If you really squinted – perhaps with the aid of a 36-hour plane trip or a handful of 1970s anxiety medication – there was a time when you could have claimed England had pulled off a tactical masterstroke. When the looming threat of the day was Mitchell Starc bowling in the gloaming at around 6pm Brisbane time, perhaps the smart play was to let him bat in the hot sun for four hours first, tuckering him out so your openers could smash him.
It may have been a calculation Starc also considered when wondering whether to throw the bat or to keep on grinding out runs. In the end, he valued more that each of them added to Australia’s lead. The team’s principal bowling weapon burnished his series contribution with 77 runs from 141 balls, 22 runs below his highest score and three deliveries below his longest. Scott Boland similarly produced his second-longest innings, riding shotgun with an unbeaten 21 from 72 balls, a partnership that wore England thin.
In a world where Test cricket is speeding up, it is interesting how the newest tweak to the day-night format creates an incentive for old tactics to come back in. The defensive vigil has always been key to the game, as much as the England setup seems to think fast scoring is the only thing that interests anyone. It turns out that while crowds of people can be exceptionally thick, they can also be more intelligent than you might think. For those watching at a ground, there is always appreciation for a tactically astute slowdown.
That’s what Starc achieved, emerging early in the first session at the fall of Michael Neser’s wicket, and batting deep into the second, taking Australia from 383 for seven all the way up to 491 for nine. The real point, more than the lead that ended up at 177 as the last pair breached 500, was to bat time. What mattered for Australia was to bowl with a new ball at twilight. Where late-innings batting can sometimes be rudderless, this need gave a very clear direction, something to play for, with each over Australia passed representing a little win.
Hence the steady and sensible accumulation, with Starc farming the strike for much of the 75-run stand with Boland, only occasionally expressing himself with a boundary lash when the offer was too tempting. England’s defensive approach, spreading the field while he was on strike as if Boland was the only dismissable batter, let him play the way he wanted.
Once the punishment was done, Zak Crawley and Ben Duckett did start without fear at dusk, lashing 48 off 46 balls in a hectic opening passage. But for Australia the trade-off was worth it. Even if Starc’s fatigue was a factor in his wicketless burst – having struck in his first over in the three previous innings this series – his batting had left a huge buffer for less spectacular bowling options such as Neser, bowling straight and skiddy and waiting for a mistake.
Even for those who make no claims to coaching cricket, that a straight drive is supposed to go down into the ground at the earliest opportunity is a fundamental point of batting. That so many England versions in this match have done the opposite, with several from Crawley in the first innings before Pope and Duckett preceded him in the second, says something about their approach.
Driving on the up on a fast pitch in Perth meant miscues flew to the cordon, while slower bounce here led to similar shots lifted straight. Crawley’s several strikes just past a bowler and Duckett’s dropped catch were warning enough, but Pope and Crawley nonetheless stayed in the lemming loop until they fell the same way.
England survived Starc, but still surrendered their position to 97 for three. At which point, back he came. After a rest, there was pace and there was width outside off-stump. With less than an hour to stumps, there was an England player who needed to ignore it, but he wafted a drive. The culprit was Joe Root, centre of the droughtbreak story and of English resistance in the first innings, underlined their plight.
Starc added Jamie Smith in the same fashion not much later, after Boland nicked off Harry Brook, having earlier bowled Duckett. On a day when England had hoped that pair would hurt them in only one discipline, back came the pain in the other. Like his tilted seam delivery, Starc can get it going both ways.
