Oz overcome Buttler defiance
Hosts go 2-0 up with 275-run victory after the keeper’s patient 207-ball 26 takes England’s fight to the final session on Day 5
NEW DELHI: Dropped catches, one-handed stunners, a 15-ball blob in the first innings and stonewalling Australia’s bowlers for over four hours in the second innings. A bizarre game for England wicketkeeper Jos Buttler was brought to an equally bizarre end shortly into the third session on the final day of the second Ashes Test on Monday when he was dismissed hit wicket off Jhye Richardson (5/42) under the Adelaide night sky.
Till the strange exit, Buttler had battled for 206 balls and scored 26 runs, displaying remarkable abstinence to prolong Australia’s wait for victory. But the 207th ball—an innocuous back of a length delivery by Richardson—saw Buttler go back and defend towards the point region. So far, so good you thought. Inexplicably, however, he had gone so far back that his back leg ended up hitting the stumps. He didn’t realise what he had done until Australia’s players started raucously celebrating the ninth wicket of England’s innings. Having had to wait patiently through the first two sessions of the fifth day, they knew that a victory was finally imminent.
They weren’t wrong. Three overs later, Richardson took his fifth wicket of the innings when a well-directed bouncer into James Anderson’s body was fended to Cameron Green at gully. It sealed Australia’s victory by a commanding 275 runs and ensured a 2-0 series lead with three Tests to play.
While a spirited show by Buttler and Chris Woakes (44 off 97 balls) was some solace for England on Monday, the fact that only one team in the history of the Ashes—don Bradman’s Australia at home in 1936/37— has fought back from 0-2 down to win a series illustrates what England are up against. For starters, they need to win a Test in Australia, which they haven’t done since January 2011.
What Buttler did ensure on Monday, perhaps, was to buy himself more time in the Test side. His future in whites was looking gloomy after all, having struggled to make an impact with the bat in the first three innings of the series aside from dropping a couple of regulation catches behind the stumps.
There is a case for Jonny Bairstow to be given a go, but he might now come in as a specialist batter anyway considering Ollie Pope’s issues at No.6.
Buttler’s application on Monday was noteworthy. Given his dire run of form, he could have decided there was no point in sticking around and chosen to waft his bat at every opportunity. Once he was given an early reprieve—he was on 0 when an edge off Mitchell Starc went between wicketkeeper Alex Carey and David Warner at first slip—he put his head down and got stuck in.
“It was heartbreaking to see Buttler get out like that. He showed the desire you need out here. His mentality in particular was outstanding,” England skipper Joe Root said at the presentation.
Particularly once Pope and Ben Stokes were dismissed early in the day, England had just four wickets remaining and any grand escape seemed out of bounds.
Buttler and Woakes weren’t ready to give in just yet. They batted together for 31.2 overs— the 61 runs they added together was immaterial—and just sowed a seed of doubt in Australia’s minds.
The breakthrough finally arrived when Richardson, armed with the second new ball, got the pink Kookaburra to move back in sharply and sneak through the gap between Woakes’s bat and pad. Ollie Robinson, too, put up a show of defiance briefly alongside Buttler. It needed Nathan Lyon—he ended up bowling 39 overs in the second innings—to change his angle and operate from around the wicket for Robinson’s outside edge to be found. A sharp catch low to his right was completed by Steve Smith, who marked his return to captaincy on a winning note. He will go back to being Pat Cummins’s deputy for the Boxing Day Test in Melbourne. Cummins missed this Test due to being a close contact of a Covidpositive case.
“I had fun this week and the guys played well. We controlled the game from the first day,” Smith said at the presentation. While Cummins will take Michael Neser’s place in the XI, Richardson’s immediate future will depend on Josh Hazlewood’s recovery from a side strain. Richardson, of course, has done what he could by taking his maiden five-wicket haul in Test cricket after going wicketless in the first innings. Either way, Australia won’t be complaining.
Brief scores: Australia 473/9 decl. and 230/9 decl. England 236 and 192 (C Woakes 44, R Burns 34, J Buttler 26; J Richardson 5/42).