Smith and Marsh make impotent England suffer
Australia batsmen share unbeaten 301-run stand Touring team take just one wicket on woeful third day
Had this series been staged in England, it would have been pretty close, even in the absence of Ben Stokes. Being staged in Australia, by the end of the third day here it was on course to become as lopsided as the 5-0 whitewashes of 2006-07 and 2013-14.
The terrain is everything, as it should be in cricket, otherwise one match would be all too much like another. If this series was in England, the ball would be swinging and seaming for James Anderson and Stuart Broad, Australia’s fast bowlers would be less effective and their captain, Steve Smith, would be human, not a cross between Bradman and Superman.
But on a traditional Australian pitch such as this one, as hard as Smith himself, England’s bowlers were rendered impotent. One by one they chalked up their centuries as Smith and Mitchell Marsh staged their triple-century partnership, and none of them had the pace or the spin to do anything about it.
In his 21 Tests, the younger Marsh had averaged 21. He was brought up on his father’s farm with a bowling machine in the backyard and, on his return to the Test side in place of Peter Handscomb, he drove England’s pace bowlers as if they were just feeding him another bucket of balls.
It is no mean record for one family to have three Test centurions, with a total of 10 between them, although Geoff, the father, was far more of a blocker than Shaun or Mitchell. When the younger Marsh was inducted into Australia’s Test side in 2014, he scored plenty initially, but ran out of runs in England in the Ashes series of 2015.
After Shane Watson had padded up once too often – the biggest lbw candidate of recent times – Marsh replaced him, and bowled quicker than Watson ever did. But it is almost impossible for Test all-rounders to score big runs and take wickets simultaneously and soon Marsh did neither, and was injured and dropped.
Now 26, and captain of Western Australia, Marsh might have brought the retirement of one or two England pace bowlers forward. To be kept in the field all day by Smith is, by now, predictable. To have the ball powered back past you by a rookie knocks the stuffing.
Smith was the bedrock that allowed the younger Marsh to come good. The captain clocked up his 1,000 Test runs for the fourth consecutive year, one short of the world record, while adding 137 to his score. It was his 14th century in 29 Tests as captain, not far behind Don Bradman’s 14 in 24. At the close of play, Smith’s average in Australia stood at 76, and as captain, everywhere, 75.
The match referee Richie Richardson does not explicitly say that he spoke to the two teams after the second day in Adelaide, when the on-field behaviour touched rock bottom and several players deserved to have the charge-book thrown at them; all Richardson will say publicly is that he keeps in regular contact with both sides. But this does not explain why England in this game backed off Smith tactically, as well as verbally.
From the moment he entered at 55 for two, England were almost deferential. Firstly, they concentrated on getting his partner, Usman Khawaja, out with off-spin: not a bad idea, except perhaps at the Waca when the ball is not spinning, but Smith was the priority. It was like Douglas Jardine ignoring Harold Larwood in favour of something slow when Bradman came in.
It was the same deference at the outset of day three, when Smith resumed on 92, against Anderson and Broad. Root – in conjunction with his bowlers – set one slip, and no gully. As the ball was 62 overs old, there was a chance of reverse-swing, which thus required at least four fielders on the leg side, but the problem lay in the choreography: it proclaimed that England’s intention was simply to slow Smith down.
Smith put on his bib and tucker and gorged himself, his scoring rate not hugely retarded. He threaded on driven fours off Anderson and Broad through their defensive fields to bring up his century off 138 balls; his 150 came up off 205, his 200, his first in Australia, off 301.
Smith was only perturbed when Anderson tried his Adelaide trick of standing smack in front of him when he was non-striker, on 163 (perhaps England should try a ‘gate’ of three fielders, all holding hands, to block Smith). He also became a bit loose in his 170s and survived an lbw appeal because Anderson had no-balled and because it was “umpire’s call”, Chris Gaffaney having given not out.
Moeen Ali took the one wicket to fall all day. What a boon for a captain to have a spinner who can dismiss a wellset batsman with an old ball, as Moeen did when Shaun Marsh pushed forward and edged to slip. But Moeen has dismissed only left-handers in this series, the other two Khawaja and Josh Hazlewood. Against right-handed batsmen Moeen has threatened to beat neither the inside nor outside edge, even when the Fremantle Doctor came to assist his drift. Smith rubbed in the salt by saying at the close that he thought Dawid Malan, with his occasional legbreaks, was England’s best spinner.
’Twas ever thus, of course, for English off-spinners Down Under. Fred Titmus paid 40 runs for each Test wicket that he took in Australia, Raymond Illingworth 43 and Graeme Swann 52; Moeen’s average currently stands at exactly 100, and Root – a part-timer – 154.
Craig Overton was the admirable exception to England’s impotence. The best recipe is to have experienced batsmen and young pace bowlers, whereas England have inexperienced batsmen and ageing pace bowlers.
In spite of the hairline fracture of a rib on his left side, Overton has brought energy, both as a bowler and wholehearted fielder. Young. Aggressive. In effect, Australian.