Joe Root’s dream of regaining the Ashes turned into a far-fetched fantasy in less than two weeks after landing in Australia. The final morning of the 3rd test came to an end in brutal fashion for England’s obviously demoralised batting line-up, giving Australia an unassailable 3-0 lead in the series. England was bowled out for an embarrassing 68 runs in just 27.4 overs, with 32-year-old debutant in Scott Boland picking up the easiest 6 wickets of his life for just 7 runs. He was ably assisted by all-rounder Cameron Green who eventually put the nail in the coffin, dismissing Jimmy Anderson, sending his off stump cartwheeling across the turf. An emphatic cherry on top of a terribly bitter cake for the English cake.
England’s final day showing marked their lowest innings total on Australian shores since 1904. To put that in perspective, that was the same year the Russo-Japanese war erupted when negotiations over Korea and Manchuria broke down. That’s so long ago, that “Manchuria” doesn’t even really exist anymore. Nor do England’s hopes of returning home with any semblance of pride, unfortunately. They may not even have the chance to play the final two games of the series seeing as Australia is currently in the middle of a massive countrywide Covid outbreak.
Big day for Scotty Boland
Retaining the Ashes against Australia at the MCG is an almost impossible feat. It hasn’t happened since Andrew Strauss led his England team to victory in 2010-11, and that side was one of the more prolific Test sides of the modern era.
This year however, the smiling captain was Pat Cummins who, after the Tim Paine text scandal, was at the helm of an Australian test side for the first time in his career.
However, the spoils, smiles, and wickets belonged to one man in particular on this fine summer’s day in Melbourne. Scott Boland became only the second Indigenous Australian men’s Test cricketer in history when he donned the baggy green for the first time in day one. Figures of six for seven in four overs, with four of the wickets following Mitchell Starc’s early dismissal of Ben Stokes with a corker, made for what can only be described as an astonishing performance from a newcomer that few of us outside of Australia had ever heard of before his final day heroics.
Now, whether Boland tore the English up or not, Australia probably would’ve walked away with a convincing victory anyway, but it was a beautiful way to cap a wonderful all-round team performance.
Marcus Harris’ 76 was the highest individual score in a bowler-dominated test match. His knock was eight runs better than England’s second attempt at wielding the willow.
An unexpected moment in the sun for Boland punctuated England’s expected moment in the darkness, a darkness which looks set to continue should they carry on playing the sort of cricket we witnessed in the first 3 tests.
England’s world-class batting drought is nothing new
That’s not to say England hasn’t had world-class individual batsmen in a while.
Currently, captain Joe Root is arguably the best batter in the world. Previously we’ve witnessed some astonishing batsmen like Sir Alistair Cook, the mercurial Kevin Pietersen, big man Graham Gooch, Denis Compton, Marcus Trescothick and Michael Vaughan to name but a few, but what most of these titans of the game have in common is the lack of support they’d find from their teammates when it came to winning test matches with bat in hand.
Joe Root was on track to scoring more centuries in a calendar year than any other batsman in history heading into this Ashes series. Alas, his highest score on tour so far is an unimpressive 84. He fell 88 runs short of breaking the Test record for a calendar year at close of play on day 5 in Melbourne.
The trend? England doesn’t win Test matches when Root doesn’t score runs. The truth? Root is an island of quality in an ocean of mediocrity. There has also been a semblance of panic in the England camp since they lost the T20 World Cup to Australia a few months ago. They’ve been preparing for the Ashes scared. So scared in fact that they were obviously too focused on the Ashes when they were playing curtain raiser test series against New Zealand and India. Instead of building a solid, familiar line-up, director of cricket Ashley Giles and his coaching staff were experimenting with untested rookies and whacky combinations, both in batting and bowling. They narrowly avoided 5-0 whitewashes in those series and will be lucky to avoid one against Australia if the final two games of the Ashes are played.
The conditions in Melbourne didn’t help any batters to be fair. The pitch was lively and had a lot of attitude, especially when the sun started to bake it come day 4.
Cummins and Mitchell Starc are undoubtedly two seamers of the highest quality, even in conditions that favour batsmen, so when they started steaming in at the beginning of the test it was clear that England were in for yet another terrifyingly tough test.
Cummins led his team and the bowling line-up with aplomb, setting the tone with three vicious dismissals on the first morning of play. Mitchell Starc backed his captain with his wicked left-arm angle, swing, and blistering pace – not to mention his remarkable physical stamina.
Take these two terrible twins and pair them with Root, Stokes and Jos Buttler gifting their wickets away during a collapse to 185 all out and what chances did England stand in the first place? Come the second innings, when a deficit of 82 runs resulted from Anderson’s latest display of age-defying mastery, they were collectively too defeated to muster a comeback.
What’s next down under?
Cricket Australia continues to wrestle with Covid-19 after match referee David Boon tested positive for the virus and Australia and England were placed on separate flights to Sydney due to the growing outbreak among the tourists.
Chris Silverwood, England’s head coach, is expected to miss the fourth Test at the SCG that starts on 5 January after a family member tested positive – the seventh case among support staff and families since Boxing Day.
The tourists are awaiting results from a fourth round of testing before their flight to Sydney on New Year’s Eve and a separate plane for Australia’s touring party has been organised at short notice.
Both teams are set to stay at the same hotel in Sydney but their journey has been split to reduce contact time.
Graham Thorpe, the assistant coach, is leading the England squad in an interim capacity provided he clears the latest PCR tests. Silverwood intends to serve 10 days of isolation to ensure his family’s wellbeing in Melbourne, but could travel to Sydney after seven and thus be in time for day two of the fourth Test.
Whatever happens from here on out, England needs to pray a lot that the fourth test doesn’t go ahead to spare themselves any further embarrassment.