OPINION
Follow UsThree overs to go. Two wickets remaining. Pat Cummins wants one of the three pacers to take the ball. The umpire informs the Australian captain that he doesn’t have that option. The light is fading and the only way the match can continue is if he opts for a spinner. Nathan Lyon is already bowling from the other end. The other options are Steve Smith and Marnus Labsuchagne, standing next to each other in anticipation. Cummins has to make the choice.
A crunch moment in the game. Two part-time leg-spinners. Cummins wouldn’t have imagined in his wildest dreams that he will have to make such a decision in his debut series as skipper. But it is a brilliant day of Test cricket at the SCG and unpredictability in this sport is inevitable. He throws the ball to Smith who has not added to his tally of 17 Test wickets since 2016. Australia had never wanted him to pick a wicket so badly.
Six dot balls later, he finds the outside edge of Jack Leach's bat, getting him caught at the first slip. He has broken through the partnership. While everyone is ecstatic, Labuschagne lifts him in his arms. We all love Steve Smith the batsman but he looks as cool as any bowler celebrating the fall of England’s ninth wicket.
With this, he sets up a unique clash with James Anderson in the final over. Smith has faced 966 deliveries from Anderson, the second most from any bowler. This time, Anderson is at the batting end, only the second time against Smith who is trying to win the game with the ball for his team. The equation boils down to one ball and one wicket. Ben Stokes, at the boundary rope, is sitting with half his face covered in his training jersey. He can’t watch. All of us have our eyes glued to the action.
In an anticlimactic finish, Smith bowls the timidest ball of his two-over spell. Anderson blocks it with utmost ease. This is how a terrific final hour of Test cricket comes to an inefficacious yet exciting end.
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But it wasn’t just a thrilling final hour. We were blessed with a brilliant day of Test cricket, right from Zak Crawley’s 77 in the morning session. Batting with past scores of 5,12 and 18 in a top-order (top three) that average 18.8 in the series, Crawley pulled with confidence, almost taking the Australian pacers by surprise.
He got out right before lunch but a rain delay lifted England’s hopes. Stokes was fighting it out. With pain, he batted for almost three hours, playing his strokes. Adding to his 66 in the first innings, it was an admirable effort. Guess all he needed to get back to his best was some match practice, which came in the first three Tests due to no warm-up games, and some pain to ignite the focus. Some players just work like that. Once he was undone by Nathan Lyon, the image of his distraught self pinning his bat at the back of his neck spoke for his willingness to stay out there, despite the pain. It is a pity that we might not see him in Hobart.
Similarly, Jos Buttler negotiated 38 balls with a badly injured finger. It required a resurgent spell from Cummins to end his effort. Buttler missed an incoming delivery because his bat turned in his hands and created the passage for the ball to hit his back leg. It happened because the bat hit the front foot which was going across. It was both bad fortune and bad batting.
Two balls later, he broke the game open with the wicket of Mark Wood, bowling a staggering in-swinger yorker. Cummins gave him little chance as he had pushed Wood back with a short ball on the previous delivery. The W O W on the over description enhanced Cummins’ genius. England still had 15 overs to circumvent. Australia still had three wickets to pick.
Jonny Bairstow was their only hope. Fresh from his first innings' 113, he looked solid again. He was hogging the strike well. Although there was no need because Leach was in his element (scored 26 off 34 balls) with the bat.
In came the phenomenon that is Scott Boland. A master of channel bowling, as metronomic as a left-arm finger spinner. He had got Joe Root earlier in the day with the one that went straight. He had Bairstow with the one that came back in. Inside edge onto the body, allowing Labuschagne to do the rest at silly point. Figures of 24-11-30-3. He kept building on his fantastic Test debut. He now has 14 wickets at 8.6 runs apiece. Owing to his consistency, Mike Hussey called him a great flat track bowler in the commentary box. Surely, he would be playing more Tests after this Ashes.
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Number 9, 10 and 11 left. 52 more balls to go. As mentioned above, Leach batted beautifully. On Twitter, fans were asking what will SpecSavers offer to him now. As the title sponsors for the 2019 Ashes, they gave him free glasses for life after his 1* in the Headingley Test.
While many guessed it might be sunglasses this time around, Smith cut his subscription short. All on Anderson and Stuart Broad. 12 balls left. There were fond memories of the Cardiff Test in 2009. James Anderson had batted out 69 deliveries with Monty Panesar to deny Australia. But there is also the Headingley 2014, where Anderson was bowled off the penultimate ball of the match.
Lyon bowled too full in his three-over spell to close out the game, allowing Broad to counter the spin in his front foot stride. In the last over, Australia had eight fielders around the bat. We love to see such field placements, don’t we?
Cummins, the fast bowler, the captain, placed himself at silly point, under the helmet. Labuschagne was almost lying on the pitch, expecting a catch when the ball was nowhere near him.
“Cricket is the most precarious profession; it is called a team game but, no one is so lonely as a batsman facing a bowler supported by ten fieldsmen and observed by two umpires to ensure that his error does not go unpunished”, concluded the late John Arlott, one of the most renowned cricket commentators. The last 10 overs summed up these words.
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“It has been a tough tour, give us a draw,” remarked Michael Vaughan in the commentary box with two balls to go. Anderson defended both of them firmly. He had zero false shots in that last over, facing all the six deliveries.
England managed to salvage a draw, escaping a whitewash. Anderson walked back with his 103rd not out innings, 42 more than any other Test cricketer. 13 years after Cardiff, he denied Australia another Ashes Test win. For Stuart Broad, it was the first such experience. But it was fun to watch two of England’s all-time great bowlers contribute so significantly with the bat. England also achieved a satisfying result without a notable contribution from Root.
It was not the Hanuma Vihari-Ravichandran Ashwin sort of effort from last year, but it was the most entertaining day of an otherwise one-sided series. Americans say how can you play one match for five days without the assurance of a result. Yet, it is the possibility of a draw that makes Test cricket exciting.
