Forget the Ashes, these teams are batting for the future of Test cricket

2 months ago 16

In the fallout from Melbourne, the Sydney Test match has the feeling of a realigned contest. It’s not England versus Australia so much as bat versus ball, in which the batting units of both teams are striving side-by-side to regain their honour.

Collectively, both teams’ top orders have been damned by their actions. At stake are not those long-ago Ashes but the future of Test cricket.

For such a cameo, Melbourne has sparked a full five days’ worth of debate over whether Test match batsmen are worthy of the name.

The retirement of Usman Khawaja has come to feel like another step in the extinction of a species. Are Australia and England, and while we’re at it the rest of the cricket world, capable of producing batsmen who can resist the urge to take shortcuts (otherwise known as “hitting the bowlers off their length” and “taking on the game”)?

Two days in Melbourne, as well as leaving cricket stomachs less than half-full, has left a lot of hand-wringing. It seemed like an anomaly, but it’s raised the question whether this is the way things will be forever.

Mediating the contest are the pitch and the poor old curator. In October, the Sydney Cricket Ground’s Adam Lewis spent more than an hour showing me the strips of turf he was preparing for the summer, right down to the plugs being sown to help the square recover from the football season and provide a good healthy cover.

The centre wicket at the SCG on Friday morning, two days out from the start of the fifth Test.

He left no doubt about his knowledge, competence and application. But it’s not a job for control freaks. A few weeks later, when NSW hosted Victoria, balls were running along the ground. Just as well the Swans didn’t make the finals and cut Lewis’s preparation time even shorter.

But he says he’s very happy with his pitch for this week, which is a result of hard work and planning, long hours of preparation and the hot breath of Todd Greenberg down the back of his neck.

If the SCG strip misbehaves, Lewis can go to scapegoats anonymous meetings with Melbourne’s Matt Page. If it goes well and gives us a five-day match, Lewis can buy Page dinner.

Unjustly ignored in all this are the poor old bowlers of both teams. Bowling is always a thankless task but it must be really galling for them when they don’t get credit where it is due.

Scott Boland celebrates the wicket of England’s Will Jacks.

As much as T20 cricket has changed Test batting for the worse, it has changed Test bowling for the better. T20, so punishing on bowlers, has demanded they alter their techniques, widen their repertoire and improve their accuracy.

The late-career bloom of Mitchell Starc owes much to all the T20 he has played and the skills he has continued to develop. Scott Boland, according to figures found by the Telegraph’s Tim Wigmore, is measurably a more accurate bowler than Glenn McGrath.

England’s bowling was hugely improved in Melbourne, and the trajectory of the series has followed that of their bowlers. They gave up the ghost in Perth, they gave Australia anxiety in Brisbane and a scare in Adelaide, and they perfected their lengths in Melbourne, with their batsmen (just) good enough to capitalise.

The standard of Australia’s bowling, good enough to win the Ashes in less than 11 days, doesn’t get celebrated enough. When the ball dominates the bat, it’s bad box office. When the bat dominates, Cricket Australia meets its profit targets and appetites are sated.

Cricket is a batsman’s game – or to be more accurate, T20 cricket is a batsman’s game, which has turned the Test version into a bowler’s game, and instead of praising the skills of the leather-flingers we launch inquiries into the feebleness of batting. Even when it’s not a batsman’s game, we manage to turn it into one.

If the batsmen and the curator can’t stretch things out in Sydney, there’s always rain. A few mills are in Sunday’s forecast, with a chance of showers through the week. A few runs? There’s a chance of those too.

But as the saying goes, those who have knowledge don’t make predictions, and those who make predictions don’t have knowledge. When it comes to these cricket teams, best put a tube of sunscreen in your raincoat pocket.