The hometown hero’s patient century is building on the damage he inflicted with an explosive one in the first Test
Anyone following this Ashes series, let alone writing about it, has wondered at which moment they can declare the death of Bazball. Maybe this is the joyless urge to destroy other people’s fun, maybe it’s righteous disapproval of some irritating aspects. All along, Bazball may have been a neighbourhood house party: great at your place, annoying next door.
Anyone waiting to time their solemn announcement with the imminent series loss is out of date. Given its fuel is confidence, England’s high-octane approach probably died during their adrenal collapse in Perth, when dazed players looked around and wondered why their mouths tasted like lightning. If the patient sat up and coughed in Brisbane, it promptly collapsed back on its pillows. So Travis Head, Usman Khawaja and Alex Carey were not killing off Bazball on the third afternoon of the Adelaide Test: like the Simpsons’ Krusty Burglar, it was already dead. More so, theirs was the meticulous assembly of the cremation pyre, due to be lit sometime on day four.
Australia’s day drifted into a position of dominance through one of those dreamy, long-lunch Adelaide afternoons. There was an irony to that speed: Head was the player whose 69-ball century stole England’s gameplan in Perth, but he recognised the lack of need to play the same way here. Instead he beat England’s helter-skelter with normal, sensible Test cricket: a strike rate that spent the day somewhere between 60 and 70, plenty fast enough by historical terms while never needing to force it.
