Drama lurks at every bend and corner of this Ashes. In continuation with the seesawing nature of the series, fortune swung back and forth for both teams on the second day at Oval. It ended with Australia sneaking in a 12-run first-innings lead, but both sides would be neither fully content nor discontent, thereby promising a thrilling end that befits the tempo of the series.
The day had the usual fills of what you have come to expect from over the last month, artful bowling, trenchant batting, an episode of controversy, a ripping catch at first slip, dodgy game-plans, passages that made you yawn and phases that made you marvel at the game’s capacity to thrill.
But no matter how you twist and bend the day’s narrative, it comes back to the (non) run out of Steve Smith. Smith dashed for a second-run, but substitute fielder George Ealham’s bullet-throw found him short of the crease. The giant-screen on the ground flashes the sequence, and suddenly, George, son of former England cricketer Mark Ealham, waltzed into the Ashes folklore for a place beside Gary Pratt, the substitute fielder who famously ran out Ricky Ponting at Trent Bridge in 2005. Shaking his head in disgust, Smith had almost reached the boundary ropes when he paused. He turned back and reverted his gaze to the screen, where he saw that Bairstow had accidentally knocked the stumps as he shaped to collect Ealham’s throw. In order for Smith to have been out, it needed the other bail to be removed. It was not, as Smith survived by the slimmest of margins.
Boos ringed in around the stadium; Bairstow and run out reacquainted with another note of scandal. Ben Stokes let out a howl of anguish; Stuart Broad shook his head in disbelief, Ben Duckett uttered something to the dust-smeared Smith, who inevitably brushed it away. From that moment, from yet another moment, Australia discovered the inspiration for a comeback. Australia were 193 for seven at that juncture; they looked horribly ragged. The incident instilled them with a spirit of comeback. Smith and Pat Cummins hatched a mini-revival, adding 54 runs, frustrating and harrowing England’s bowlers. Smith departed for 71, adding just 29 more to his total after being reprieved, but the mood of the game suddenly changed, as it has throughout this Ashes. Cummins and the Bazballing Murphy would add another 49 runs to help Australia eclipse England’s first-innings score and eke out a slender 12-run lead.
It has been such a series that no team has, at any point, seemed bossing over the adversary, apart from England’s first-innings blitzkrieg at Old Trafford. They almost delivered the knockout blow. For much of the second session, they had Australia on the mat. Stuart Broad traded the punches with a spell of bark and bite upfront. He grabbed the obdurate Usman Khawaja before nicking the dangerous Travis Head behind with a delectable away-nibbler, that nibbled barely half an inch, but just enough to kiss the outside edge of the blade.
Broad is arguably the finest swing merchant against left-handed batsmen around, a skill he acquired over the years than was born with. He always had a nip-backer, now he swings the ball away, with the conventional as well as the scrambled seam, and could make the ball hold its line. Khawaja missed a straight one, but Broad had spooked him in the morning, beating both edges of his tenuous willow. None of Alex Carey, Mitchell Marsh and Mitchell Starc lend Smith any stable support.
At this junction of impending doom, it seemed that Australia had no fight left in them, that they were merely content in not losing the urn, rather than going full-throttle to end the 22-year-old drought for a series triumph on British soil. The Smith run out moment woke them up, renewed their hope and belief, whereas it punctured England’s morale.
As friendly as the bowling conditions were in the morning, as probing as Stokes’s seam-quartet were, Khawaja and Marnus Labuschange were intent on surviving and not scoring. No run came off the bat in the first four overs; the first 12 overs yielded 21 runs, eight off those were byes. Australia’s conservatism was painful to watch. The conditions were difficult, there was swing on offer, the odd ball gripped the surface, but not a situation that warranted cynical dead-batting.
But their method seemed justified as England’s bowlers began to lose their composure in the second hour of the first session. Desperation had begun to creep in when Joe Root produced a blinding catch to end Labuschagne’s resistance. The edge screamed off his bat, as it often does when the bowler is 90-miler Mark Wood.
Jonny Bairstow could just pass a sideways glance, but Root flung to his left, like an alley cat catching a fish thrown at it, and nabbed the ball after it was well past him. The ball was swinging away from him too, but he clung on. It has been a series about collectivism rather than individual brilliance, but Root came closest to producing a solo show. Two wickets to go with the blinder. But the narrative of the day would come back and stop at the Smith-Bairstow run our incident. Another dose of drama that lurked invisibly in the corner.