England earning rave reviews at Smith’s expense

some blows on Monday evening. Jimmy Anderson, who went on to register the first five-for of his career in Australia, and Chris Woakes, with four wickets, were superb as England blew away their hosts for 138.

In addition, if the Australia captain expected to do the same to England’s batsmen for a second time given a lamentable first-innings effort, the new day brought new steel – and Sheffield steel at that, in the form of Joe Root’s leadership with the bat.

Aside from Root there were gutsy contributions from Mark Stoneman (36) and Alastair Cook (16), who got the innings off to a half-century start before the latter fell lbw. More

so Malan, whose 29 and gritty partnership with his captain added 78 and saw off all but 10 minutes of the twilight session under lights when Australia’s bowlers swarmed.

Smith, who had unsuccessfully challenged his own lbw dismissal to Woakes on Monday night, had a dismal and luckless day too, failing to review a decision against Cook that would have yielded his wicket when England were 1-0, then spiralling into a DRS nightmare of his own making.

Root was given out lbw to Lyon on 32 only to overturn, and then Smith, perhaps with the Cook incident in mind, asked for reviews on two not-out decisions on Root and Malan in three balls when England were three down, both of which failed. It meant Smith was left with no challenges for the remainder of the innings, something the ‘Barmies’ reminded him of every time a ball rapped a pad. If that was not enough, he then dropped Malan on eight at slip off Lyon, a difficult but gettable grab.

Anderson, whose fivefor was the 25th of his career, taking him just two away from Ian Botham’s high-water mark of 27, said England need to learn from both Brisbane and Adelaide however the series is poised in Perth. “We wanted to show we’ve got good characters in our team to get ourselves back into games through fighting hard and playing well,” he said. “But we have shown we can compete with Australia and cause problems both with bat and ball. It is now a case of doing that for long periods of time. We can’t just do that for a day here and there – that is not going to win a series. We have to do it for five days. If we can do that we can compete.”

The signs are certainly there that the beginnings of a unit capable of matching Australia have formed.

“At some point we have to start learning from the positions we get ourselves in,” said Anderson. “We were in strong positions in Brisbane and didn’t capitalise. Here we were way behind the game but have shown that’s not a fair reflection of where we are as a team and have come back.”

They have also got into Smith’s head and reintroduced him to the concept of doubt, both with his batting and captaincy. That could be as important as any scoreline in battles to come.

We wanted to show we have good characters