The Ashes Daily: England on the brink as Australia close in on series victory

0:00Nas:Oh, well done, that is from Crawley. 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, good! Down, he gets his four-etown landing. England's captain, Ben Stokes, while he is there, England have hope.

0:21Nas:Put the beer away, put the champagne on ice. 24 years of pain in Australia. Finally they're beaten at home by England.

0:32Ath:Testing, one, two, one, two, testing for sound. I just want to get that out there.

0:39Nas:Has there been an issue, Michael?

0:41Ath:Hopefully there's no issue tonight.

0:43Nas:There was a problem with your microphone yesterday, but I read the comments below and they said, thankfully we can't hear Michael Averton. More of Nasser Hussein, the better. So hopefully they can hear you today.

0:53Ath:Now this was a big day for you today. You are the proud record holder. as an England captain in two Ashes series of having lost the Ashes in 11 days. That's a record.

1:05Nas:I was claiming the extra half hour.

1:07Ath:And if they'd have gone down today, that was 10 days. But they've survived, so you're going to hold the record.

1:13Nas:I'm not having the 2001 series at home because I bust my poppadom fingers and you were in charge. So you lost...

1:21Ath:Two tests.

1:22Nas:You were in charge for two tests. So both me and you lost it in 10 days. and then out here I lost it in 11 days or 10 days? 11 days, 2002-3.

1:32Ath:So England are going into the 11th day of the series tomorrow. They've survived today but they're out of miracles, aren't they?

1:39Nas:I think so. There was a period again today where it's the hope that kills you, isn't it? There was that hope that when Crawley was batting with Brook and they were searching for a wicket and they were playing so nicely, you just thought, do you know what, this England side, they've sort of done this thing before. maybe, maybe, but then when they got one, you just saw with Stokes being vulnerable as a left-hander and the record of line against Stokes, you could see that wicket coming as well.

2:06Ath:It was quite a competitive day's play. It was like one of those days where you'd wake up as an England player slightly, you know, fearing what's to come because, you know, that you're so far behind the game. But let's talk about the good things, first of all, two principal good things. One, the bowling this morning. They took six for 38. They hoovered up Australia's innings pretty quickly. Stokes obviously bowled those seven overs at the start because there was a bit of chat yesterday that he might have been injured. So that seemed to be good news, the fact that his body seems fine. And then Zach Crawley's innings.

2:39Ath:But the bowling, first of all, pretty good this morning.

2:41Nas:They always look a better bowling outfit when Stokes can play a full role because it means other bowlers come in a little bit fresher. Yesterday when he couldn't bowl, they all just, they look half the attack, to be honest. So he set the tone, as he often does. And I think Tongue, in particular, has been excellent in this Test match. They've used him as the enforcer role at times with the short pitch deliveries. But that angle he creates and the way he bowled today, where he angled it in and nipped it away, you could see some of those wickets coming outside the off stump.

3:12Ath:I also thought they were just slightly going back to more fundamentals as well, rather than the short pitch ploy all the time.

3:20Nas:With ball and bat, they seem to have moved back to the fundamentals. Do you A, agree with that? And do you B, think, well, have they blinked a little bit? And should they have gone back to the fundamentals?

3:35Ath:I think they have blinked with the bat. But I think they've been kind of forced into blinking just by the fact that what they've been doing hasn't been working on the bouncier pitches in Perth and Brisbane. and by the relentlessness of the Australian attack and some of the outstanding out cricket. We'll talk about that catch from Manus Labashain. I do believe with the ball, I've said this before to you, they go to that short pitch ploy too often and too frequently. And I think it's because it camouflages the fact that they can't be accurate enough for long enough. You've been here enough times and I've been here enough times to know that the way to get wickets here, you need the pace and you need to bowl with a bit of heat, but you need to be relentlessly accurate and England can't do it for long enough.

4:19Nas:I said this to you the other day though, why does it take to the third test match, second innings, for the penny to drop? Having watched the opposition, why does it take so long for the, explain to people at home or people listening to this pod, why does it take so long for professional cricketers to realise, how many meetings have we been in where they say top of off? Who's in next? You know, Mark Waugh, top of off. Whoever's in, top of off. Why has it taken so long for them to bowl how they did this morning and get six for 38?

4:49Ath:I think in this series, you can certainly argue they've been playing catch-up. That almost two test matches in, they are ready to have a crack now because they had so little cricket before the first test. I don't think they were match-ready for an Ashes tour. They've done it. That unorthodox preparation, they've done it in places like Pakistan, UAE where they've turned up and won the first test but as you know coming to Australia is a different cricketing culture the crowds here the kind of ferociousness of the experience I think you need to be game ready and game sharp for it they weren't um Zach Crawley played really

5:32Nas:well didn't he he did and again played in a very orthodox manner if you go back to the first test where he bagged a pair, where he was trying to drive Mitchell Stark's first over on the up twice and got out twice, again, you could ask, why does it, I love the way he bagged today. There's a template, I've seen Zach do this, I saw him do it in the India series, and then you'll rock up next game and he'll go back to old Zach Crawley and start driving on the up and flashing outside the off stump. And then he'll ask himself, why do I average 31 or 30 in test match cricket and first class cricket? there's your template Zach I reckon if you bat good pitch by the way but if you bat like that all the time and make the bowler produce something good to get you out yes put them under pressure you'll do that because you're such a talented player you've got such long levers the way you play spin but I don't want him to revert back I think he does I said it after Indy he came up to the cart with Ian Ward and he'd got runs and we said that's how you want to play next game he goes and flashes outside the off stump.

6:34Nas:But it was lovely to see him so composed, so calm. It was one of his best test innings for me.

6:41Ath:I look at small things, actually, with cricketers when you're under the pump a bit. And England have been under the pump here in this game. And I look at the fielding in particular. His fielding has been outstanding in this game, actually. A number of outstanding stops. A good catch today, a sky that he kind of lost. Just simple things like the throwing from the deep. he was right over the top of the stumps now they sound like insignificant things and of course in in the grander scheme of scoring your runs as an opener they are but they also say something about your metal as a cricketer that when the team's up against it and under the pump that your standards in the small things remain high so just a small little thing that impressed me yeah and that's a

7:26Nas:given for a cricketer you keep your standards going but I go back to this thing and I haven't looked at the stats on this tour but I reckon he's probably got 200 runs in six innings that tells me he's averaging 33 now is that the cricketer you want to end up being you know all this high I hear it from England and you know McCollum and Stokes and Key about the high ceiling high ceiling of Zach Crawley high ceiling the show of Bashir high the way to get to that high is looking at your own game, adapting, changing and improving. And that's the only thing I'll say to sack Crawley, is try and improve.

8:03Nas:Otherwise, you're going to play 90 test matches and average 31, 32. So look at this innings and improve.

8:10Ath:Opening partnership lasted eight balls.

8:13Nas:Poor shot. So you know that as an opener. Duck it outside the off stump. Sorry, you didn't even ask your question there.

8:20Ath:Well, I was just going to say, it's actually the third longest opening partnership of the Tour.

8:24Nas:It's like having you around. I mean, if you ask Siri, I don't know if I can use that, other search engines are available, tell me a shot that is the most dangerous shot to play against a new ball. Well, the thing was, it was a half shot.

8:37Ath:It was not a shot with conviction, nor was it a leave, because obviously he doesn't like to leave the ball. He just half-heartedly put his back there with an angled bat.

8:48Nas:Can you be successful as an opening batter in Australia by not leaving the ball?

8:53Ath:Well, that is really the... Almost Ducat's failure here encapsulates the failure of Basbal, doesn't it? Because he has played some of the best innings of this regime, some fantastic hundreds, and of course in a very unorthodox manner by leaving so few balls. But I don't know whether you noticed today, as he was walking off... He practised to leave. And as he was stood just waiting for the first over from Commons,

9:22Nas:But if you've trained your brain for years to not leave the ball, under pressure, you don't leave the ball.

9:28Ath:And obviously the extra challenge here in Australia, and that was the thing, can this succeed? Can the way England bats succeed in Australia? Can the way Duckett bats at the top of the order succeed in Australia with the bouncing ball? Well, so far, you've got to say it hasn't. He's not succeeded. I think he's averaging 16 or something. He's not past 30 yet. And he's nicked off three times. He's got a few good balls in there, but you will as an opener. But today I just thought that is such a dangerous place to be as an opener where you're uncertain whether to play or leave, particularly for a batter, an opener, whose whole identity has been based around not leaving the ball and putting back to ball.

10:09Nas:But you can, I keep going, I'm going around in circles here, I've mentioned that, you can change your game. Ben Stokes, when he first, when Baz's ball first started, was charging down the pitch. and how's Ben Stokes played in the last two or three innings? How did Zach play today? You can, Sachin Tendulkar came here on a tour and was vulnerable outside the off stump. Sachin Tendulkar, he put away the cover drive and got a double hundred in Sydney by not hitting. There's a great wagon wheel of him in that innings where he didn't hit a single boundary between point and mid-off because he just realised he was vulnerable outside that off stump.

10:42Nas:If Sachin Tendulkar can put away a certain shot, surely Ben Duckett outside that off, because what are they going to do in Melbourne if he plays in Melbourne. They're just going to run up and bowl four-stump with a slip cordon and put a deep point and say, go on, you can hit two, three, three there, that's 12, and we'll nick you off eventually.

10:59Ath:And that was always going to be the challenge for him here with the extra bounce. Pat Commons got Joe Root for the 13th time more than anybody else.