England v Australia Report Card

Featuring rivalries, comedy, Matthew Wade cracking the shits and steam

Rivalries
Grade: B-

With Super Overs (Oman v Namibia), surprises (New Zealand popping in belatedly to play the role of comedy clown team?) or both (USA beating Pakistan) in the opening week of this T20 World Cup, it was time for a few matches between some big guns.

First up, a typically mad and hate-filled contest between world cricket’s most fun, inexplicable rivals, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.

Next up, a more explicable, and mostly less fun rivalry between India and Pakistan.

But before then, we had Australia v England, whose rivalry is neither explicable or inexplicable, nor fun or not fun, but more an exhausting omnipresence with which we all must deal, like laundry or Christopher Nolan fanboys.

(For example, as part of this rivalry, we’re somehow still talking about the Jonny Bairstow stumping in last year’s Ashes. In particular, the news that Bairstow has chosen not to watch the episode of the documentary The Test that highlights that moment.)

Australia came into the match with a comfortable win over Oman. England, meanwhile, as professional a unit as ever, had denied the old enemy precious intel by refusing to take a wicket or score a run in their opening game against Scotland.

Aussies flailing. Advantage England.

Comedy
Grade: B+

England’s advantage was further extended by Jos Buttler winning a comically bad toss from Mitchell Marsh. This was part of Marsh’s ongoing bid to become the funniest captain in world cricket. In media interviews before the match, he’d worked on his tight five, claiming that Pat Cummins had been rested in the first match just so Marsh could tell him he wasn’t playing, and that the worst thing about being captain was being required to shave for interviews.

Now, a bit of prop comedy from the new Australian T20 captain, who is developing into quite the all-round entertainer.

But Buttler had comedy schemes of his own, sending Australia in to bat and then asking Will Jacks to bowl the second over of the match. Travis Head and David Warner immediately started launching Jacks out of the ground, taking 22 runs off his over, then following it with 22 runs off Mark Wood’s first over, as they raced to 1/74 from the Power Play.

Look, it’s subtler material from Buttler. Not necessarily laugh-out-loud gear. But it makes you think, and that’s no bad thing.