In the end it took a freak dismissal for England to be finally brought to heel. Over the course of four hours Jos Buttler had resisted Australia's marauding attack on the final day in Adelaide, an innings of gimlet-eyed application that sat in contrast to both the skills that have made his name and the one-sided contest that came before it.
It was all an illusion anyway, the discombobulating effects of day-night Test cricket hinting at greater hope of Joe Root’s tourists pulling off a famous rearguard when, in fact, the match had only just ticked over into the final session, they sat eight wickets down and salvation was still the best part of two hours away.
Nevertheless it was not until the 207th ball that Buttler had faced that Australia were finally assured of a 2-0 lead going into the Boxing Day Test. They were first to know of this too, Buttler pushing Jhye Richardson into the off side, hearing cries of celebration from the slip cordon behind him and then spotting two zing bails twinkling on the floor like fairy lights; out, hit wicket for 26 after treading on his own stumps.
It was gut-wrenching for Buttler. England’s wicketkeeper had been lasered in on atonement with the bat, those two costly drops on the opening day and his duck amid England’s collapse on the third having gnawed away in the way only Test cricket delivers. As he walked off disconsolate, Australia were just one wicket away, the recalled Richardson eventually sealing what was a mammoth 275-run victory and a maiden Test five-wicket haul when Jimmy Anderson soon poked a ball to gully.
Bowled out for 192 in 113.1 overs when needing to survive around 130 of them, Root’s men now require a Christmas miracle to regain the Ashes, given neither country has come back to win from this position away from home. They have a maelstrom of selection issues to ponder while trying to enjoy the coming days with their families in Melbourne. Australia, by contrast, have learned they are still the dominant force even in the absence of Pat Cummins and Josh Hazlewood. And both are soon to return.
Though Australia hinted at mild signs of frustration towards the end, and used eight bowlers overall, desperation never truly manifested itself on a final day watched by only 7,446 spectators. This figure was a reflection of what felt largely a foregone conclusion, England starting out on 82 for four in the face of a notional target of 468 and knowing Nathan Lyon would likely operate from one end throughout and have plenty of assistance from the pitch.
It did not take long for them to start picking away at England's stitches either - eight minutes, to be precise - with Mitchell Starc resuming after the previous evening's festive performance of the The Nutcracker alongside Root, switching to over the wicket and forcing Ollie Pope into a back-foot poke that flew into the safe hands of Steve Smith at slip.
Starc has been immense in the absence of his fellow New South Wales seamers, this his sixth wicket of the match and 52nd in day-night Test cricket, but he was assisted by a defensive shot that presented half a bat face. Pope, who nudged ahead of Jonny Bairstow at the 11th hour on tour but may now see this reversed, has scores of 35, four, five, and four this series; his London home ground the Oval, where a Bradman-esque first-class average of 99.94 gets the statistical types purring, this is not.
Starc was unfortunate not to seal a five-wicket haul of his own, and a pair for Buttler that would have shut down the match far sooner, when the Englishman nicked the pink Kookaburra between his opposite number, Alex Carey, and David Warner at first slip. It was Carey’s catch and therefore mistake, perhaps the result of unfamiliarity in just his second Test or simply the apparent politeness of character.
At the other end Ben Stokes was stonewalling Lyon but a tight battle that spanned 54 deliveries in a cage of close catchers ended with Australia discovering the benefits of unused reviews when an umpire called Wilson - Paul, in this instance, as opposed to Joel at Headingley two years ago - turns down an lbw shout. With Stokes gone for 12, pinned by a ball that slid on, England were six down just an hour into play.
Yet over the course of the next two Buttler found an ally in Chris Woakes, the pair resisting to take the contest past the first interval. That it took a sublime delivery from Richardson with the second new ball to break through, nipping back off the seam and trimming the top of middle stump, said plenty about the application shown by Woakes during his 97-ball 44. That the No 8 is the only England batsman to make it to double figures in all four innings to date also said plenty about those above him too.
Thereafter it was down to Buttler to marshal the tail, Ollie Robinson hanging around for an hour until Lyon masterfully switched to around the wicket, teased an edge to slip and Smith again clung on. A frantic start to Stuart Broad’s innings, in which he was dropped first ball and then saw his batting paid the highest compliment since his solitary Test century 10 years ago when Smith optimistically reviewed an lbw, just about scraped England through to the delayed tea break but soon the game was up.
After Root’s painful blows to the groin 24 hours earlier, the coup de grace of Buttler’s demise, hit wicket, provided a second metaphor for this tour as a whole. The 31-year-old had just delivered the second longest innings of what remains an unfulfilled Test career, while the team as a whole have been hit with the double whammy of self-inflicted problems and an opponent in the mood to inflict heavy punishment.
– Guardian
