behind.
Buttler struck some crisp boundaries before and after Stuart Broad’s dismissal to Starc, which took England past 300, whereupon he was bowled attempting a big drive against Cummins. So the speculation about the timing of Tim Paine’s declaration commenced. And then stalled.
Yet again Australia’s left-handed opening batsmen were tormented by Broad. Warner suffered the humiliation of his first Test pair when he was palpably lbw to his sixth delivery. Then Marcus Harris departed in identical fashion to the first innings, lbw. He became the 14th left-handed victim for Broad out of the 19 wickets he has taken in this series.
Then Archer intervened as Marnus Labuschagne experienced failure for the first time in the series when lbw to a brisk full-length delivery. Head signalled his belligerent intentions but soon lost his middle stump to Archer in spectacular fashion. England had snaffled four wickets rapidly but they did not include Smith, who inevitably and idiosyncratically came to the rescue of his side.
There were a few moments of uncertainty at the start against Broad but soon he was past 600 runs in this series, an achievement matched only by Don Bradman (twice), Arthur Morris and Mark Taylor. Then he posted his ninth consecutive fifty in Ashes cricket, a feat that no one else can equal. Towards the end he was batting in a manner rarely seen in Test cricket even in the 21st century. He moved around the crease like a glorified mystic Meg since he seemed to have advance knowledge of where the ball was going to land.
Smith may have produced one brand new shot to add to our cricketing lexicon: the periscope block played with a vertical bat above his head from a slow bouncer from Archer. He was certainly not batting for a red inker. Eventually when Jack Leach was reintroduced he was caught at long-off by Stokes but do not regard this as confirmation of the much-mentioned “weakness” against left-arm spin.
Graham Gooch memorably described a Test match against the Kiwis as playing against the World XI at one end, where Richard Hadlee was bowling, and Ilford 2nds at the other. A similar comparison could be made when bowling against Australia. Smith is on a plane of his own, an executive jet that skims effortlessly through the air; most of the rest are more reminiscent of the contraptions recreated in Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines.
