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First Test on a Knife Edge going into Final Day
- Updated: June 20, 2023
- 203
The final moments of the fourth day produced riveting Ashes theatre. The bandana-draped Stuart Broad, all gliding limbs and giggling smiles, made the ball and script bend to his will. Steve Smith gasped and blew his cheeks in dismay. Jonny Bairstow leapt into the skies and punched the turf. Marnus Labuschagne hurled a volley of abuse at himself as he walked back to the dressing room.
The final moments of the fourth day produced riveting Ashes theatre. The bandana-draped Stuart Broad, all gliding limbs and giggling smiles, made the ball and script bend to his will. Steve Smith gasped and blew his cheeks in dismay. Jonny Bairstow leapt into the skies and punched the turf. Marnus Labuschagne hurled a volley of abuse at himself as he walked back to the dressing room.
But for much of the final session, Australia seemed in utter control of the chase. David Warner and Usman Khawaja saw off the new ball spells from James Anderson and Broad. The pitch was placid and benign, the target didn’t daunt. Then against the run of the narrative, Ollie Robinson produced a wobble-seamer of outrageous precision to gobble up a fluent Warner, who edged to Bairstow.
The stage was set for the man of eternal theatre, Broad. There would not be a more trolled, mocked, pantomimed Ashes hero. But here he was, dealing two unkindest cuts of all to Australia. First, he nicked out Labuschagne, nearly a first-innings replay. A full, wide out-swinger that the Australian batter could have left alone, but felt obliged to feel for, and ended up edging to Bairstow, who was not in as generous a mood as he was in the first innings. Broad barely celebrated; he might have visualised this a hundred times in his elaborate plotting for Labuschagne during the off-season.
Getting the Big Fish
He though would celebrate the Smith wicket more boisterously. It was a tale of two in-swingers. The first kissed the outside edge, hit the pad in front of off stump and bounced just short of Bairstow. The next one was a trifle wider, luring him into the drive, with unusually leaden feet, that he edged to the ’keeper. Surviving moments of anxiety, Khawaja and Scott Boland saw off the evening, setting up a thrilling fifth day.
To win the fifth day, both sides knew they had to win the fourth. It’s true about every day of a Test match, but even more about the fourth, when the plot could race to the climax. It’s like the penultimate chapter of a whodunit, the nerves shivering, the fingers tapping restlessly on the table, all thoughts cooking imaginary plot-lines of the endgame.
Source:- The Indian Express
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