London: This should have been the legacy day for Australia’s ageing team.
Having scrambled into a narrow lead, much as Ben Stokes had crept England up to near parity on the second day at Headingley, the chance was there.
Zak Crawley on the attack on day three.Credit: Getty
Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood were eager to induce the collapse they had always expected the Bazballers to eventually offer. To do so would set up a 3-1 Ashes series win they could take home with contentment.
Instead, Australia’s “big three” quick bowlers put in a couple of their poorest hours of the series. A moribund morning let England skate away to a huge lead. No real pressure was imposed until the game was just about gone – in historical terms for the Oval, anyway.
In mitigation, England’s batters were inspired by hearing before play that Stuart Broad was going to retire at the end of the series. Nevertheless, that meant that the Australians had failed to stem a trend that began as far back as Lord’s, when Nathan Lyon jagged his calf on the second evening.
In a series that so many of the players had talked up as defining for how they would be remembered, the loss of Lyon has led to a gradual wearing down of the physical and mental energy of the tourists. That’s despite England’s aggressive approach affording plenty of rest for the quick bowlers.
On the third morning, new ball in hand, Starc offered Zak Crawley a friendly, wide half volley that was pummeled to the cover boundary. That flatness continued on for long tracts of the day – especially those before England had a lead of 200-plus.
Crawley, the leading run-maker in the series, has got there despite obvious weakness wide of the off stump. Far too often, the Australians have drifted onto Crawley’s stumps and pads, perhaps thinking he will miss there as he occasionally did two years ago in the series down under.
The result has been to see Crawley hammer quick runs with more regularity than the foibles of his technique and method really warrant against an attack considered the world’s best.
There was, as has been the case for most of the series, a lack of subtlety and question-posing in terms of Cummins’ tactics. While this time he started without his customary boundary riders for Crawley and Ben Duckett, the bowling promptly allowed the openers to strike boundaries in precisely those spots.
As the day went on, Cummins did have a couple of belated wins. He placed himself nicely halfway to the boundary for Todd Murphy’s drift to account for Stokes, and then leaving Joe Root a gap enticing enough to allow Murphy to rattle the stumps when he found a footmark.
But the rapport with Murphy was not strong enough when it mattered more in Leeds, and the tactical gulf between Cummins and Stokes is one of the more critical reasons why this Australian side has not been able to bridge the gap between very good and great on this tour.
It has teetered at times. Had Headingley been won, this team would have become the first Australian side ever to win four consecutive Test matches in the United Kingdom: an achievement beyond Bradman, Border, Taylor or Waugh.
But the most disappointing thing about this day for Australia was in how it confirmed beyond doubt that, despite doing everything over the past two years to build an environment in which the team’s performances could be sustained over as long a period as possible, this tour has trailed off.
The team’s preparation for the World Test Championship and Ashes cannot be questioned in terms of how the Australians nailed the first three Tests of the tour. But their stamina has not quite held up for the pointy end, something that will be the cause of some introspection for Cummins, head coach Andrew McDonald and the selectors.
Todd Murphy finds a footmark to bowl Joe Root.Credit: Reuters
“I hope so,” Cummins had said before Manchester when asked if he felt the team environment would allow for a strong finish. “That’s part of the thinking how we set up this tour around our prep, and even for a few of us missing IPLs or having shortened IPLs so that when we get to this stage we feel in as good a position as we can.
“When you look back to a few of the recent tours we’ve had in Pakistan or India, we played some of our best cricket at the end of the tour. Hopefully this one’s the same, even getting more and more used to the conditions.”
After failing to find that second wind – that’s unless Australia do something miraculous with the bat in the final innings of the series – Cummins and company will need to look more urgently and pointedly at regeneration.
In fairness to Cummins, he was already talking about that fact before this game began: “The biggest asset we have is the experience of the group and that’s not going to be around forever. We’re very individualised in how we let everyone be themselves and do it their way. Some of that’s down to the fact that we’ve got guys that have played 100 Test matches of 15 years of first-class cricket. If there’s new guys in, maybe you need to shift that a little bit more.“
A soft landing finish for David Warner will have to be reconsidered, alongside the wisdom of carrying on with Starc and Hazlewood alongside Cummins at all times. They looked tired here, lacking the bite required to keep England from getting away once more.
Undoubtedly, the likes of Jhye Richardson, Michael Neser and Lance Morris would have dearly liked the opportunity to use the new ball this morning.
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