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Joe Root’s attempt to lay to rest the ghost of Australian failures past started with the addition of a fresh one, as his fourth Test series tour of the country started in brief and inglorious style. The world’s No 1 batter, the subject of much pre-series chatter because of his poor average in previous Ashes trips, was the most notable failure as many of his teammates inflated their confidence along with their scores across another day of breezy cricket and indeed weather against the Lions at Lilac Hill, which the senior side ended, having been bowled out moments before the scheduled close, with 426, a lead of 51.
Zak Crawley described it as “a flat wicket for sure” and with the atmosphere provided by the few dozen spectators similar, but intense heat expected from the stands and pitch when the real action starts next Friday, it is not clear to what extent anyone is markedly more prepared now than they were a couple of days ago.
“Cricket’s cricket, it’s time in the middle,” Crawley said. “We’re doing everything we can with what we’ve got and we feel like we’re going to be ready. As far as I’m concerned, I think it’s good that we’re getting used to the weather, getting used to the [intensely irritating] flies so yeah, it’s good prep, I think.”
On the eve of this game Ben Stokes reasoned that success for Root in the Ashes was inevitable given that “he’s the greatest English batter that the nation has seen” and “has been in phenomenal form over the last two, three years”. Neither phrase has frequently been applied to Ollie Pope but it was England’s No 3 who looked most assured and got most reward, scoring a century before immediately, perhaps even suspiciously, allowing a Shoaib Bashir delivery to hit his stumps. He thereby won the top three’s private game of one-upmanship, with Zak Crawley dismissed in the 80s and Ben Duckett in the 90s before Pope made it to triple figures. Ben Stokes, having starred with the ball on Thursday, made 84 before top-edging a Will Jacks delivery, which arced neatly to Bashir.
Root had faced a dozen balls and scored just a single run when he miscued a pull to midwicket off Matt Potts as England, having swaggered through the opening session, lost three wickets for three runs soon after the restart, stumbling from 182 without loss to 185 for three. Harry Brook followed soon after having doubled Root’s score, a dismissal of garish hideousness as he hared forward on the attack but made contact only with air, allowing Nathan Gilchrist’s delivery to clatter into the stumps. At this point England were 198 for four, but Pope and Stokes steered them away from the humiliation of being outscored by their understudies.
But for the moment, an hour from the close, when Bashir pulled up with a cry while fielding, fell to the ground, stayed there for perhaps a minute and then simply got up again and carried on, there were at least no injury scares this time. Brydon Carse had recovered from the stomach upset that ruled him out of the opening day, and though he refrained from bowling as a precautionary measure he did make a brief appearance with the bat, replacing Mark Wood in England’s lineup against the team he was initially named in. He lasted only three deliveries.
Wood watched much of the action, left leg heavily strapped from just below the knee, while he awaited a scan on a hamstring which was scheduled for the late afternoon. The resulting images will be checked by a specialist in the UK before a decision is made about his future.
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Fully nine players bowled for the Lions, four of them members of the Ashes squad. After five overs Potts had conceded 40 runs and was enduring something of a nightmare, though his primary problem was not poor quality but bad luck as Duckett in particular scored a succession of boundaries with the edge of his bat – including one, when he was on six, that might have been caught by Ben McKinney in the slips (44 of Duckett’s first 50 runs came in boundaries).
Thereafter Potts went at just 2.36 per over and ended the day as the outstanding bowler even if his haul of two wickets was matched by Gilchrist and bettered by Jacob Bethell, who took three in just 4.3 overs as the batters grew carefree towards the close.
