The Ashes Daily: Australia punish sloppy England to take control in Brisbane

0:00A well-star, that is from Crawley.

0:02Nas:Chris Wokes nails it for four. The Ashes alive and Test cricket alive.

0:08Ath:Ice in his veins. Pat Cummins has led his team to a famous victory. Yeah, there! Down, he gets his goal. It's a landing. England's captain, Ben Stokes. Well, he is there.

0:20Nas:England have hope. Put the beer away. Put the champagne on ice. 24 years of pain in Australia. Finally they're beaten at home by England. Welcome to the Sky Sports Cricket Podcast. When Rob Key got the job, he said strap yourselves in and enjoy the ride. We've had four days test match cricket. These England fans are going. It's been some heck of a ride. I mean, today there's nothing in between with this England side. They're either really poor or they show a bit of character and try and fight back towards the end of the day.

0:53Ath:It was an extraordinary day, wasn't it? and it's so hard to kind of bring some clarity to it because, as you say, awful in the morning. Australia going along at six and over, England bowling short and wide, getting clattered to all parts, and you felt at, what was it, 290 for three when that, we'll talk through that 57th over, when that arrived, Brydon Kast, you thought England were out the game. Australia had the game, much like England had the game yesterday, and they had had in the past, and they've opened the door. And then Cass, who'd been hammered all around the ground, suddenly picks up those two wickets and a drop catch in the 57th over.

1:34Ath:And then you thought, England are right back in this. Australia have opened the door and then they drop four catches afterwards. And Australia have got themselves ahead of the game. Australia are not as far ahead of the game as they should have been. And England are still in the game. But those drop catches hurt England tonight.

1:52Nas:Well, let's try and do it sort of chronologically. Let's go right back to the start. A brilliant catch to dismiss Joffre Archer. It sort of summed up Australia in the field. I know they put down a couple of very tricky chances, but that was a brilliant catch from Labashain. But England with the new ball, I mean, it is just a given. You rock up to the Gabba, you rock up to Australia, you don't get carried away with the bounce. You do not bowl short and wide to anyone anywhere in the world. But the attack that was so brilliant, first innings, no wood, but the same attack apart from Wood was so brilliant in Perth, just ran up and said, cut me.

2:27Nas:I've never seen so many uppercuts and ramps in the first 15 overs of a new ball spell.

2:33Ath:It was incredible. I mean, we'd have to get Benedict to tell us how many runs were hit behind square in the whole of the day. But about an hour to go, somebody said to me there were more than 200 hit behind square, mainly third man. And cuts and uppercuts, as you say, so many of them. Jake Wetherill looks a decent player. he looks a particularly good cutter of the ball he crouches low and he gets that back cut away and England just fed it, fed him and fed it throughout that morning session so he played nicely for 50, I thought Labashain looked in excellent touch again for his 50 but England were really poor in that opening session.

3:10Nas:That can't be a plan can it? No. That can't have been we know you've got to pitch the ball up here got to try and hit top of off stump most of the time, the wickets they got were by pitching the ball up. So what was going through? Is it just bowlers aren't machines and they just got it wrong?

3:26Ath:Yeah, I mean, Brydon Kars had a particularly rough day, didn't he? I mean, none of them were particularly good. Archer was the pick. And I thought there was a drop-off when you moved away from Archer and Atkinson in combination. And then Brydon Kars and Ben Stokes obviously shipped more runs than the other two. But, yeah, it can't be a plan. Nobody in their right mind at the Gabba is going to say, let's bowl short and wide, lads. I mean, obviously, later on, Stokes set a ploy. Yeah, that was a different, that was the enforcer role from Kars. Yeah, when you set the field and you can see it coming.

4:00Ath:But new ball, start of the innings, first 30 overs, big difference between that new pink Kookaburra ball and the old pink Kookaburra ball. You know, you've got to go searching for wickets in the right way. So they just bowl badly. It's as simple as that.

4:15Nas:And what do you do as a captain? because at times Stokes had to sort of blink and give them cover on the boundary. Will Jax was fielding right in front of me, getting abuse before the catch out in the deep from the fans, but he fielded far too many balls for me. What do you do as a captain? Do you say your bowlers know, of which he is one, I'm not giving you a fielder out there, you're not bowling, I'm not bowling where it needs to be. I'll give you an extra cover, pitch the ball up, and if you get driven to extra cover, or do you set a field for bad bowling and put men back, which makes them bowl there a bit more?

4:48Ath:Well, he doesn't generally like to follow the ball. He doesn't like to do that. And there were a lot of times when I was thinking, why isn't there a third man today? Because the ball was just flying down there willy-nilly. But, you know, England were just poor, weren't they, in that first session. And a little better, I thought, after lunch. I was puzzled a little bit why... I know Archer got Wetherald after lunch. I was puzzled why he bowled seven overs at that point, because it meant that he had to come off just at the point that yesterday Mitchell Stark came on. I think it was six o 'clock.

5:24Ath:Stark didn't bowl immediately after lunch, was held back for that period, whereas Stokes did it the other way around. He gave Archer that big, long spell, and that meant just at that critical time that Archer had to be taken out of the attack. Did that surprise you?

5:36Nas:Well, unlike you, I've been working all day. I was doing Sky Sports News, and I was asked that question. I said I'd give Archer a few, but you have to save him for the twilight period so he gets a little bit of a do before the dinner break and then after. And I've also been asking the question, we've never played one of these big ball games, we're ancient, we're has-beens, is when is it the hardest, do you think? Is it in the twilight with the old ball? Is it in that twilight period? Because he rested him and then went straight to his most skilful bowlers again after the dinner break with Archer and Atkinson.

6:13Nas:So he may have felt it was after dinner.

6:15Ath:I mean, we've not played in one, but they say the twilight period, don't they? And obviously, if you can have the double whammy of the new ball in that twilight period, that's the doubly dangerous period. But yeah, I mean, you know, it was an extraordinary thing when we get to that point in the game where Smith and Green then, what was their partnership? about 95, 96, 290 for three. And the game just really in the palm of their hand. What happened then?

6:43Nas:Can I ask you, has the duck, that one, gone out of the game? Because if you keep, there's four of them looked exhausted. The same criticism we gave of England of hooking happy hookers in Perth. You can criticise Australia for. They were exhausted, those four, to be banging it in halfway down. Why not just duck out the way? I mean, Cameron Green backing away, exposing his stumps.

7:08Ath:And not just backing away. You know what it reminded me of? It reminded me of Ollie Robinson's dismissal at Hobart four years ago, which became the defining kind of image of England's surrender on that trip because he backed away so far he was off the cut strip. And that's what Cameron Green did, just to kind of talk our viewers through it. Kars had bowled 12 overs for 95. Stokes brought him back for one that went for 17, and he took him off and then brought him back the other end. And the very first ball was so short and wide and Green was backing away looking to open up the offside. And he did it again, he backed so far away, he was almost off the cut strip.

7:45Ath:And any bowler with a bit of nous is going to say, well, if you're going to show me the stumps, I'll just... And that's what cast it. He pitched it up and hit the stumps. And suddenly, England, kind of out on their feet really, had a sense of an opportunity.

7:59Nas:And it was fair play to Kars because his brain must have been scrambled.

8:03Ath:Frazzled, yeah.

8:04Nas:Frazzled, you know, he was getting abuse from everyone. And then suddenly to see that and go, I will go. Even though the skipper's not set that field and I could look silly, he could just stand there and belt me, back past me for four or six. It was smart and he nailed it. It was the perfect delivery. And in general, not just the short ball, Australia guilty. All five, all top five getting in and getting out.

8:25Ath:Well, yeah, I mean, the next ball, Kerry gets dropped by Duckett. at gully and then gets Steve Smith on strike. And again, you know, the short ball is signalled. All the field is out, leg side. And he kind of, you know, flaps at a short ball. It was an amazing catch from Will Jacks, who set off sprinting and then one of the great Ashes catches, really full length, horizontal, one handed. I don't know whether you saw Ben Stokes at that point. Did you see him? No. The whole team kind of ran towards Jacks. Root got to him first. everybody else kind of and a little bit like in the World Cup final of 2019 where Stokes just you remember he fell flat on his back at mid off Stokes was at mid on and he just stood in his own space and like in Victorian times he took his cap off and flung it in the air in celebration it was an amazing moment of theatre and at that point 290 for five he thought Australia were giving this away and then England gave it back to them by dropping how many catches after that So Kerry was put down first ball.

9:28Ath:He was put down again when that edge flew between keeper and slip. Inglis was dropped and Neesa was dropped to cover. So that's four catches to go with Jamie Smith in the morning. That's five all told. Poor old Jamie Smith had one of those days where after that early catch, every time the ball went to him, the crowd jeered him. And that's just cricket in Australia, isn't it? It is.

9:51Nas:And Smith and Duckett in particular have to pick themselves up. duck it first ball duck and then duck for Smith and then the drop catch and also for Smith it's highlighted by Carey because you mentioned it yesterday and I don't think we made enough of it yesterday Carey's keeping performance yesterday was a master class in keeping and now he's been put down a couple of times and he's going on and getting runs with the tail that puts a pressure on the opposition keeper so you're going to have to pick yourself up second time around catch your catches, Duckett has to go out there like Crawley did, open up against Stark and get some runs.

10:25Ath:They could have easily bowled Australia out tonight and that game could have been right in the balance. I mean Australia are ahead at the moment, they're 44 ahead. You have to say England are not out of it.

10:34Nas:Because this pitch, if you look at when you go to Spider Cam and you look down on it, it's quite mosaic-y and it could get a little bit uneven. There's been a few wrapping on gloves and not keeping low, but a few have bounced in particular. So if England can get 200 lead, if, a massive if, then you are still in the game.

10:52Ath:They've got to get early wickets tomorrow. They can't afford for that lead to get out of control. They've got to hope then that the third day pitch, that batting conditions are reasonable. They've got to have a good day, day and a half, two days with the bat and then hope that those cracks start to open and that they can exploit Australia in the fourth innings. That's their route to victory, which is there. And it didn't look like it could have been there probably an hour and 20 minutes before the close.

11:22Nas:But tomorrow is absolutely vital. Tomorrow afternoon, two o 'clock start, twilight at six o 'clock. And you've got a break in between there as well. If you can get early wickets, then Stark and Boland are bowling with a slightly older ball. If they bat all that session for the first time in this test match, We're going to have a new ball at twilight and you're going to have the king of swing and the king of the pink ball, Mitch Stark, with that new ball. Have you completely lost the plot in the press box? Have you got to any stage where you've had to write your copy, rewrite, throw your laptop out the building?

11:58Ath:Like we're talking, they're unbelievably mad days of Ashes cricket. And Ashes cricket's always been great. But, you know, the days when we played, when you could predictably say, you know, 280 for five or something after the first day, You know, stuff happened, but not in the way that it's happening now. It's extraordinary, the four days cricket that we've seen so far in this series. Mad, mad cricket. Lots of mistakes, lots of errors. Brilliantly entertaining, but very hard to call, very hard to predict. Australia in front, but England not out of it.

12:32Nas:No, they're not. I've seen our old mate, Sir Ian Lord, Ian Botham, around here the last couple of days, and he always said, crucial day three. I tell you what, tomorrow is a crucial day three for this Test match. It also is for this Ashes series.

13:11Ath:the key talking points so to see who'll be battling it out for a place at super bowl 60 search for inside the huddle and give us a listen