Friday Night Lights

GH on a wild ride at the Gabba

Another wild instalment of an ever wilder series. Australia’s batters pelted along at 5.2 runs an over, but weren’t as ruthless as they might have been. England bowlers produced a pitch map like Yayoi Kusama, but grabbed wickets against the run of play. Two extraordinary catches were taken; four catches, two of them elementary, were dropped. The cricket was chaotic, and captivating. A stifling day became a balmy evening, and the hosts by the end had wrested back the advantage.

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So far, in fact, everything England has done here, Australia has done a little better, and, unexpectedly, a bit quicker. Certainly the hosts began their reply to the visitors’ 334 as they intended to continue; so thrifty in the first innings at Perth, the Englishmen defaulted to short and wide too often. Brydon Carse’s first five overs disappeared for 45, Ben Stokes’s first six for 35; 13 runs accrued in Jacks’s only over. Perhaps they went searching for knockout deliveries with leaky fields; perhaps they have not quite recovered from what Stokes called their Travis Head-induced ‘shellshock’ a fortnight ago.

It was not, in fact, Head but Jake Weatherald who provided Australia’s early propulsion, taking three consecutive boundaries from Atkinson, slashing hard at Carse, profiting from Stokes’s errors of length, surging to a maiden Test 50 in 45 deliveries. He is an intense presence, with his clenched crouch, upturned collar, and the mantra he mouths as the bowler approaches, vibrating with energy even between deliveries. Some players wander to square leg as if in a reverie or a meditation; Weatherald veritably prowls, like a fighter eager for the bell. His cut, so vigorous as sometimes to lift him off his feet, is becoming a signature.