Khawaja grabs his chance as series limps to a close
England tail wags but bowlers made to suffer Left-hander piles on runs on third morning
With the outcome of a series decided and extreme pressure off the players, a dead-rubber Test is a world of its own. A world where Alice finds everything opposite or upside down – England’s tail-enders scoring runs, Australians dropping the simplest of catches, and Usman Khawaja scoring a century, his first against England.
Khawaja, rather like England’s batsmen in this series, had failed to go on hitherto in this series but he made the most of the pitch’s benign slowness to make good at last, unlike England’s batsmen. Not out on 91 overnight, Khawaja and his captain Steve Smith set about cooking England in the Sydney sun for most if not all of day three with their ever-expanding century stand.
At least England’s tail, having been serially swept aside by Australia’s fast bowlers in the first three Tests, smacked 94 runs to post some sort of total, inadequate though it was. After Dawid Malan had been dismissed by a stunning slip catch, England were left dependent on Moeen Ali and the tailenders – one of them a debutant, another in his second Test.
Moeen, far more calmly than in Melbourne, reached 30 – as did Tom Curran and Stuart Broad. Moeen and Curran were eventually bounced out, yet it was a spirited flurry. Curran has pugnacity on his side, and he used his feet well against Nathan Lyon, but if he is to become England’s fourth seamer on a regular basis – let alone the third as here – he will need to find a yard of pace or seaming pitches.
When Broad came in, the Australian fast bowlers did nothing but bounce him, so Broad was back in his crease all ready to hook and hoick. Pat Cummins is not going to become a great bowler, as opposed to a very good one, if he pitches short so unsubtly and predictably.
And to prove that not every player was switched on fully, Cummins dropped a straightforward catch at mid-on which was offered by Curran, while Josh Hazlewood dropped a dolly that was mishooked by Moeen off Cummins. The fast bowlers of both sides must be running on empty after five Tests on grudging pitches – except
for Perth’s Waca – in seven weeks, and the recalled Mitchell Starc was barely running at all on his bruised heel. But the exception to the rule that a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush is if it is Jackson Bird.
If Broad had been the biggest under-performer of all the pace bowlers in the first three Tests, he has been another to improve with the pressure off, bowling quicker to a fuller, more challenging length. He followed up his hitting by bursting through Cameron Bancroft’s defence: it is not only Mark Stoneman, James Vince and Moeen who have failed to compile a long innings as Bancroft averages 25 and goes so hard at the ball he has come to look very average.
For the rest of the second day, Khawaja did more than hold up his end. Having been too passive hitherto, he used his feet to the spinners and tried to counter them if not dictate. Moeen he drove straight; for Mason Crane, who would have preferred not to have started his Test career against two left-handers, Khawaja worked him to leg and reverse-swept.
Khawaja added 85 with David Warner, who edged a fine off-cutter by James Anderson that just carried to the wicketkeeper. On day three, he took his stand with Steve Smith past 150, the captain’s eyes set on another hundred and a massive lead. The pitch was turning ever more for Crane and Moeen, but getting slower, so there was no guarantee an edge will carry – the norm for this series.
Root was reduced to wearing a helmet at second slip when Anderson and Broad tried their cutters, because he had to stand close enough to have some chance of an edge carrying. Crane bowled some demanding leg-breaks amid the bad balls but the batsmen had time to adjust if beaten in the air.
A generation ago, the New South Wales fast bowlers – such as Lenny Pascoe and Geoff Lawson – made the ball fly through to the keeper who would take it above his head 30 yards back; blocking was not an option. Although Root as usual set two sweepers for Warner from the start of his innings, he posted three slips for Smith when he came in – but when Smith edged early in his innings, neither his defensive push or his attacking shot carried. There is no winner if the ball dies before reaching the wicketkeeper and slips – no winner except T20 and other sports and entertainments.
It is going to be a very Pyrrhic victory: Australia are going to win this series, and probably this Test as well, but lose the war – the war to maintain the Australian Test team at the centre of national society. Their administrators are following the same path as those of West Indies who told groundsmen to slow up their pitches to dumb down their fast bowlers and make Tests last five lucrative days – and look where that got them.