England vs. Australia, First Test: Day Five Review

Posted on July 15, 2013 by James Knight in Tests

England 215 and 375 (Bell 109*, Broad 65/2, Starc 3/81)
Australia 280 and 296 (Haddin 71, Rogers 52, Anderson 5/73)

England won by 14 runs

The gin stocks have been replenished, the work experience boy revived and hangovers eased, which means it’s finally time for us to blearily look back at Australia’s latest Test match defeat.

It’s five in a row now, in case you were wondering.

To be fair (a phrase rarely heard echoing around the 51allout corridors), Australia were probably a little unlucky to lose this one (again, not something we often say). For both sides, the umpiring was of the sort of quality that would make the Aussie top order blush, but the die of doom could have quite easily fallen the other way. As we’re alert to the fact none of that is breaking new ground, we’ve picked five things we most enjoyed about this Test match instead.

Steve Smith

Obviously.

Ed Cowan’s slapstick performance

Poor Ed. It was all going so swimmingly for him a few weeks ago. A pretty good performance, by Australian standards, in India, should have stood him in decent stead going into the Ashes. When Joe Root walked into Dave Warner’s fist his place was surely even more secure. Instead, it seems as if Mickey Arthur was the only man in Australia who actually wanted him in the team. He could have hauled his cause back out of the fire at Trent Bridge, instead he got a golden duck, dropped a few catches and ended up spending half the game in the bogs as well for good measure. Oops.

Stuart Broad’s acting

Because there’s nothing better than the sporadic outbreaks of ill-directed morality which grip cricket every now and again. Particularly when the football writers haven’t got anything else to talk about. And if you’re going to cheat, cheat well. If anything we like him more now than we did last week.

Ian Bell’s triumphant, millennium-defining innings

For all those people who still doubted the Lord. He ain’t an MBE for nothing. Unlike various other ginger members of that squad, who almost literally are.

Australia’s continued inability to understand the concept of ‘technology’

DRS is not that difficult to use, yet it continues to bamboozle players and umpires alike. Four years into the experiment and everyone is as confused as ever, but Australia seem to find the whole thing utterly unfathomable. The only thing that could’ve been more apt than England winning the game on a successful review would’ve been Australia losing it to a comedy decision having wasted all their referrals already. Particularly given Michael Clarke’s earlier attempt to ‘do a Broad’ and fail in hopeless fashion.