4 minute read
You expect the unexpected in this Ashes, but we didn’t see the prospect of Jamie Smith getting bounced out by Marnus Labuschagne mentioned in any of the previews. This was obviously gloriously awful cricket all round, but which was the worst (and therefore also, in some weird sense, the best) aspect of this immediately legendary moment?
1. It was unnecessary
You don’t need us to tell you that there’s no need – absolutely zero need whatsoever – to get out to Marnus Labuschagne at even the best of times. Such an outcome is even more easily avoidable when he’s bowling medium-pace. And if he’s deliberately bowling bouncers? Well, you really have to go out of your way to secure your own downfall in that scenario. We’ll return to that last point in a moment.
It’s also worth mentioning that Joe Root was at the other end. In the previous Test, Root played like Root and made a 15-ball duck, so it made total sense for England’s other batters to instead copy Harry Brook, the highest scorer in either team’s first innings with 41 off 34 balls.
Conversely, in Sydney, Root was playing like Root and he was still at the crease with 129 to his name, so being calm and measured was proving a pretty good approach. Even if Jamie Smith wasn’t going to ape Root’s method, he could at least have tried to hang around and let him continue being brilliant. That really isn’t such an impossible goal when all you have to survive is a bunch of half-trackers from Marnus.
2. It was ugly
All the footage we’ve seen of this wicket has been unusual blurry.
We presume this is not an accident.
3. The delivery was entirely predictable
A peculiar corollary to being incredibly well grooved against 85mph deliveries targeting off stump is that Test batters are actually quite unfamiliar with facing outright cack. This can, at times, become a weakness.
Presented with a looping 65mph long hop, it can sometimes take a top flight batter a moment to track down and activate the relevant neural pathway. As the ball makes its leisurely way towards them, they sometimes find there are a great many possible shots vying for supremacy and the disagreements between these courses of action may prevent natural movement and result in an embarrassing demise.
Let us be clear: this was not one of those occasions. When he took it upon himself to jump-spoon the ball straight to a fielder, Smith hadn’t been mugged by an unexpectedly awful delivery teleported in from some back yard cricket game. He knew exactly what was coming. Marnus had just bowled – Lord help us – four short balls in a row. This was the fifth.
4. It took considerable effort to engineer failure
As mentioned earlier, Smith really had to go out of his way to lose his wicket to this one. First of all, on a very basic level, he first had to decide to try to hit the thing.
Marnus’s previous bouncer had been so short it had been called a wide, so we were already in a world where hitting the ball was arguably counterproductive. Having decided to do so, Smith then had to actually manage it. Again, it was a very high bouncer, so this necessitated momentarily becoming airborne. (There is no textbook for how you should play Marnus Labuschagne’s bowling, but if there were, it most definitely would not begin, “First, launch yourself into the air.”)
Having successfully made contact, Smith then contrived to loft the ball into the hands of the only fielder in front of square on the off side.
Job done. Job laboriously and unnecessarily done.
5. Marnus’s vindicated celebrations
There’s a TV programme called Ultra City Smiths – a stop motion doll puppet dark comedy detective noir musical.
About 90 per cent of the characters are called Smith and they live in a squalid, depraved world where people are reduced to selling their trousers and where the riverbed is thick with guns which have been discarded after being used in crimes.
Ultra City is not even half as wretched and unsavoury as what Steve Smith and Jamie Smith gave us.
Marnus shouldn’t have been bowling. Marnus shouldn’t have taken a wicket.
The resultant celebrations must surely therefore be the worst aspect of this wicket – although drawing that conclusion rather makes a mockery of our opening paragraph suggestion that the worst aspect must surely also double as the best.
There is nothing good about Marnus Labuschagne running around looking pleased with himself because his stupid, stupid plan to burgle a wicket with military medium half-trackers has been vindicated. Nothing good at all.