Vulnerable batting aside, the 36-year-old Boland was viewed in England as the Ringo Starr of Australia’s fast bowling Beatles. The injury to Pat Cummins was set to expose him to the full wrath of Bazball’s batters just as he had been when he returned figures of 2 for 231 from 47 overs in two Tests in the 2023 Ashes in England.
The assertion that Boland held no fears for England’s batters wasn’t unfounded. Despite what had happened in the 2021-22 Ashes, the intel coming from England’s camp was that they genuinely did not rate him. To them he epitomised everything that was wrong with the county game: 135kph gun-barrel seam-up that needed to be put in its place. Just skip down the track and bosh it. Then reverse ramp it for six. Straight, predictable fodder.
But anyone who has ever faced Boland in Australia knows it is anything but the case. Former India captain Rohit Sharma said Boland was the “toughest to face” last year in the Border Gavaskar Trophy. England found out the hard way after being lulled into a full sense of security on the opening day of the series.
Boland and coach Andrew McDonald took equal blame for his opening spell. England did not hit him off a length so much as he gift wrapped a stack of half-volleys while searching for the stumps with the new ball.
The recalibration was swift and extraordinary. There is a case to be made that Boland’s spell after lunch on the second day in Perth won Australia the Ashes. Mitchell’s Starc seven wickets on the opening day had set the tone, but England had a decisive lead. Travis Head’s mind-blowing century was still to come. But it may not have happened without what Boland did.
With England 105 in front and nine second-innings wickets in hand he took 3 for 3 in 11 deliveries.
But none of Boland’s four wickets in Perth came with Carey up, nor did any of his three key wickets in Brisbane, either. In Perth, Ben Duckett thought he had covered a straight ball from over the wicket and nicked it to second slip while squaring up. Ollie Pope thought he was driving a straight ball on the up and nicked it behind. Harry Brook thought likewise and fell the same way.
In Brisbane, Jamie Smith thought he had defended a straight ball on off stump and instead lost middle. Duckett thought he had too, only for his leg stump to be rattled via a bottom edge. Brook thought likewise only to nick it behind.
Only by the end of Adelaide, where Boland finished with the frugal and tireless match figures of 33.1-11-80-4, was there an acceptance from the England camp of what they were dealing with.
“If you look at Boland, just for one of them, like, he just very rarely misses,” Zak Crawley said. “And so it’s very hard to play that like we have in the past perhaps, and they have to get credit for that.”
The commentariat had come around, too. James Anderson, he of 704 Test wickets and knight of the realm, was in awe of Boland’s ability to execute a craft that he nearly perfected over 21 years at the highest level.
“You’ve got bowlers who can consistently just not miss, like Boland is just a joke,” Anderson said on the Tailenders podcast.
Boland had nothing left to prove by the time he got to Sydney. But his spell to Root was a final rebuke to the doubters. On the flattest pitch of the series he tied one of the best of this generation in knots while in prime form.
Root did not get a single half-volley or cut shot. Not one ball strayed to leg stump. He was only able to leave one. He was beaten twice on the outside and three times on the inside, before a 24th seemingly straight-looking ball from the hand darted in off the seam and thundered into the knee roll heading for middle stump.
These will be remembered as Starc and Head’s Ashes, and rightly so. Boland’s 20 wickets at 24.95 won’t leap from the pages of history. But at age 36 he played all five Tests for the first time in his career and bowled the most overs for the series for either team, 6.4 more than Starc.
The Beatles wouldn’t be the Beatles without Ringo’s relentless rhythm. And that’s how Boland beat Bazball’s non-believers.
Alex Malcolm is an associate editor at ESPNcricinfo