The Edgbaston Ashes – Wickets, Shots and Joy!

Rather than go back to add Days 3 and 4 to my reports I’m going to write a general impression and share my photos from the 5 days. I love Ashes cricket and treated myself to the full 5 days at Edgbaston, a place I love to watch cricket full stop. This opening game was an absolute treat with some truly fabulous cricket played by both teams. I’d watched 2 days of the World Test Championship Final and was impressed by Pat Cummins and his Australia, I knew this would be a challenge, Bazball or not!

Day 1 saw Ben Stokes win the toss and elect to bat, we’d see that BB early on; except to a great degree we didn’t, what looked like very negative fields set by Cummins stopped the runs fest to a degree. Zak Crawley set the tone with the first ball however driving the ball for a very good 4, he went on to score 61 from 73 balls, a great start for the opener who had had much criticism from England fans, me included. The innings of the day was courtesy of Joe Root he scored 118 from 152 balls and delighted the England fans in the crowd, he and Johnny Bairstow shared a partnership of 121 for the 6th wicket, but the 3 mentioned were really the only batters with meaningful runs to their name. Several batters gave away their wickets including Stokes and Moeen Ali. To the surprise of everyone in the ground Stokes declared on 393 for 8, at the point Root was seeing the ball like a football. Australia faced 4 overs and lost no wickets. Travis Head dropped a catch and missed a ball going to the boundary, happily for him not in front of the Hollies, but ‘special attention’ started for him on Day 1 and would continue throughout. THIS WAS JOE ROOT’S DAY!

Day 1 belonged to Joe Root, Day 2 to Usman Khawaja, a man who was under a lot of pressure he had a poor record in England, he changed that on Day 2 at Edgbaston. David Warner fell early in the day, bowled by Stuart Broad, who else, playing a poor shot. I don’t think Khawaja played a poor shot in an innings that spanned the whole day and into Day 3. he scored 141 runs from 321 balls, batting for nearly 8 hours! I am a fan of a good century celebration and he most certainly gave us that. Marnus Labuschagne who started out as the best batter in the world was out for a Golden Duck, Broad’s second wicket. And Steve Smith made just 16. Khawaja was kept company by the middle order however as first Travis Head made 50 from 63 balls before he was caught by Crawley from the bowling of Moeen. Cameron Green in at 6 should have gone for a Duck, a missed stumping from Bairstow, he went on to score 38. Khawaja did lose his bails to Broad, but, he’d bowled a No Ball, England’s 13th of the day! Alex Carey had joined Khawaja and reached his 50 by the end of Day 2. THIS WAS USMAN KHAWAJA’S DAY!

Day 3 was a short one, we get gloriously hot weather in England and we then get thunder storms. Typically, they rocked up on Day 3! Not before Khawaja had made it to those 141 runs, he was bowled by Ollie Robinson who now famously, annoyingly shouted some unpleasantaries as the stumps flew. Usman Khawaja seems to be a pleasant, humble man and had played a fabulous innings, I found Robinson’s reaction unfortunate. Carey had been dropped by Bairstow and went on to score 66 from 99 balls. Captain Pat Cummins scored 38 from 62 balls as Australia were bowled out for 386 just 7 short of England’s first innings total. England were not very many for no wicket when the rain fell; 29.5 overs had been bowled. 1 ball short of the 50% refund number. The teams came back for a couple of catastrophic overs, for England that is! Duckett wafted at a ball to be caught by Green, a man with a huge reach! The light was poor for the next, the 10th over, the lights were on and the fielder’s shadows were clear to see, but play continued and Boland bowled a ball that Crawley edged to Carey – England were 27 for 2. Happily for England’s sake the next downpour was a corker and there was no further play. I”M CALLING THIS KHAWAJA’S DAY TOO! (England bowled 15 No Balls in the Australia innings! Poor)

I’d booked myself posh seats for the 4th and 5th Days, and that definitely paid for Day 5 with the weather, for Day 4 it gave me a great view and some pretty good food in nice surroundings. I had a perfect view of a perfect ball from Cummins to despatch Pope for just 14 it also gave me a great view of a Joe Root career first, being stumped! After he seemed to have his eye in, he went down the wicket to Nathan Lyon, there really was only going to be one outcome, gone for 46. Harry Brook went for the same score with a misjudged shot and a great catch from Labuschagne. Stokes batted for nearly 2 hours in this innings scoring 43 from 66 before he was trapped LBW by Cummins. England were bowled out for 273 in 66.2 overs. Both Cummins and Lyon took 4 wickets. England had some time to take wickets and they did, 3 of them: Warner will possibly be relieved that he fell to Robinson, both Smith and Labuschagne did however fall to Broad. Australia’s 2 best batters, going into this game, contributed just 35 runs across 2 innings. DAY 4 WAS SHARED BY CUMMINS AND LYON WITH BROAD TAKING A SHARE TOO!

Day 5 started at 2:15 after another great effort by the Edgbaston ground staff; Australia needed 174 runs and England 7 wickets. Could England take 20 wickets in the match? Could Australia score enough runs in the match without 2 key batters contributing? Scott Boland had come in as Night Watchman, he’d been out for a 5 ball Duck in the First innings but managed 20 important runs in the second. England had an injured Moeen, who’d bowled 29 overs in the first innings, very much to the detriment of his fingers. He still bowled another 14 in this second innings. Usman Khawaja top scored again with 65 runs from 197 balls, batting for over 5 hours, his was the 7th wicket to fall. With 8 wickets down Australia had Pat Cummins and Nathan Lyon at the crease. Cummins played a true captain’s innings, scoring 44 from 73 balls, batting for over an hour and a half, it was apt that he scored the winning runs from the bowling of Robinson. This was a truly fabulous game of cricket! Here’s to the next 4 being as good! DAY 5 BELONGED TO KHAWAJA AND CUMMINS!