Another wild instalment of an ever wilder series. Australia’s batters pelted along at 5.2 runs an over, but weren’t as ruthless as they might have been. England bowlers produced a pitch map like Yayoi Kusama, but grabbed wickets against the run of play. Two extraordinary catches were taken; four catches, two of them elementary, were dropped. The cricket was chaotic, and captivating. A stifling day became a balmy evening, and the hosts by the close had wrested back the advantage.
So far, in fact, everything England has done here, Australia has done a little better, and, unexpectedly, a bit quicker. Certainly the hosts began their reply to the visitors’ 334 as they intended to continue; so thrifty in the first innings at Perth, England defaulted to short and wide too often. Brydon Carse’s first five overs disappeared for 45, Ben Stokes’s first six for 35; 13 runs accrued in Will Jacks’s only over. Perhaps they went searching for knockout deliveries; perhaps they have not quite recovered from what Stokes called their Travis Head-induced “shellshock” a fortnight ago.
England’s pitch map – Yayoi Kusama (2025)
It was not, in fact, Head but Jake Weatherald who provided Australia’s early propulsion, taking three consecutive boundaries from Gus Atkinson, slashing hard at Carse, profiting from Stokes’s errors of length, surging to a maiden Test 50 in 45 deliveries. He is an intense presence, with his clenched crouch, upturned collar, and the mantra he mouths as the bowler approaches, vibrating with energy even between deliveries. Some players wander to square leg as if in a reverie or a meditation; Weatherald veritably prowls, like a fighter eager for the bell. His cut, so vigorous as sometimes to lift him off his feet, is becoming a signature.
Head’s latest audition for a permanent role at the top was less convincing. He was four from 29 balls when he nicked a fine delivery from Jofra Archer, only for Jamie Smith to make a meal of the catch behind the stumps – thereby drawing further attention to Alex Carey’s quiet excellence.
Suddenly, off Carse, Head cut for four and upper cut for six – having been none for 18 from seven overs, Australia went pell mell for the next six, adding 59, repairing the damage inflicted the night before by England’s last wicket. To the visitors’ bowling there was no discernible plan, no consistency or continuity – Stokes could not even set a field for himself. But England got undeservedly lucky, Head toe-ending a leg stump half volley almost straight up in the air; by the toe did he reproachfully hold the bat as he walked off.
This afforded room for the continued transformation of Marnus Labuschagne from batting monk to batting ninja, attuned to scoring at every opportunity as this time last year he had grooved himself in survival mode. Half his runs came in the quadrant behind square leg as he took on England’s short stuff; he played a sumptuous cover drive, a winged cut. He was already in credit for the day having taken a sprinting, diving, rolling catch at fine leg to end Archer’s tail end swinging; now he hooked Archer over fine leg for six, and disposed of the follow-up for four with a Tiller Girl kick.
Weatherald was superbly yorked by the ever-dangerous Archer, but it was a shock when Labuschagne edged Stokes behind, cutting at a ball a little too close, caught up momentarily in the exhilaration of his recovered touch. He walked off on feet of lead with a face like thunder.
That left Steve Smith to see his team through the troubling dusk, as the lights wrestled the shadows. The pink ball, out of shape, had to be replaced. He was not quite vintage, never quite fluent. He hit a couple of uncharacteristic sixes, a top-edged hook and an upper cut. He also cut a few capers. After missing a wild drive at Atkinson on 50, he performed a leave so elaborate that he completed a 360-degree turn. But he outlasted Archer, paired up successfully with Cameron Green, the scoreboard kept ticking, like the arrivals board at a busy railway station.
Back came Carse, who is perhaps the supreme practitioner of try-anything-once, do-some-stuff repeatedly Bazbowl. It’s still not quite clear whether he is a poor man’s Chris Tremlett or a rich man’s Jade Dernbach. His captain loves him because he will do whatever the team asks; whether the team is asking the right things of him is another question. He bowled short, repeatedly, now to a three-six field, first from one end then the other. Cameron Green had looked in no trouble during a 95-run partnership with his captain, but could not resist withdrawing to leg to access the untenanted off side, and missed what was essentially a half volley. Alex Carey, as at Perth, was immediately transfixed by a bouncer, and looped it to gully where Duckett lowered the ball gently to the ground.
Smith himself was then caught up in the chaos. Two balls later, he aimed a hook low to high, miscued, and was mercurially caught at backward square leg by Jacks, taking the ball with one hand, breaking his fall with the other - a superb feat of athleticism.
It was not contagious. England fluffed three further chances under the lights. The hapless Duckett was lucky that Josh Inglis did not benefit by the catch he missed at gully, but Carey’s flying edge bisected the diving Joe Root and the unresponsive Jamie Smith.
The last drop may have been simplest and costliest: Australia would have been seven for 347 had Carse accepted a waist high miscue at mid-wicket from Michael Neser off Archer. Thanks to Carey’s quicksilver striking, Australia finished the day 44 runs ahead, with four wickets remaining. The outfield is rapid, the pitch as uniform and durable as a Roman road. But Australia’s attack will have had a decent rest by the time they bowl again, and England have made their task harder and more protracted than it should have been.
Photographs by Robbie Stephenson/PA Wire & Alain Nogues/Sygma/Sygma via Getty Images