England chance their arm and emerge as winners in an Ashes half-match that felt a little hollow
Was that fun? Was that … good? Certainly a lot happened in the Boxing Day Test. Those who paid their money saw action. But generally the cricketing public wants wickets and runs in vague equilibrium, not the odd run dribbling out of a hole in the dismissal vortex.
Even the season of excess can have too much of a good thing. This wasn’t just overloading on Christmas dinner, it was saddling up for the festive meal at an all-you-can-eat sushi train with the conveyor belt turned up to five times normal speed.
Without context, the setup sounds tremendous. An Ashes Test, a run chase, a tricky pitch, a huge crowd, 175 runs required against a quality attack. The line for tickets starts here. And yet, waiting for the final innings to begin the overwhelming sense was that whatever happened next didn’t matter. We were about to see a fourth innings take place the day after Boxing Day, just after lunch on the second day of the match.
Such had been the extent of Australia’s subsidence that morning, and England’s the previous afternoon, and Australia’s before that. Thirty wickets in just over four sessions, one wicket remaining in the match for each of the 10 sessions still available. Only one of those sessions would be needed, whoever won.
