Australia 326 for 8 (Carey 106, Khawaja 82, Archer 3-29) vs England
As if that was not sufficient, there was also space in the narrative for Khawaja’s career prospects to turn on a dime, thanks to a drop at slip from Harry Brook on 5 that persuaded him to shed the reticence and feast on numerous freebies from a toiling but deeply flawed attack. And in the final session, another DRS drama also reared its head, with Carey’s reprieve for a caught-behind on 72 subsequently declared by Simon Taufel, the former ICC umpire, to be another failure of “technology calibration”. Carey himself conceded at the close that he thought he’d heard a nick.
The upshot was another Ashes day conducted at warp speed. That Australia’s run-rate ended up shy of 4 an over was due entirely to the hard-lined discipline, and intermittent raw speed, of Archer, whose 3 for 29 in 16 overs made him as much of a lone wolf in England’s attack as Mitchell Starc had been for Australia in each of his first innings at Perth and Brisbane.
And in the same way that Starc’s superiority had drawn nervy errors from England’s batters in those games, so Australia were the team that frittered away a chance for a choke-hold on this contest, and potentially the series.
Only once this century had the hosts scored less than 439 after winning the toss and batting first at Adelaide – and that innings of 245 had come in England’s epochal victory on their triumphant tour in 2010-11. With that nemesis Starc still in situ at the close on 29 not out, it’s not out of the question that he’ll be able to marshal the tail on the second morning, as he did so effectively at the Gabba. But against a three-over-old ball, and against an England team who are in the process of showing their “dog”, flawed and feral though it may be, it ought to be over to England’s batters soon enough, to show if they’ve heeded any lessons from their frivolity to date.
