The Ashes: How England have been reduced to cheering 13-run unbeaten opening stand – Chris Waters

The bleary-eyed in the Broad Acres and beyond, awakening to this news from the Sydney Cricket Ground, could have been forgiven for thinking that great riches had been reaped while the UK slept.

Further investigation would have revealed that Messrs Haseeb Hameed and Zak Crawley had managed to survive all of five overs together without losing their wickets.

The total was 13-0 in reply to Australia’s 416-8 declared at stumps on day two, with both openers unbeaten on two to go with nine extras.

The next thing to check – as the collective roar of triumph subsided on our frost-covered streets – was whether this was England’s highest opening partnership of the series.

Incredibly, it was just the second-highest – Hameed and Rory Burns having added a towering 23 during the second innings of the first Test in Brisbane.

Burns had fallen to the first ball of that match, setting the tone for the misery to follow when a yorker from Mitchell Starc struck the base of leg stump.

England’s opening stands in Adelaide were 7 and 4 between Burns and Hameed and, in Melbourne, 4 and 7 between Hameed and Crawley. It has meant that Yorkshire’s Dawid Malan has effectively been playing as an opening batsman at No 3. Why, he probably stands there waiting at the pavilion gate as the openers take guard.

A day for rejoicing in the UK, then, as Hameed and Crawley walked off with their wickets intact and 13 on the scoreboard – lucky for some. But even that minor triumph masked the not inconsiderable detail that Crawley was caught at first slip off a no ball.

Starc was the offender, his front foot fractionally over the line as if he had been watching footage of England’s bowlers who have mastered the art. It would have sent Crawley on his way for a duck and left England 10-1 in the fourth over, with perhaps the scalp of a nightwatchman to follow just to rub it in.

Earlier, another catch that was not taken, as it were, proved vital as Australia amassed a significant total on a testing pitch. The score was 186-3 when Usman Khawaja edged the left-arm spin of Jack Leach to slip, where captain Joe Root put down the chance.

It was perhaps not straightforward – the ball brushed wicketkeeper Jos Buttler’s thigh on its way through to Root, but Khawaja made the most of the reprieve. The stylish left-hander – 28 at the time – marked his return to Test cricket after a two-year absence with 137, an aggregate which England’s combined opening partnerships across all five Tests might struggle to eclipse.

Throw in 67 from Steve Smith, whose own score was all the more remarkable for the fact that he seemed to want to rush off the field at the slightest hint of rain, charging towards the pavilion before the umpires had even made a decision, and Australia built a strong platform assisted by runs towards the end from Starc, Pat Cummins and Nathan Lyon.

When Lyon swung the last ball of the innings into the stands, ensuring that England’s openers would face a tricky 20-odd minutes before the close, it lifted Stuart Broad’s bowling analysis beyond three figures, the Nottinghamshire man returning 5-101 from 29 overs, his 19th five-wicket haul in Tests.

It was a sign of what might have been had England actually picked their best players, with Broad having been mystifyingly overlooked earlier in the tour. It at least kept a total that should have been restricted to something in the region of 350 to within manageable as opposed to mountainous range.

Alas, what price England getting out of this one?

Perhaps the shackles will be off with the series gone, and maybe we will see the best of Hameed, Crawley et al. We need to see something, surely, from a batting line-up too reliant on Root, although there is perhaps more chance of seeing the Loch Ness Monster in the River Aire while enjoying a short holiday from Scotland.

A side injury for Ben Stokes summed up the day after he had been asked to bang the ball repeatedly halfway down the pitch, a tactic that always looks as desperate as it is unimaginative.