Men’s Ashes First Test Report Card, Day Five

Featuring Ben Stokes' bollocks, righteous repudiation and Pat fucken Cummins

Ben Stokes’ Bollocks
Grade: A

After the first session of the final day was lost to criminal England rain, Scott Boland and Usman Khawaja resumed for Australia. A glimpse of Australia’s openers for the second Test? Perhaps.

Australia needed 174 further runs to win as play commenced, with England requiring seven more wickets. Boland was the first to fall, yet again caught behind by the safe gloves of Jonny Bairstow. Wild to think that at that point, Bairstow had taken the first four catches of the innings and yet dropped fewer than ten.

Travis Head was then swiftly spun out by Moeen Ali’s blistered finger, and Cameron Green offered a chance early, squeezing an edge just wide of first slip to a position where he would have been dazzlingly caught by Cameron Green had he been fielding. (A big mistake from England not to have him fielding, if I’m being honest. A surprising lack of Bazball imagination in this instance.)

And yet, despite the relative flakiness of every other batter, Khawaja remained ever-present, a man who had batted not just on every day of this Test match but through the entirety of living memory. As long as he remained at the crease, Australia remained a chance.

So, of course, Ben Stokes brought himself on and golden-bollocksed Khawaja out, spurred on by the frenetic Edgbaston crowd.

This shameful England team once again blatantly drawing on performance-enhancing crowd support. The ICC needs to step in.

Righteous Repudiations
Grade: D

With Khawaja out, Bairstow was now the man most likely to get Australia home. Did his clumsy hands have one more relieving drop in them? 

No, as it turned out. But it did appear as if he’d offered some catching practice to Joe Root, who dropped return chances from Alex Carey twice, before hanging onto his third opportunity. If at first (and second) you don’t get caught by Joe Root, driving one straight back at him, try, try again, is the Carey credo.

And that was that. 54 runs still needed, with Nathan Lyon joining Pat Cummins in the middle. Now only a matter of time until Australia’s last pair of number elevens were prised out by England’s bowler. 

A superb victory for England, testament to the healing power of Bazball, and a righteous repudiation of Australia’s gormless brand of cricket. At least, that was the verdict according to Kevin Pietersen (and inexplicable ‘kick this Australian side’ sidekick Kumar Sangakkara). It was frankly amazing that Cummins’ hapless team of spineless idiots had got as close as they had, given the absolute litany of cowardly and foolhardy errors the commentators had spent the entire Test assuring me they’d been making.

(For the record, Bazball itself is amazing and thrilling and fun and helped make this one of the truly great Tests. It’s just the commentators’ endless proselytising and/or condemnation of cricket heathens yet to see the Stokesian light that grows a tad tiresome after the first twelve or thirteen hours. I mean, it’s four am, guys. We’ve got religious programming just a remote control channel change away if we really wanted to listen to that.)

Pat Fucken Cummins
Grade: A+

And yet… Cummins had apparently not been listening to Pietersen and his cronies, proving yet again he is the wisest and handsomest of us all. For instead the Australian captain brutally at first, then sensibly later, guided his team safely to victory, finishing on 44 not out. 

No sweat. Cummins has been doing this kind of thing since literally his teenaged debut.

A brilliant Test that swayed thrillingly back and forth between the two sides. Yes, we all had a laugh at Broad’s wonderfully mental comments about the previous Ashes series being void. But it’s also reasonable to point out that this one match contained more excitement than that entire prior series.

It's fun when England don't give up at the first sign of a challenge. They should do it more often.