It’s been unmissable Ashes theatre for a decade – however when the Englishman all Australia likes to hate bowls to the Australian all England likes to hate, there’s nonetheless just one winner.
So there was nearly a grim inevitability to David Warner ending up with a glance of anguished distress as he fell sufferer to a rampant Stuart Broad for the fifteenth time in Test cricket on Saturday.
No distress in Edgbaston’s Eric Hollies stand, although – the self-styled social gathering capital of English cricket – as they danced in delight on the eagerly-awaited sacrificial ceremony which has been an Ashes custom for a decade now.
But for Warner, oh what a depressing technique to go. Pinned down as he tried to seek out his outdated attacking mojo, there was a contact of desperation about his horrible, off-balance try to crack a large tempter to the ropes.
Instead, he solely heard the rattle of his stumps from a thick inside edge and a roar that might have deafened them in Birmingham’s Bull Ring procuring centre miles away.
“It was a great battle,” stated the conquering Broad.
“He’d played some really nice shots last night but we started with four maidens this morning and it was actually the first ball I’d bowled with the shiny side on the outside because I was trying to move it away and wasn’t getting anything.
“I’ll take the drag on as a result of it is a gradual pitch and you might want to maintain hammering size. It truly seems like a real dismissal on a pitch like this.”
The 36-year-old Warner wants to bow out of Test cricket on his own terms, with a potential dream farewell at the SCG against Pakistan in January.
But after another cheap dismissal for nine – that’s the ninth time Broad has trapped him in single figures – his wish looks a bit of a pipedream at the moment.
For Broad, who first bowled his favourite target back in Chester-le-Street in 2013, apparently still has his number.
Warner’s not quite up there with Glenn McGrath’s pet Mike Atherton, who fell to Australia’s deadliest hunter 19 times, but to Broad, he must look the fluffiest of bunnies.
And the other constant danger to Australia, who first learned to get really riled by Broad a decade ago with his angel-faced refusal to walk when giving a blatant catch at Trent Bridge, is that he’s not a man you want to see get with a spring in his step.
For his latest dismissal of Warner only unleashed the beast in the Hollies, as he stood there for a minute whipping the crowd into even more of a frenzy as Marcus Labuschagne came to the wicket.
With one outswinger Broad called “the right ball”, the world No.1 was gone too, and by the time Steve Smith emerged to face the hat-trick ball, Broad looked ready to deliver the sort of mayhem of Nottingham 2015 when he took 8-15 on the opening morning.
Smith, who was relieved to see that delivery whip harmlessly down the legside, was eventually dismissed before lunch by Ben Stokes but his main service had been to prevent Broad getting on a roll as the Usman Khawaja-inspired Australia ended the day in good nick on 5-311, just 82 behind.
At least when the veteran fast, having grabbed the brand new ball with relish, bought no-balled after he’d castled Khawaja late in proceedings, Warner might afford himself a wry smile that England’s foremost agent provocateur was not having all the pieces his personal manner.
Source: www.perthnow.com.au
