Category: Cricket

England team on tour are unlikely to mirror comeback orchestrated by legendary batter in the 1936-37 series

By the time you read this, day one of the third Test will have gently unfolded/catastrophically unspooled. You will already have some inkling of how (un)likely it is that England will be able to haul in Australia’s 2-0 lead and claw back the urn.

As you also probably know, only one side has overcome a 2-0 deficit to win a series, and that side was Australia, and that Australia included Don Bradman.

This is an extract from the Guardian’s weekly cricket email, The Spin. To subscribe, just visit this page and follow the instructions.

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Centre with goal of inclusivity pursues a reassessment of the coaching and even the language of the sport

“Cricket is shit if you’re shit at cricket. But everyone has been shit at cricket. Even Ben Stokes. When someone threw a ball at him for the first time, he didn’t smash it six rows back. Ben Stokes was shit at cricket, and then he got good at cricket, and he got good quick enough to stay in it. Because anyone who’s crap at cricket for too long thinks, this is rubbish, let’s fuck off.”

Everyone wants cricket to be better. Everyone wants cricket to be more present in state schools, more open to those beyond its boundaries, less of a self-sustaining garden party. Or at least everyone says they do. Even the England and Wales Cricket Board, which has spent 30 years producing reports about how racist, sexist and elitist the game it oversees is, always with the same air of mild, patrician bafflement, as though this is all somebody else’s area of concern.

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• Josh Tongue comes in for Gus Atkinson for Adelaide Test

• Brook rues ‘shocking shots’ in Perth and Brisbane

England have made one change to their line-up for the third Ashes Test, with Josh Tongue coming in as a like-for-like replacement for Gus Atkinson in the bowling attack.

Seamer Atkinson failed to take a wicket in the series opener in Perth, although he did make a useful 37 runs with the bat in the second innings, before returning figures of 3-151 in the second Test in Brisbane.

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• Former England cricket captain is in Australia for Ashes series

• Pat Cummins and Usman Khawaja lead tributes to victims

Former England cricket captain Michael Vaughan has described hearing gunshots during the terrorist attack at a gathering to celebrate the first night of Hanukah at Sydney’s Bondi beach as “terrifying”.

Vaughan, who is in Australia working as a media pundit for the Ashes series, said he was locked in a restaurant “a few hundred yards from the attack” with his wife, two daughters, sister-in-law and a friend.

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If anyone knows how to weather a whitewash, it’s the merry band of England fans marking their 30th anniversary at their spiritual home

Courage, soldier. Ben Stokes’s England team may be heading into the third Ashes Test already 2-0 down, but not everyone in English cricket is fazed. There is one group tailor-made for this scenario, a crack(pot) unit who can lay claim to be the ultimate doomsday preppers. Have your dreams been shattered? Are you crushed beneath the weight of unmet expectation? Then it’s time to join the Barmy Army, son.

Already their advance guard are moving in on Adelaide, the city where they officially formed 30 years ago. England’s most famous – and per capita noisiest – travelling fans will be hoping for an anniversary win-against-the-odds, like the one they witnessed on that 1994-95 tour. And whatever happens on the pitch, off it the parties will be long and loud.

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England endured their tormentor’s late batting stand and when tourists surrendered to 97 for three the bowler attacked

If you really squinted – perhaps with the aid of a 36-hour plane trip or a handful of 1970s anxiety medication – there was a time when you could have claimed England had pulled off a tactical masterstroke. When the looming threat of the day was Mitchell Starc bowling in the gloaming at around 6pm Brisbane time, perhaps the smart play was to let him bat in the hot sun for four hours first, tuckering him out so your openers could smash him.

It may have been a calculation Starc also considered when wondering whether to throw the bat or to keep on grinding out runs. In the end, he valued more that each of them added to Australia’s lead. The team’s principal bowling weapon burnished his series contribution with 77 runs from 141 balls, 22 runs below his highest score and three deliveries below his longest. Scott Boland similarly produced his second-longest innings, riding shotgun with an unbeaten 21 from 72 balls, a partnership that wore England thin.

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• Second Test, D3: England 334 & 134-6; Australia 511

• Tourists collapse under lights for more Gabba pain

England wilted in the Brisbane heat, their top order collapsing under the lights to leave hopes of securing the Ashes in tatters on day three of the second Test at the Gabba.

England slipped from 90 for one to 134 for six as Australia’s attack snared the wickets of Ben Duckett, Zak Crawley, Ollie Pope, Joe Root, Harry Brook and Jamie Smith.

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As Australia’s batting linchpin helps hosts pull away, England’s premier paceman is yet to get him out in a Test

Jofra Archer versus Steve Smith in 2019 is already Ashes folklore. The atmosphere at Lord’s that afternoon was charged in all senses, a huge slab of cloud bringing darkness to the day. Fresh off a match-winning World Cup final, Archer marked his Test debut with what was then the fastest spell recorded for England. Smith was in the middle of a Bradman-hued streak of 774 runs in seven innings. All that could pause him was a short-pitched attack of building ferocity, one that finally dropped Smith with a bouncer to the neck. It was a pure duel, the kind that cause spectators genuine fear.

In the immediate aftermath, and again as Archer took six-fers in wins at Headingley and the Oval, one principal idea came up in every discussion: imagine, what might he be able to do in Australia? Imagine him on a fast and bouncy track in Perth or Brisbane. It was: “I can’t wait to get you to the Gabba,” but born of admiration rather than antagonism. The show, we all imagined, might be a spectacle.

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