The unravelling of England in the bright sunshine on the Western Australian coast has sparked the same old discussions that the media are used to after every Brisbane test for the last 14 years. For an England team to lose in Australia isn't a big deal but the manner in which it all happened was quite telling of the ugly side of Bazball. After being 105 runs ahead at lunch on day 2 with 9 wickets in hand, anyone who says they put their money on Australia winning by evening must be lying. If ever the match was to finish on day 2, it had to be England bowling Australia out for another sub-150 total to win the test. It should never have been the other way round. Boland looked in rhythm against England for the first time since Hobart 2021. Duckett got out to a decent delivery and what followed next was to have a direct impact on the result. Pope was trying to drive on the up for an hour and he finally edged one to Alex Carey after playing & missing for about 15 times before that. Harry Brook came in at number 5 and nicked the third delivery he faced to Usman Khawaja, again trying to drive Boland on the up. Joe Root was watching this from the other end but didn't seem to understand any of it as he also dragged one onto his stumps while trying to play the same bloody shot off Mitchell Starc! Stokes again fell to Starc as England collapsed dramatically to be 104-7. Gus Atkinson and Bryden Carse played a shot on almost every delivery to add 50 more runs before the final three wickets fell to three horrible shots. The sequence of the last three wickets was bad but not worse than that of Pope-Brook-Root. It looked as if they are trapped in a fever dream. Once is a mistake, twice is a choice and choosing do the same thing expecting a different result is madness. Playing against this England side must feel like interacting with a man who is shouting his guts out with noise cancellation headphones on, they just keep doing the same thing irrespective of what you do! The compulsion to play at every ball has led to their demise many a times in the last couple of years and yet they are reluctant to change. Is it because they genuinely believe that going harder is the correct option or because they just do not want to admit their mistakes? What Travis Head did is probably what England dream of. He played at a strike rate of almost 150 but did not play a single drive on the up. He pulled, cut and only drove half volleys.
England played all their cricket in the last 3 years with this Ashes in mind. They built a team, especially the fast bowling group, specifically for Australia and it worked wonders on the first afternoon when they had Australia running for cover. With a crucial lead of 40 runs, England were the clear favorites going into the second innings against an Australian team having a debutant opener potentially patterned by a makeshift opener. Being over 100 runs ahead at lunch, England were an hour of good batting away from having Australia at their mercy. England's self destruction meant Australia were chasing 204, the highest team total of the match if they were to get there. Travis Head again stood up when the chips were down as he always does in important matches for Australia and won them the test single handedly.
Only Australia in world cricket play pink ball tests and win almost all of them. England have got 11 days before Brisbane to prepare for the toughest test on this tour while being 1-0 down. Australia will potentially have Cummins back if not Hazlewood as well which adds to the degree of difficulty. If Stokes' team doesn't bring nuance to their batting approach, it is going to be 2-0 to Australia when the teams head to Adelaide.
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