Pink ball tests at the GABBA have a somewhat cruel quality. The pink ball test promises drama, and it lures you in with the twilight action, and then, almost before you know what has happened, it turns into an examination where only one team can pass. On Day 4, England arrived in the game still alive as they had managed to hang in there for another day with 134/6. In that last session of play on the fourth day, they even got the crowd thinking that they may be able to survive against this very difficult surface. However, by the end of that last session of play, they were out of the game altogether.
When resistance finally grew teeth
In England’s second innings, it seemed as if there would be yet another collapse. England had previously lost their grip in the first innings when they collapsed to lose six wickets after being 90-1, and it was the third day at this point; and that collapse, like so many other collapses by England in too many previous tours, still felt heavy and oppressive, a bad omen that seemed to be foretelling an early end to England’s tour.
For the first time in the Ashes, Ben Stokes and Will Jacks provided England with their first true act of resistance in the series, and that is exactly what they produced – 96 runs off 220 deliveries and an act of defiant, slightly unattractive, and completely required resistance. For the first time in the Ashes, England made it through a whole session without losing a wicket. Scott Boland was relentless in his probing and got plenty of nip out of the surface in either direction. The Australian bowlers were short to Jacks, and none of the short bowling fazed him. When the partnership reached fifty, and the Barmy Army erupted into cheers, the Test had momentarily returned to being competitive.
The single edge that detonated everything
The momentum shift is rarely sudden in Test cricket. Most of the time, the momentum shift is made to look like a mistake; that’s what happened here. Jack’s dismissal was the moment. Jack did not play the shot recklessly or aggressively; he just miscalculated. That single edge was all it took for the typical English domino effect to begin.
After scoring his first test fifty in a long time, Stokes followed him to the crease, and he edged Neser once again while playing backwards defensively. After losing seven wickets at 227, England collapsed for 241, adding only 14 more runs to their total. Brendan Doggett helped in the cleanup; however, the basic damage had been completed. Michael Neser took five wickets for 42, his maiden test five-wicket haul and arguably the most impactful bowling spell of his career in red ball cricket.
Australia’s depth strangled the contest early
The Test had already tipped significantly toward Australia from the start when their batting authority was established over England’s 334 in the first innings. On paper, 334 should have looked like an attractive target to chase down, especially after Joe Root produced one of the most impressive performances seen in Australia for years, with 138* his first Test hundred in Australia and a demonstration of how much of a permanent quality class remains regardless of where you are playing on earth.
Mitchell Starc made sure that Root’s magnificent performance stood alone in that he destroyed England’s middle order with 6-75 and in doing so passed Wasim Akram as the leading wicket taker amongst all-time left arm fast bowlers. This is no small fact; It puts Starc in the same generational group as some other all-time greats.
In Australia’s response of 511 runs, it was not about just getting one huge total. It was all about suffocating England with massive totals. The contributions of half centuries by Jake Weatherald, Marnus Labuschagne, Steve Smith, and Alex Carey were not individual scores but part of an onslaught of massive scores that made England feel hopeless in terms of scoreboard pressure.
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