It’s another early start today, featuring an extended morning session of two and a half hours to make up some of the play washed out on the first day. The athletes are getting ready to step onto the ground.
Charity and Command on Display
They do things well in Australia. On the first day of this fifth Test came a fitting tribute to the sufferers and heroes of the Bondi tragedy, and on the third day the Sydney Cricket Ground was transformed into a ocean of pink to once again generate donations for the McGrath Foundation.
On the field of play, though, Australian generosity was in far scarcer quantity. Across three sessions their batmen dominated the English bowling, dispelling any doubts about their drive since securing the Ashes and raising a few more concerning their defeated rivals.
Faces flush from the ordeal, Ben Stokes and his team trudged off at stumps exhausted and overwhelmed. Steve Smith’s century number thirty-seven, 129 not out from 205 balls, had come after the latter part of Travis Head’s blistering 163 from 166, and with it Australia had achieved 518 for seven from 124 overs. The lead stood at 134 runs overnight and looked an ominous one.
A Cricketing Icon's Opinion
The legendary Neil Harvey, 97, gave his views in a delightful interview.
I've been unimpressed with England. I think the way they approach the batting side of things, they get too impetuous, nobody seems to want to play a long innings, like a Cowdrey or a Boycott.
It might work against ordinary teams but when you get a quality outfit like Australia it's a completely different proposition. I used to score runs at a fair pace, and everyone gets a lot of satisfaction out of it, but when you try to play this Bazball thing it lessens the probability of winning an important Test. I'd like to see them rein themselves in.
A Tough Introduction
Forty-five minutes into a quietly overcast morning at the Sydney Cricket Ground, Matt Potts was introduced into the England attack from the Randwick End, and immediately began trying out his variations.
His first ball was full and wide and clobbered through cover by Travis Head. His second ball was both back of a length and outside off and hacked over gully by Travis Head. His third ball was on a good length and pulled past midwicket by Travis Head. His fourth ball was blocked with a show of studious defense, to raucous, sarcastic applause from a crowd that had begun to settle in for the day's play. Welcome to the treadmill, Pottsy. And yes, it's always like this around here.
Scaling the Ashes Mountain
There was a time, while Steve Smith was at the peak of his batting prowess, when “best since Bradman” was used with assurance. The thing about that description is that even when the recipient has dominated for years, it gets applied too quickly, given the point of comparison is a career spanning twenty years. Lots of players reach the top for a time, no other has remained there.
The combination of those phases, though, propelled him into a uncommon position on the third day. In the statistics of the game there are milestones, then there are mountaintops. For a long time in Smith's Ashes-centric career there have been two peaks drawing gradually closer in the mist. Donald Bradman's 5,028 runs against England is one that even Smith will never scale. Jack Hobbs's 3,636 runs against Australia is the one he overtook on Tuesday.
Preamble: An Anticlimactic Finale
The latest Ashes series, perhaps the most disappointing series in the 144 years since Fred Spofforth raised hell at The Oval, is limping towards a suitable finale. Australia are poised to defeat comprehensively England at Sydney and win the series 4-1, a margin not even the most partisan Pom could argue with.
It's been a victory of know-how, discipline, discipline, skill and Travis Head. His audacious 123 at Perth hurt England that have yet to mend; four Tests later he is cheerily grinding salt into them. Head's seemingly relentless 163 helped Australia to 518 for 7 at the end of day three, a lead of 134. Steve Smith will continue on 129 after making a century that looked certain even before he faced his first ball.
Australia, despite a number of weaknesses in their team, have won the series with an simplicity that is hard to comprehend. Maybe that's an Pommy outlook. It's not Australia's fault that England did not show up – even if, on some level, they probably desired a greater challenge.
The concluding chapter will be administered either this evening or tomorrow. There's a chance of a one-sided finish when England bat, just as there was in the last knock of 2013-14 and 2021-22. Their bodies are exhausted, their confidence broken, their spirit dented. It's nearly time for everyone to go home.
