There were flickers of hope for England on the third day in Adelaide but, like some of the murmurs thrown up by Snicko during this pivotal third Ashes Test, they were never entirely convincing. Instead, courtesy of Travis Head’s hometown hundred, Australia secured a position of outright dominance.
At stumps the hosts had reached 271 for four for a lead of 356 runs. And, as a 53,700-strong crowd filtered out, the majority were beaming. Head had only furthered his cult status in these parts, an unbeaten 142 from 196 balls having ensured England would need a record chase on this ground to prevent a slide to 3-0 down.
Exactly an hour earlier the ground had been throbbing in anticipation. The village green out the back of the Eastern Stand was deserted and the grass bank at the Cathedral End resembled a mosh pit. Head was on 99 and, after a less eventful day than the two that preceded it, no one was going to miss the big moment.
A wobble and a gasp then followed, Head slicing Jofra Archer low to gully only for the ball to pop out of Harry Brook’s hands. In a series of myriad missed chances, here was another to add to the list. But it was not long before Head was smiling under that Super Mario moustache, his thumping straight four off Joe Root having sealed his 11th Test century and sent a roar echoing around South Australia.
As he knelt to kiss the pitch in celebration of his fourth Test century in the city, Head was also kissing England’s Ashes ambitions goodbye – although there is a case to say this occurred on the second day of the series, when his incendiary 69-ball century at Perth Stadium first broke the spirits of Ben Stokes and his men.
Things certainly unspooled from that moment and this third Test may even be the most telling of the lot. While Stokes and Archer put on an impressive ninth-wicket stand worth 106 runs – scores of 83 and 51 respectively – England’s 286 all out from 87.2 overs pointed to their general state of confusion with the bat.
This was the first surface where so-called Bazball might have actually paid off (fierce though the response would have been had it failed). And yet cowed by two defeats in alien conditions, Stokes ordered a group of players conditioned to be freewheelers for three years to get their heads down and scrap it out.
England’s task was also made harder by what can perhaps be called the second Bazball blink, namely picking a part-time spinner in Will Jacks simply to bolster the untrusted batting. Even if Shoaib Bashir would not have fared much better, an extra seamer in place of, say, Ollie Pope, plus the loopy spin of Jacks would surely have assisted their as-yet unachieved task of claiming 20 Australia wickets in a match.
Instead, this third day exposed the error of England’s newfound conservatism and not least since they – checks notes – actually won the morning session.
Stokes had notched up the slowest half-century of his Test career from 159 balls, Archer the first of his. The runs started to flow, only for Mitchell Starc, the favourite to win the Compton-Miller Medal for the player of the series, to shut down the fun by jagging the second new ball back into Stokes’s off stump. But the removal of Jake Weatherald lbw during a five-over passage before lunch left Australia in effect 102 for one.
It was actually not out – the ball from Brydon Carse had pitched outside leg, with Weatherald too polite to review – but it was an opening. Yet England could not create much pressure thereafter, and not least since Stokes was clearly gassed from a five-hour vigil with the bat and unable to bowl all day.
The spinner usually earns their corn here, only for Jacks to leak 107 runs from 19 overs and repeatedly release the valve. Carse improved his control from day one but Archer, the thriftiest of the quicks, was unused all afternoon as Stokes tried to manufacture a wicket with some elaborate fields.
As Head slowly built a foundation and moved through the gears, Josh Tongue did get Marnus Labuschagne caught at slip for 17. But Usman Khawaja settled things down for the second time in a match he was not originally due to play; he was one half of an 86-run stand with the player who had originally pinched his opening spot.
Australia’s only true wobble came after tea when two wickets fell in the space of 11 balls. Khawaja succumbed to a feathered edge off one of many long hops from Jacks, while Cameron Green followed his first-innings duck by driving Tongue loosely to Brook at second slip on seven. The hosts were 149 for four, 234 runs ahead.
All this achieved was to make it a South Australian pairing at the crease, Alex Carey following his century on day one with an unbeaten 52 as he and Head plundered 122 more runs. England arrived in Adelaide tipped to enjoy this surface and perhaps even pull one back. The locals, however, had other ideas.
