‘So adverse they have been nearly inert’: How the media reacted to the Ashes opening day

Everywhere you checked out a raucous Edgbaston, there was discombobulation to be discovered, as England laid out their summer season’s manifesto with a efficiency each bit as unfettered – and borderline unhinged – because the Bazball revolution had promised it could be.

And in response, the Australians went … properly, a bit “un-Australian” within the phrases of the previous England captain Alastair Cook on Test Match Special – and had that very same sentiment been uttered by Warne himself, it could most likely have counted as essentially the most excoriating verdict ever to have been uttered in an Ashes contest.

As it was, Australia’s commentators for essentially the most half saved their counsel on a day that arguably ended with their facet in fractional command by way of the scoreboard, if not a lot of the narrative of the competition.

“They’ve gone defensive straightaway,” Ricky Ponting mentioned in hushed tones on Sky Sports, including that he was “not a huge fan” of Cummins’ deep backward level to Zak Crawley, which quickly grew to become 4 boundary riders when the cut-savvy Ben Duckett got here onto strike throughout his transient keep.

“Yes the bad ball might get cut, or square driven through backward point. But you’ve got to be able to protect yourself, protect your good ball and keep the batsman on strike,” Ponting added. “If the scoreboard continually ticks over, batsmen never feel under pressure at all.”

Writing in The Times, Gideon Haigh remarked that Australia’s discipline placings have been “so negative they were almost inert”, whereas mentioning that the identical bowling assault in Australia had dismissed England for fewer than 200 on six events out of ten.

“Cummins did not so much revert to defence as embark from it,” Haigh added. “Within a few overs, more fielders were patrolling the perimeter than lurking in the cordon — an umbrella field of a different kind, complete with sou’ wester and oilskin coat, as a precaution against a deluge of boundaries.”

Kevin Pietersen on Sky Sports did not mince his phrases both. “Australia have got it wrong, but from an England perspective it is fantastic to see Australia so defensive,” he mentioned. “I think that they went straight to plan-B.”

Geoff Lemon in The Guardian, nonetheless, had no such difficulty with the techniques, and most well-liked to focus solely on the day’s final result. “When the action finally got under way at Edgbaston, Australia coped just fine,” he wrote. “Dynamism and controlling the flow of the match are well and good. On this pitch though, however it came about, keeping England to 393 would have the Australians well pleased.

“In the tip, the shock declaration was the one actually Bazball second that Stokes might inject into the day,” Lemon added. “It may very well be characterised as courageous or as reckless, and doubtless that evaluation would change relying whether or not it labored. In this case it did not.”

Writing in Australia’s Daily Telegraph, Robert Craddock wrote of the message the declaration sent.

“On paper, Ben Stokes’ declaration failed as a result of Australia was 0-14 at stumps and licking its lips on the prospect of batting on a docile deck. England might pay for being so daring. But do not underestimate the drive of a message that claims ‘we’re coming at you arduous … from head-on and infrequently left discipline’.”

Over in the Age, Daniel Brettig compared the early exchanges to the Rumble in the Jungle.

“Famously, Ali absorbed a flurry of Foreman’s punches on the ropes in Kinshasa earlier than breaking via to land a knockout blow within the eighth spherical,” he wrote. “Australia’s cricketers, having lastly been confronted with the fearless techniques and mindset of England, now have a firsthand concept of what their very own path to Ashes victory must comprise.”

Nevertheless, we’re only one day into a five-match series, and for Simon Wilde in The Times, this summer’s psychological battle is only just getting started.

“Australian groups like to dictate phrases and would have hated being dragged round like this tactically,” he wrote, “being made to do issues they don’t usually do, seemingly on the whim of an England group who after they final met couldn’t have been extra pliable, extra supine, and barely landed a punch all sequence.

“While Australia will naturally consider themselves very much in the game, this sense of being buffeted by a storm they are still trying to comprehend will disturb them. Might they sleep on the thought that England left some runs out there, that they themselves might be able to go well past 400 and set themselves up for later in the game … and in the process just get ahead of themselves?”

It was a theme that Tim Wigmore additionally explored in The Telegraph. “It is always disingenuous when teams proclaim to have no interest in how their opponents play,” he wrote. “The question that lurked behind Australia’s opening-day display was whether prudent planning had become something else: Focusing on the opposition’s strengths at the expense of their own.”