As the rain fell on the Sydney Cricket Ground, cutting the opening day of this fifth Ashes Test into exactly half the number of allotted overs, you could practically hear the champagne corks being popped in the Cricket Australia offices. Perhaps the groundsman’s hut also.
The huge losses incurred by the two-dayers in Perth and Melbourne put CA and the SCG on red alert as regards a repeat. Unless something absurd were to happen on the second day – England had reached 211 for three when play was abandoned at 5pm on the first – this series finale should last a fair bit longer.
Another cause for administrative optimism was the ease with which Joe Root and Harry Brook built an unbeaten fourth-wicket stand of 154 runs. The top order crumbled to 57 for three – nothing new there – but then an Australia attack without a spinner in Sydney for the first time since the days of Queen Victoria began to look short of ideas.
Perhaps this should have been expected. Pat Cummins, Josh Hazlewood and Nathan Lyon were absent for the hosts, while Root and Brook are one and two respectively in the Test batting rankings. Handed first use of a surface offering far less movement than its predecessor, there was every reason to expect runs to flow.
But on a tour that has featured English batters in a funk and invited questions about their methods more broadly, nothing could be taken for granted. Root’s crisp 72, and a more restless 78 from Brook, established a foothold in the contest, even if the bad light and showers that struck from 3pm left it short of being conclusive.
The 45 overs witnessed were decent fare for the latest bumper crowd in this series. Folks hoping to see a better balance between bat and ball got just that. Australia struck three times inside the first 90 minutes before Root and Brook began working the ball through gaps and forcing plans to change.
Australia named an unusual attack, with the stand-in captain, Steve Smith, claiming the brains trust had been “pushed into a corner” regarding the lack of a spinner. If anything it looked like a fudge: a clear desire to keep the misfiring Cameron Green, but also give Beau Webster a belated chance. The upshot was two all- rounders in the XI and thus a diet of right-arm fast-medium beyond Mitchell Starc.
After the SCG laid on a stirring tribute to the victims of the Bondi terror attacks and the first responders before play, and Ben Stokes won the toss, Zak Crawley and Ben Duckett started brightly enough. Starc found some early swing but Duckett in particular was soon clipping and slapping boundaries to hint at a personal corner being turned.
It was just the latest in a string of cameos, however, Duckett once again pushing away from his body on 27 to hand Starc his 27th wicket of the series. When Crawley fell lbw to Neser on 16 playing around one, similarly doing so the next ball after finding the rope, England had slipped to 51 for two inside the 12th over.
Jacob Bethell did his usual first innings thing, which was to very much look the part and yet very much fail with just 10 to his name. This was smart work from Scott Boland, at least, the metronome switching to over the wicket and sliding a length ball past the left-hander for a flicker of wood and a second catch for Alex Carey.
What followed from 57 for three was a stand of contrasts from the two Yorkshiremen. Root was enjoying the relatively slow pitch, drilling cover drives, pinching singles, and even guiding balls down past backward point. But Brook was not nearly so fluent, with Boland in particular seeing two inside edges fly close to the stumps.
Yet by the early close the pair had amassed the highest stand of England’s tour – just their third past three figures – and Brook had his personal best score of the series. Green was his mark as 114 for three at lunch was followed by 97 more runs without further loss in the afternoon. The Australia all-rounder’s eight overs featured lengths missed and were taken for 57.
The shot of the day was probably Brook swivel-pulling Green over deep backward square for a 97-metre six, even if a couple of Root’s effortless drives would like a word. More broadly, a run rate of 4.68 was more familiar for the England supporters.
Bangladesh has refused to travel to India for next month’s T20 World Cup and asked the ICC to move its games "outside India", due to strained political relations between the two countries.
The Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) said it has decided not to send its cricket team to India "following a thorough assessment of the prevailing situation and the growing concerns regarding the safety and security of the Bangladesh contingent in India".
In a statement on Sunday, BCB said it also considered advice from its government before reaching out to the ICC "to consider relocating all of Bangladesh’s matches to a venue outside India". The T20 World Cup will be jointly hosted by India and Sri Lanka; Bangladesh are due to play three group games in Kolkata and one in Mumbai.
Pakistan are already scheduled to play all their games in Sri Lanka, due to tensions with India that brought both countries to the brink of war last year. The 20-team event will take place from 7 February to 8 March across five Indian venues and three in Sri Lanka.
On Saturday, the Indian Premier League side Kolkata Knight Riders released the Bangladesh fast bowler Mustafizur Rahman on the instructions of the Board of Control for Cricket in India. Mustafizur was the only Bangladesh player picked in the recent IPL auction.
Bangladesh announced its 15-member squad for the tournament on Sunday, with Litton Das named as the captain and Mustafizur leading the pace attack. Associated Press
On one level this only furthered their frustration with the team’s performances during the first three Tests; inviting more questions as to why a setup that claims to be designed to help players deal with pressure has only seen them deliver once that pressure was released.
Still, it certainly felt closer to Test cricket than the casino of Melbourne and the bean counters at CA could breathe easier.
