Malan and Bairstow lead the fight after Australian barrage
Unbeaten partnership of 174 tames hostile attack Stoneman sets tone with battling half-century
Ashes series in Australia make or break England cricketers. If this one is seeing the breaking of one tall left-handed batsman in Alastair Cook, it is witnessing the making of another in Dawid Malan.
Malan, with the crisp freshness of a new sheet, or of Cook seven years ago here, stemmed the Australian tide in the course of his maiden Test hundred and rousing partnership with Jonny Bairstow. Whether England’s fifth-wicket pair would be able to reverse it depended on the outcome of the second new ball, but at least they had created the possibility of a draw, given the forecast of some weekend rain – and that would keep their chance of retaining the Ashes alive.
Mark Stoneman’s half-century was no less valuable than Malan’s hundred and his counterattack with Bairstow. Like a conscientious zookeeper, Stoneman extracted the venom from the first new ball, even if he succumbed to it in the end. Australia’s short-pitched fast bowling was as lethal as any of their native snakes in the hour after lunch as it threatened heads, throats and thoraxes. Both Stoneman and Malan were hit on the helmet – Stoneman flush, Malan a glancing blow – yet these two rookies, minimally assisted by their seniors Cook and Joe Root, empowered England.
The Waca was not so fast as it used to be, but it was still the quickest England have seen since their last visit. On its baked clay, augmented by grass, the ball bounces at a steeper angle than anywhere else in the world, now that Old Trafford, the Kensington Oval in Bridgetown, Kingston’s Sabina Park and the Wanderers in Johannesburg, are no longer what they were. Some seriously good England batsmen have never come to terms with this ground’s unique characteristic: Graham Gooch, a master of fast bowling, averaged below 20 here.
Malan’s method of dealing with the short balls was to sway back or duck under or hook them. Stoneman, having gone in when the ball was 32 overs newer, had a split-second less to weigh up his options. These were roughly the same as when walking on to a motorway in front of a car going 90mph and 20 yards away. With time for nothing more than the survival instinct, Stoneman jerked up his hands to protect his head.
In the first session the Australia fast bowlers pitched most balls full, for swing, and the odd one short; in the second they pitched most balls short and the odd one full, to invite the diffident drive. James Vince fell in the first passage: his shot-selection was not sufficiently disciplined to see off Josh Hazlewood, who tied him down for 18 scoreless balls before Vince was unable to resist an uncommitted push.
What makes an Ashes series in Australia so fascinating is that any flaw in an England batsman’s makeup is exposed. In Vince’s case it seems to be impetuosity, whether in calling for a fatal single into the covers when well-set in Brisbane, or in shot-selection. He is 26, however, whereas Stoneman and Malan are 30. They know their minds and therefore their games.
Having been dropped twice after reaching 50, and pounded innumerably, Stoneman was given out caught off the glove holding his bat, correctly if prematurely: the replay from a conclusive angle had yet to be shown on screen. The bounce was such that Root was “gloved” down the leg side: it could happen to anyone at the Waca but Root, again, had been trying to run rather than walk in his eagerness to lead. While Australia’s bowling was nasty, brutish and short, England stumbled to 131 for four, on the verge of obliteration from this series.
Malan had never visited Australia before this tour, but he has usually wintered in South Africa, which is the next nearest thing. After he had been born in England, his family went back to his father’s native South Africa when he was seven. Batsmen from South Africa have prospered like no other visitors to Australia in recent years, and Malan did the same for England, his mother’s native land.
Malan has no trigger movements, unlike batsmen raised in England. He waits in his crease unless he has to go forward, which makes him so proficient at tackling the short ball. Earlier in the tour he had spoken of how alive he feels when facing fast bowling; and he can never have felt livelier than when the bouncers of Hazlewood, Mitchell Starc and Pat Cummins hurtled at him. One he hit for a straight six – only it was straight over the keeper.
Batting became altogether different in the second half of the day – or, more relevantly, of the ball’s life – after Bairstow had joined Malan. At No6, not saddled with the tail, Bairstow could play himself in before doing what he does better than anyone else in England: step on the gas at exactly the right time.
Suddenly England were on top as Malan and Bairstow bossed the game. The pitch was predictably true, the outfield fast, the sky cloudless, the light of dazzling clarity. When Australia took the second new ball after 82 overs, Malan was dropped first ball at third slip on 92, yet the pair still hit 34 off its seven overs. Had Malan and Bairstow not seized the initiative during their stand, England could have been dismissed for 300, the Ashes gone. But they did, and fanned the embers.