Australia lose more than a Test as England win its first match in Australia for 5469 days

PL on an MCG Test that was over in two days

You know how we keep banging on about how Bazball was never going to work in Australian conditions? Well, perhaps we didn’t factor in the meth pipe madness of the MCG match, because when England came out to bat with 175 runs needed to win the Boxing Day Test, throwing the lever to Baz seemed the only sensible option.

There was talk from those who’d seen Steve Smith practising his range-hitting in the nets on the second morning that the Australians were considering such tactics. Frankly, it wouldn’t have hurt if they had. The home side lost six wickets in the first session and four soon after the break.

All out for 132 in 34.3 overs.

Batters had the life expectancy of a tail gunner. Of the Australians, only Travis Head survived more than an hour. Steve Smith was out there for 39 minutes that felt like 39 hours.

Hard to bat, you reckon? Damn right it was hard to bat. Not often do you see a ball beat the inside edge and dart between a batter’s legs on its way to the boundary for four byes. Ok, the batter in question was Smith, whose Charlie Chaplin legs can get a bit akimbo at the crease, but the deviation was positively devilish.

A couple of deliveries later, Brydon Carse wrapped the previously nutmegged batter on the pads, and Ben Stokes called for a review. Ball tracking showed the ball again heading off at an impossible angle from its original trajectory and almost missing another set of stumps.