Atrocious Ashes: England’s cricket team has dropped the ball

Dropped catches lose matches, or so one of the oldest cricketing adages goes. The saying is often trotted out because so often, it’s true. 

Way back at the Ashes series in 1936-7, Walter Robins spilled a slip catch offered by Don Bradman. His skipper, Gubby Allen, is said to have told him not to worry; he had probably just cost England the Ashes (or some such words).

England had won the first two Tests, handsomely. In this third one at Melbourne rain made the wicket what was called “a gluepot”. Australia declared their first innings at 200 for 9. England crumbled, also declared on 76 for 9. Bradman then reversed his batting order. The next day the wicket had recovered. The Don came in at 97 for 5. Robins dropped the catch. He went on to score 270. Australia won the rubber 3-2.

Well, starting to write this piece after the first day’s play at Adelaide, one can’t tell just how damaging to England’s already fragile hopes Jos Buttler’s drop of Marnus Labuschagne in the last overs before stumps may prove to be. 

It looked on television to have been a straightforward catch; the kind wicket-keepers usually take without fuss or difficulty – even at the end of a long day in the field. It was the second time he had dropped him, though the first catch when Labuschagne was in the 20s was more difficult.

Resuming now as lightning drives the players from the field late on the second day, one can say that this dropped catch wasn’t severely punished. Labuschagne added only a handful of runs to his score before being leg before wicket (lbw) to Ollie Robinson, who once again looked a genuine Test match bowler. His emergence has been one of the few good things about England’s Test cricket this year.

Well, the bowlers stuck to it on the second day, but more catches went down. This may not be the worst England fielding side for a good many years, but it’s certainly not a good one. It’s hard enough to bowl Australia out, much harder if you give batsmen second and even third chances. There were six or seven drops in the Australian innings.

Much will be made of the merry romp by the Australian tail in the last overs of the innings when they rattled along at 11 or 12 runs an over. Disappointing for England fans, but when bowlers are weary, and the batting side has 400 on the board, it’s play-time for the lower order. 

You don’t need a long memory to recall days when England’s 8/9/10/11 revelled in a similar style, with Graeme Swann and Stuart Broad (in the days when he really could bat) biffing the ball all over the field. Three-quarters of an hour of carnival cricket is common in such circumstances.

So, alas, is the sight of England losing early wickets when they come out to face a big total late in the day. One feels for Rory Burns, a very decent cricketer with a few Test hundreds to his name, one against Australia. But he seems all at sea just now. 

With young Haseeb Hameed also failing, we had the familiar sight of Joe Root coming to the crease with next to nothing on the board. In contrast, when Australia’s acting Captain, Steve Smith, came out to bat, his team were 176 for 2.

It’s tempting fate to say that this match isn’t yet lost, though certainly, it looks highly improbable that England can win it, even though – an optimist might say – no more improbable than an English victory at Headingley in 2019 seemed at any time before the last overs of the match. 

Still, a draw in Adelaide would leave the series wide-open, and for England, escaping defeat from the position they were in at stumps on the second day would be a minor triumph – indeed, not such a minor one.

One hates to say it, but so much – too much – depends on Root. It may be too early in the series to say this; nevertheless, it’s what one thinks. 

More than seventy years ago, another Yorkshireman was in a position much like Root’s – though he wasn’t yet captain. Australia won the 1950-51 series 4-1. Len Hutton averaged 88 in the Tests. Only one other Englishman, Reg Simpson of Notts, averaged over 30. 

Denis Compton, a truly great batsman, had a nightmare series; he scored only 53 runs in 8 innings. In those happy and distant days, there were first-class matches against the States, before and between Tests. 

Denis made lots of runs in these. So he wasn’t out of form. Just kept getting out very cheaply in the Tests; much like Rory Burns so far. Thinking of Denis’s misfortunes that Australian summer reminds me that weird things happened in cricket, long before Covid. 

Every cricketer and follower of the game knows or should know that, as Mrs Thatcher said on leaving Number 10, it’s “a funny old world”, even though there are days when it’s hard to see the joke.