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Chalk it up to fates or fortune or a quirk of probability, whatever your inclination. If Australia’s first day of the Adelaide Test was a jigsaw puzzle hurled into the air, most of the the pieces landed face up in the right place. It has been a pattern for Australia in this Ashes series: monstered by England’s bowlers on Perth, only to create on an even greater collapse; sliding in Brisbane, rescued by the lower order.
England, meanwhile, brought a gameplan built on the surety that they couldn’t win in Australia with medium-fast seamers and a keeper up to the stumps, then lost to medium-fast seamers with a keeper up to the stumps. They were given the gift of no Pat Cummins, no Josh Hazlewood, no Nathan Lyon and still managed to lose twice in six days. Their third encounter brought the next gift: Steve Smith missing with an inner-ear problem, their own personal Ghost of Ashes Past replaced in the middle order by a creaking, squinting opener whom Australia had already tried to drop.
Out of politeness, England had to drop him too. In the cordon, on five runs, when the score would have been 50 for three. A couple of hours earlier, Usman Khawaja’s career had been as good as over, with selectors finding a shiny new toy called the Travis Head Dashing Opener™ action figure. Two hours later, Khawaja had been twice reprieved, first by Smith’s lack of balance with an inner-ear condition, then by Harry Brook’s lack of balance at slip.
The move down the order had only spared him nine overs at the top, but that meant he almost entirely dodged Jofra Archer’s fierce first spell, a potentially critical non-matchup given Khawaja’s poor recent years against quality pace. Liberated, with nothing to lose, Khawaja played perhaps his most fluent and confident innings since his last comeback through the middle order in 2022.
Josh Tongue was not much slower than Archer, but Khawaja picked off his errors while using Ben Stokes’s short ball to get his signature pull shot going. He saw Will Jacks’s vulnerability as a day-one spinner and thumped him accordingly. There was a half century after lunch, amid a vital rebuild with Alex Carey after some Christmas giveaways. Marnus Labuschagne must have still been thinking of toasties. The all-rounder Cameron Green might have been thinking of his millions of dollars from the IPL auction. He had told reporters that he was mistakenly listed in the auction as a batter, and his shot second ball suggested he might be right.
This is still a good chance of being Khawaja’s last Test, with Smith to return and the rest of the order not guaranteed to change, so a century that could have been both comeback and farewell would have been one hell of a story. But straining against late-career limitations left it too distant. Steve Waugh in his last Test was raging against the dying of the light, dreaming of one last ton, out instead slog-sweeping a spinner to deep midwicket for 80. Khawaja, six months older, was out slog-sweeping a spinner to deep midwicket for 82.
Still, it was defining for the team, and another example of how discombobulation hasn’t bothered these Australians. Lose your best bat minutes before the match? The replacement has it covered. A weird batting order to follow? No problem either.
Carey as wicketkeeper would traditionally bat at No 7, while the plan at the start of the series was to bed in Green at No 6. The vacancy created by Head’s move was at No 5, where Josh Inglis normally bats as keeper for Western Australia. And yet, instead of filling that gap with Inglis, Australia brought him in at No 7 and moved Green and Carey up.
Nothing feels normal about placing an active wicketkeeper ahead of an off-duty one batting as a specialist, but on this occasion it worked, perhaps because Carey was fresh in the first innings. He did get the century that Khawaja missed, scoring in his usual enterprising way, creating a huge Adelaide moment as hometown crowds swelled the standing room areas.
Smith may be Australia’s best bat in career terms, but Carey might be their most convincing one right this moment, after his second century this year and consistent runs even on the fraught surfaces of the Caribbean tour.
In the end, he shepherded Australia’s score from 85 when he arrived to 321 when he was out, and more might be added for the final two wickets on the second morning. Smith wasn’t there, five of the top seven made scores of little substance, yet Australia are still on top, with far more runs than looked likely at several stages.
For another day, the pattern continued: be it dodgy fielding or dodgy technology, things keep working out for the home team. England’s only path to change that is a brute-force reset: take two wickets, bat five sessions in the heat. Anything else leaves it up to the fates, or fortune, or a quirk of probability. Don’t trust any of them.
English (US)