Here is a frame for the weeks extraordinary events in Birmingham. As they walked up the players race to their Edgbaston cricket ground changing room, dismissed Australian batsmen in the first Ashes Test match were told they were cheats and losers who had let their team down.
Grown men – and here, cricket crowds are more male-dominated than most places – jumped to their feet to mock the Australians as cry-babies and hypocrites. This very personal taunting was the up-close focus against a general background of songs and chants, some of it good-natured, some of it the kind of nastiness that is only good-natured in the self-congratulatory minds of those delivering it.
The Edgbaston crowd waves pieces of sandpaper at the Australians.Credit:Nine
If anything was proven by the end of the week, it was that the net effect of this treatment was to knit the Australians together and bring out their best cricket. The most targeted Australian, the most derided man in England, produced the batting of a lifetime.
Even as he received his player-of-the-match award, Steve Smith had to speak above the songs of the last desperates whose claim to fame was having seen him cry on the telly. He wasnt crying now. This Test match will be long remembered for that alone: how one man can receive all of that, and respond to it with this.
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Steve Smith celebrates after scoring his second ton during the Edgbaston Test.Credit:ESPA
It was pure cricket alchemy, turning base metals into gold. Where Smith had for two days been the lone mad scientist of the Australian comeback, by the final day his team was coming together in a fully synchronised cooperative. Every part of Australias attack had been planned, and every part was played to perfection.
Uneven bounce and spin would be the key to the fifth-day assault. Teams accustomed to playing on these dry, lifeless pitches around the world used to develop reverse swing as their tactical response, but that seems to have vanished from Test cricket (in all nations) since March 2018.
The Australian fast bowlers instead concentrated on wicket-to-wicket bowling at high pace, being unafraid to bend their backs and bowl short. Even if the wall wasnt going to fly, the variation in bounce would make it hard to play. The keys were effort and accuracy.
Rory Burns, who had used up all his luck in the first innings, was soon out fending at a Patrick Cummins bouncer. Cummins, Peter Siddle and James Pattinson created chances, but Nathan Lyon was always going to be the danger man, bowling faster and tweakier than in the first innings. Jason Roy tried to sweep him, but Tim Paine plugged the gaps, luring the opener into a desperate attempted drive. Two down. Lyon should have had the England captain lbw after a terrible umpiring decision that could not be redeemed by video review; but he was soon on the prowl, capturing the Joes Denly and Root with balls glancing across their bats to a waiting Cameron Bancroft. By lunch, England were four down and hang-dog.
While Lyons clever variations in flight are no longer a surprise, he had not been a frequent day-five flyer, only having taken five wickets in the fourth innings once before. His impact here was dramatic, however. Many of the balls that caused no direct harm were kicking off the pitch or turning radically.
The fieldsmen were snickering and the batsmen re-thinking. Jos ButtRead More – Source
Here is a frame for the weeks extraordinary events in Birmingham. As they walked up the players race to their Edgbaston cricket ground changing room, dismissed Australian batsmen in the first Ashes Test match were told they were cheats and losers who had let their team down.
Grown men – and here, cricket crowds are more male-dominated than most places – jumped to their feet to mock the Australians as cry-babies and hypocrites. This very personal taunting was the up-close focus against a general background of songs and chants, some of it good-natured, some of it the kind of nastiness that is only good-natured in the self-congratulatory minds of those delivering it.
The Edgbaston crowd waves pieces of sandpaper at the Australians.Credit:Nine
If anything was proven by the end of the week, it was that the net effect of this treatment was to knit the Australians together and bring out their best cricket. The most targeted Australian, the most derided man in England, produced the batting of a lifetime.
Even as he received his player-of-the-match award, Steve Smith had to speak above the songs of the last desperates whose claim to fame was having seen him cry on the telly. He wasnt crying now. This Test match will be long remembered for that alone: how one man can receive all of that, and respond to it with this.
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Steve Smith celebrates after scoring his second ton during the Edgbaston Test.Credit:ESPA
It was pure cricket alchemy, turning base metals into gold. Where Smith had for two days been the lone mad scientist of the Australian comeback, by the final day his team was coming together in a fully synchronised cooperative. Every part of Australias attack had been planned, and every part was played to perfection.
Uneven bounce and spin would be the key to the fifth-day assault. Teams accustomed to playing on these dry, lifeless pitches around the world used to develop reverse swing as their tactical response, but that seems to have vanished from Test cricket (in all nations) since March 2018.
The Australian fast bowlers instead concentrated on wicket-to-wicket bowling at high pace, being unafraid to bend their backs and bowl short. Even if the wall wasnt going to fly, the variation in bounce would make it hard to play. The keys were effort and accuracy.
Rory Burns, who had used up all his luck in the first innings, was soon out fending at a Patrick Cummins bouncer. Cummins, Peter Siddle and James Pattinson created chances, but Nathan Lyon was always going to be the danger man, bowling faster and tweakier than in the first innings. Jason Roy tried to sweep him, but Tim Paine plugged the gaps, luring the opener into a desperate attempted drive. Two down. Lyon should have had the England captain lbw after a terrible umpiring decision that could not be redeemed by video review; but he was soon on the prowl, capturing the Joes Denly and Root with balls glancing across their bats to a waiting Cameron Bancroft. By lunch, England were four down and hang-dog.
While Lyons clever variations in flight are no longer a surprise, he had not been a frequent day-five flyer, only having taken five wickets in the fourth innings once before. His impact here was dramatic, however. Many of the balls that caused no direct harm were kicking off the pitch or turning radically.
The fieldsmen were snickering and the batsmen re-thinking. Jos ButtRead More – Source
