Category: Cricket

• Former fast bowler says attack has gone past his group from early 2000s

• ‘The Australian public won’t recognise how good they are until they’re gone’

Brett Lee has labelled Australia’s current bowling attack as the country’s greatest ever, declaring that Pat Cummins’ side have now surpassed his group from the early 2000s.

Australia’s attack will take one step closer to being reunited in Adelaide this week, with Cummins and Nathan Lyon back in the team alongside Mitchell Starc.

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Ahead of the third Ashes Test, Geoff Lemon looks back at some of the surprising stories born of the iconic South Australian cricket ground

As England’s team approach the third Ashes Test, it’s tempting to link their tour so far with the Adelaide rollercoaster launched in 1888. Then you realise it’s not accurate because a rollercoaster has to offer some ups as well as downs. Still, perhaps the players can find inspiration in some of the stories of the past that took place at this very ground.

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• Paceman has struggled with hamstring and achilles issues

• ‘It’s really flat for him,’ says Australia coach Andrew McDonald

Australian fast-bowler Josh Hazlewood has been ruled out of the remainder of the Ashes series amid hamstring and achilles tendon injuries.

Injuries have thwarted the reliable right-arm quick in recent years and had forced him to watch from afar as Australia took a 2-0 series lead at the Gabba last week.

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Brendon McCullum’s regime may be unravelling but there is rarely any suggestion of what to do next and how the team can be improved

Overprepared. Overconfident. Overblown. Over there. And now just over. We know how this goes from here, don’t we? We know this cycle.

The days since England’s defeat in Brisbane have boiled down to a real-time competition to become the hate-click boss, to describe in the most sensual, eviscerating detail the depth of England’s badness, not just at cricket, but at the molecular, existential level.

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Stand-in bowler makes the most of rare chance on what could yet prove to be his final moments in Test cricket

• Australia beat England by eight wickets at the Gabba

In the end, the only tension was whether Brisbane’s rain would descend before Australia could knock off the last 32 runs in the final session, and so whether going 2-0 up in the Ashes would be delayed until the fifth day. It turned out that England’s resistance through the light of the afternoon had only dished up some evening entertainment for home fans, with Travis Head able to put on a brief show in dispatching the pink ball over the fence before he headed back the same way.

And still. Through the longest partnership of the series so far, 221 balls on the hottest day of the second Test, Ben Stokes and Will Jacks made Australia work in the field, something that was perhaps worth doing for the simple fact of proving that it can be done. With Mitchell Starc tiring after leading the line all series, the contest became a grind. What it reflected about Australia’s bowling makeup was instructive.

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• Achilles complaint stalls bowler’s recovery from injury

• Cummins to rejoin hosts’ squad for third Test in Adelaide

Josh Hazlewood is racing the clock to play a role in the Ashes series after another injury speed bump on his road back to the bowling crease.

It has been a case of one step forward two steps back for the 34-year-old paceman who had been making positive steps in his return from a hamstring injury, sustained while playing for NSW against Victoria in the Sheffield Shield.

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Left-armer ran through England again but just how much will Australia regret not selecting their premium spinner at the Gabba?

In the end it was Mitchell Starc saving the day in the second Ashes Test as he did the first. In a series supposed to be defined by Australia’s fast-bowling Big Three, he has done the work as the sole member to make the starting line. With one English wicket left to fall and his tally on six for 46, he was on the brink of the remarkable feat of recording career-best figures for the fourth time in less than 12 months. Joe Root and Jofra Archer swung a few runs away to void that statistical note, but it was still another day (and night) of heavy lifting for the man who so far in this series has carried Australia’s burden.

Having passed Harbhajan Singh’s 417 Test wickets in the process Starc, who ended day one with figures of six for 71, is now in the top 15 wicket-takers on the Test all-time list, but the more significant milestone from the overtaking lane was the 414 of Wasim Akram, making Starc the most prolific left-arm quick of all. Until now Wasim has been uncontested as the greatest of his ilk, but with time yet ahead of Starc, the Australian can now make an argument of it. He may average three more runs per wicket, but has needed eight fewer deliveries to take each one, and his recent vintage years have both of those numbers moving in the right direction.

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Will the captain return? Will Nathan Lyon play? Who will open? Ashes hostilities are renewed and the hosts don’t need to ask too many questions

At last, at long last, an Ashes series is about to start. It feels that way, anyway, after so many months of lead-up, such an eternal blur of preview and prediction and preamble, were supposed to reach their end – only to find that the end was instead a momentary interruption, a hiccup, an indigestion-dream of a Test from Perth, a contest done in the span of 31 hours, leaving everyone to return to punditry and prognostication for a further 11 blasted and benighted days.

We are, for pity’s sake, in a discussion cycle about Ben Stokes correctly applying a bike helmet while not on a bike, or Steve Smith correctly applying eye-black stickers in his Tim Tebow tribute act, or the archaeologically uncovered fact that Australian teams have a good record at the Gabba. Like farmers waiting for the rains, we are praying for play to start to let us talk about something that has happened, rather than something that might. Even the day-night format means another wait, four more hours than would usually be the case before the balm of the first ball.

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