Ashes 1st Test Day 1: Stokes leads from front as England's pace gamble pays off after batters succumb to Starc

Charles Reynolds in Perth: The cycle remains the same. It starts with England losing an Ashes series in Australia, moving seamlessly into four years of handwringing about having ‘the right sort of bowlers’ and attempting to groom the pacemen who will finally, finally bowl England to series victory Down Under for only the third time in 40 years.

Pace, bounce, and an ability to wheedle out wickets with the dastardly Kookaburra ball – a far less willing playmate than the sprightly Dukes in English conditions – are the qualities prized above all others.

This time England even managed to arrive with a full stable of men they deemed up to the job, the fitness chips finally falling their way. Both injury prone speedsters Jofra Archer and Mark Wood were available, with Brydon Carse and Gus Atkinson completing a promising quartet. Throw in the ever-useful bowling of Ben Stokes and England had a dangerous five-man attack that, spin be damned, they would unleash against Australia here in Perth.

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But then as ever they had to bat. This time it was supposed to be different, this time Australia were missing Pat Cummins and Josh Hazlewood, this time England had won the toss and sent themselves in on a supposedly amiable surface.

Starc records career-best figures

Australia did still have Mitchell Starc though, and he popped the bubble of English optimism inside the game’s first six deliveries. Zak Crawley caught at slip, Ben Duckett’s revival attempt snuffed out five overs later, and Joe Root out for a seven-ball duck all in the first ten overs. Australia flying as once again English batsmen wilted in the antipodean sun.

There were brief rallies through Ollie Pope and Harry Brook, but mostly Starc and Australia were running rampant, when England were bowled out for 172 – their lower order guilty of throwing their wickets away repeatedly trying and failing to overcome the vast square boundaries of the Optus Stadium – their inability to seemingly ever make big totals on these shores seemed once again to have left their Ashes hopes in tatters.

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And yet… maybe England’s obsession with the potency of their bowling attack in Australia was worth all the years of planning and strife. Australia being nine wickets down for only 123 runs at the close – a deficit of 49 runs – would seem to suggest it was.

‘Relentless’ England fight back

Speaking after play Brydon Carse described England’s pace quintet as “relentless” – as apt a description as any for the firestorm that the tourists unleashed on Australia from the very first over.

Archer and Atkinson were superb opening up, the former bowling at lightning pace and taking a wicket with his second ball, the latter ably supporting, as England kept Australia scoreless until the last ball of the fourth over. Pressure building with every minute.

For all that England’s batsmen miserably underperformed, they did at least score at their usual frenetic rate – if only they had batted more than 33 overs, their run rate of 5.23 might have really tested the hosts – Australia however were stuck in the worst of both worlds, wickets falling and with a total that was only increasing at a glacial rate.

Archer made the initial inroads but it was Carse himself who truly cracked this Australian lineup open, the wickets of Steve Smith and Usman Khawaja in consecutive overs – the latter with an absolute snorter of a delivery – had the hosts reeling at 31/4.

There was no let up from England, Mark Wood was bowling over 93mph, while Atkinson only had himself to blame for not taking a wicket, spilling a caught and bowled chance with Cameron Green on five.

Stokes leads from front

And all this before the fifth side of England’s devilish pace pentagram had entered the fray. Stokes held himself back until the 28th over of Australia’s innings – it would prove worth the wait. Australia’s mini revival under Green and Travis Head was emphatically snuffed out with dismissals in consecutive overs, suddenly the hosts were six wickets down and still 86 runs behind.

Stokes has always led by example and he did so once again here, rampaging through Australia’s lower order to cap off his side’s relentless display. By the close he had 5/23 and the opposition were nine wickets down and still trailing by 49.

Perhaps that obsession with bowlers was proved right after all.