The Half-Eaten Kebab

GH wakes up

Maybe you know the feeling. You awake in a strange bed. You’re still wearing a party hat. There’s clothes strewn around, a half-eaten kebab on the floor, the sound of an unknown someone frying bacon and eggs in the kitchen. No, this is not a window into the world of Ben Duckett. It concerns the uneasy feeling that something has gone terribly wrong, but you’re not quite sure what or why.

Because that’s where cricket’s at, right this minute. Traditionally, the Boxing Day Test match is summer’s shop window. Bridging Christmas and New Year, it provides a sense of where cricket is at, in skill, spectacle and public estimation. Some of the news is good. The atmosphere was convivial. The crowds were enormous. Trouble is that there will be no more of them, because the game has concluded in 142 overs - less time than a first-grade game. Not since 1981 has an Ashes Test ended without a fifty scored; not since 1932 has this happened in Australia.

Normally, because such judgements are always a balance, one tries to give credit to the quality of the bowling. But much of the observably best bowling on either side was hors de combat at the Melbourne Cricket Ground: Australia were without Pat Cummins, Josh Hazlewood and Nathan Lyon; England were deprived by injury of Jofra Archer and Mark Wood, by recent retirement of Chris Woakes, who would have been devastating here. Everyone is staring daggers at the hapless groundsman, brought in to rejuvenate the square after the turgid fiasco of 2017, who by evidently exceeding his brief provides a readymade scapegoat.