OVAL AND OUT
England struggle as Root fails to cash in after being dropped THREE times
England threw away a promising position on the first day of the fifth ashes Test, slipping from 170 for three to 226 for eight before a late rally from Jos Buttler.
Joe Root kickstarted the collapse of five wickets in 14 overs, bowled by Pat Cummins for 57, the fourth time in this series he has registered a half-century without converting it into three figures.
But Buttler, without an ashes fifty until now, went into one- day mode, hitting Josh Hazlewood for three sixes to finish the day unbeaten on 64 and lift England to 271 for eight.
Buttler described the game as ‘a little bit in the balance’, adding: ‘Having lost the toss we got into a very good position, and it’s a shame to not capitalise on that. It shows there’s a bit in the wicket for both batters and bowlers.’
The Australians have demonstrated in recent years the art of salvaging pride when the long shadows of late summer are falling across the Oval.
They were 3-0 down in the 2013 Ashes series when Steve Smith scored his maiden century here, sealed with a six. he was a gauche individual back then who had unwisely let it be known that it had become his job that summer to play up to his mischievous persona and lighten the Australian camp’s dark mood.
‘Tell us a joke, Smiffy,’ James Anderson would say, whenever Smith came within earshot. The individual in question was back here two years later, scoring 143 in the often forgotten innings-win which dampened england’s Ashes celebrations. When Australia arrive here a beaten team, they arrive here an angry team.
It was the same sense of cussedness and burning indignation that you were looking for yesterday in a bruised england whose captain had said he had a ‘clear idea’ of the direction the side must now take.
Joe Root was in the nets by 9.30am, striding intently out to the throw-downs in a thick long-sleeve top. It was an ascetic-looking work- out. Tim Paine, alongside him, accelerated through his pull shots in short sleeves, grinning, full of the joys of this summer.
But appearances were terribly deceptive. A few precious moments of Root sublimity — the drive he sent crashing to the cover boundary in the glorious early afternoon sunshine — served only to remind us of the Root england have known. Nothing could disguise the impression left behind last night, of a side and a captain so pathologically wedded to the philosophy of rapid run accumulation that there is no way back.
There is no lack of empathy for Root. his lack of ego invites a wish that he will somehow put the worst of this desultory series behind him. There was a universal satisfaction when, having walked out under cotton wool clouds, he displayed more assured forward movement than we have seen for weeks, less vulnerability to the Josh hazlewood ball which has been trapping him on the crease all summer.
Yet there was a vulnerability which would have put him out of the picture early, had the Australians only played with the same intensity and steel which has retained them the Ashes.
It was not just the three opportunities, two gilt-edged, that Root handed Australia — shots of huge risk which sent catching chances at eye level to Peter Siddle and Paine — but the time at which he presented the first two of them. Risk becomes recklessness when the lunch interval is so close.
The swish of Root’s bat towards a ball down leg side just before tea reinforced the sense that this is a Root whose wiring is awry. Root grinned at Smith in that moment and what wouldn’t you have given for his thoughts as the two looked each other in the eye. Any one of those three opportunities Root offered up would have sent Smith marching off to square leg for one of his periods of self-flagellation.
The quality of the ball which finished Root — pitching in line and straightening, squaring him and taking his off stump — would have offered little comfort because the captain is old and wise enough to know that this was a day when Australia arrived in south London bearing gifts. Only three Ashes captains have inserted the opposition at this place, as Paine did, and won. The tourists operated at less than 60 per cent capacity and still eased into an ascendency.
Places in england’s winter Test squads were at stake. Yet the shots which ended the summer’s penultimate Test innings for Joe Denly, Rory Burns and Ben Stokes all provided a sense of how far this side are from an ability to bat for 140 overs. Sam Curran’s innings — six, four, no-ball reprieve, fatal loose drive — was another metaphor for the culture of wild abandon.
And before all that, there was the glint which lit up Denly’s eyes three times when a ball of good length arrived on or just wide of his off stump. As day follows night, this was the ball that removed him.
It was in keeping with what england’s batting has become when Jos Buttler’s T20 hitting had helped england to a little more than a Steve Smith innings on a 400-par pitch by the close.
In the age of rapid runs, they rely on rapid innings like this to help them towards 300. It’s effective when it comes off, though is not a sustainable as a way of consistently winning Tests. What england actually need is more fundamental. An intelligent, disciplined, uncomplicated capacity to make consistently good decisions, deliver consistent technical excellence and to hate losing.
Despite their best efforts, Australia drew that Oval Test of 2013, though what captain Michael Clarke always remembered was the halfhour meeting he had with the senior players — Brad haddin, Shane Watson, Siddle and Ryan harris — on the pitch beforehand.
‘It had been a long tour and in many ways a disappointing one and when that happens you can reach breaking point towards the end,’ Clarke reflected. ‘As the five senior Test players in the team, we had to take hold of the situation.’
It’s time for Root and his senior lieutenants to do the same.