“NO ONE IN THAT ROOM will be disappointed with how he (Ollie Pope) got out, everyone will just be a little disappointed it didn’t go for six.”
Ben Duckett nailed up everything admirable and perplexing about England’s rebirth of Test batting. Or, to put it another way, their mindset as a hitting unit. Do you admire them for their cult-like dedication to playing Test cricket with unprecedented freedom? Do you criticize them for their nearly delusory belief that whatever they do always works, regardless of the outcome? Or do we just accept that Test cricket as we knew it is over, at least while England is playing, and that if we don’t get on board, we’ll be left behind?
After witnessing a 45-minute period of extreme anarchy at Lord’s on Day 2 of the second Ashes Test, it was difficult not to be dragged into this whirlwind of very existential concerns.
Starting with the Pope shot, which Duckett and the rest of the England team swear will not disappoint. It wasn’t just the shot, but it was the shot as well. The truth is that Pope’s posture when attempting the shot that resulted to his demise was never going to allow him to hit it for six. Not to mention that he’d already attempted it twice with little success. So, for the English dressing room to be “gutted” that they didn’t go for six is, at best, a bit optimistic.
Then came the shot’s time. England was scoring at more than five runs per over, as is their current form, without taking too many risks. Prior to the tea break, they were scoring at a rate of more than 5 runs per over. Except for Pat Cummins, the rest of Australia’s fast bowlers had been giving runs at a rate of more than 7 per over. And Nathan Lyon had just staggered off the field, barely able to hold his balance after injuring his right calf while racing in to make a grab. Lyon had been the only bowler to put any type of pressure on the English hitters up to that point, as well as the only one with a wicket.
With their total at 1/180, England were well on top of the game, with Cummins, who’d just left the field for a concussion test after being knocked on the head while fielding, now under pressure for the first time in his captaincy tenure without his best bowler. The Australian team balcony had emptied, and the selectors, in particular, had returned to the dressing room for an unscheduled meeting. The sun was shining, and the Aussies were working hard. They were on top, and Cummins was on the run.
Cricket logic would have dictated that this was the time for Pope and Duckett to keep doing what they were doing, which was wearing the Aussies down while scoring at a breakneck clip. In the classical sense, some would call it game awareness. However, not this English team.
Instead, they chose a different path. It was also the point at which Australia chose to abandon their previous short-ball strategy. In retrospect, it may have appeared to be Cummins’ tactic to mess with the egos of the English batters. And, in terms of batting, if there’s one thing we’ve learned from the current English setup, it’s that you can’t play on their ego without them responding in kind.
It wasn’t so much that they wanted to take on Green and Hazlewood’s bouncers as it was their persistence on hitting those bouncers towards and over the seven fielders positioned to collect and stop their shots. And not, as Harry Brook would later expertly do, target all the vacant places in front of the wicket.
And, as cricketing logic would imply, the outcome of their approach was always going to be one of those airy strokes being caught by one of those fielders, as was the case with Pope and, soon after, Duckett, who fell two runs short of a merited Test ton.
Anyone observing could find it perplexing. That England was willing to squander an opportunity to gain the initiative and take complete control of the game. Alternatively, try to complete it in 10 minutes rather than throughout the course of the session.
But not as confusing as Joe Root’s innings. Root, like Pope and Duckett, stepped out to bat determined to show Australia who was boss, taking on the bouncer bowled from around the wicket. Despite getting a reprieve when Green overstepped the line and gloved one to the keeper, the batting great continued to attempt the shot before ultimately getting a top-edge and being snagged by Steve Smith, who was racing in from his position at a deepish backward square leg. The most perplexing feature of this frustrating spell of play was England’s failure to score a single boundary despite attempting to knock every ball out of Lord’s.
However, it took captain Ben Stokes, the much-lauded champion of this gung-ho attitude, to bring order to the proceedings. His visit also caused Brook to calm down a little and continue taking more measured chances. With Jonny Bairstow still to arrive, England finished in a position of relative strength. But would they have been in a better position if they hadn’t gone rogue in the classic sense for another 45 minutes? The better question is whether this England team would like it any other way. As unbelievable as it may appear to some, the English camp’s reiteration that they will not is what makes what we’re experiencing now both admirable and perplexing.
