Australia, England, DRS all make errors in eventful opening day of Adelaide Test

Charlie Reynolds from Adelaide: English batsmen have spent much of this series gifting their wickets to the opposition – today Australia generously returned the favour.

When England lost the toss and were sent into the field at a blazing hot Adelaide Oval, they would almost certainly have shaken hands on a close of play score of 326/8 – particularly on a pitch that seemingly offered few demons and on a day where they arguably didn’t even consistently bowl all that well.

Winning the toss and batting first is supposed to be a big advantage in Australia, in this series it has seemingly proved something of a poisoned chalice – albeit one that each side has been willingly drinking from themselves.

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The answer to who had the better of the day’s play probably depends on who you asked, neither side truly pulling away from the other on a fascinating opening day. England bowling coach David Saker believing that with the final Australian two wickets his side could have made an honest claim to being ahead.

“If we were batting by stumps we’d be confident we’d had the better day,” he said at the press conference after the close of play. “But it would be nice to knock them over really quick in the morning and then bat very big.”

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However, provided England can wrap up Australia’s efforts in good time tomorrow morning, statistics would indicate that the tourists find themselves well ahead of recent historical precedents.

In the last 15 years Australia have batted eight times in the first innings at Adelaide, their average score has been 532 and they have never made fewer runs than 473 – oh and in those eight innings they have only been bowled out once, declaring every other time.

Barring an absolute disaster/Mitchell Starc masterclass – not to be totally ruled out given the series he’s having – the tourists should find themselves well ahead of those benchmarks.

It was a curious day for Australia, at the end of play count they had arguably given away all but two of their wickets, beset by the sort of sloppy shot selection that has usually plagued England so far in this series.

Carey, Khawaja carry Australia

The peculiarity began for the hosts before the toss, Steve Smith ruled out with vertigo, Usman Khawaja receiving an unexpected late invitation to the last chance saloon.

Not named in the original XI for this game, Khawaja’s Test career had appeared to be over, suddenly he found himself the recipient of a stay of execution from the cricketing gods. Then only five runs into his innings he was handed another reprieve, Harry Brook putting him down in the slips off the bowling of Josh Tongue.

Seemingly freed by the surprise resurrection of his Test career, Khawaja batted fluently and, more crucially, sensibly while all around him his teammates continued to lose their heads. Labuschagne and Green both fell in the first three balls after lunch but Khawaja and Alex Carey steadied the ship – by the time Khawaja succumbed himself to the giving your wicket away disease – ten minutes before Tea – the pair had put on 91 together.

Carey though was the real hero for Australia, from batting his team out of a self-described “sticky situation after lunch”, to wracking up crucial middle and lower order runs with Inglis, Cummins and Starc, his reward was a richly-deserved third Test match century.

Carey is now Australia’s top run scorer in 2025 and given the way he batted today it is not hard to see why.

"That one is for you dad!"

A wonderful moment as the hometown hero Alex Carey brings up 100.#Ashes | #PlayoftheDay | @nrmainsurance pic.twitter.com/aEdfwRedz5

— cricket.com.au (@cricketcomau) December 17, 2025

Australia’s third best performer on the day was somewhat more controversial, ‘Snicko’ – the part of the DRS entrusted with establishing if the ball had contact with the bat – rearing its incompetent head once again in this series.

Despite it being arguably the key function of the system, and something that has not escaped the capabilities of the alternative technology Ultra Edge, Snicko is apparently unable to marry up the audio with the video – as such, doubt and human interpretation have now been inserted into a process specifically designed to offer a definitive technological alternative to one man’s subjective decision.

DRS drama

It has already presented itself as a problem in the opening two Test of the series, but given their one-sided nature hasn’t perhaps received the attention it might have – here it well and truly took centre stage.

'MUST HAVE SELECTED THE WRONG STUMP MIC' 🎤

Snicko's operators have conceded an error was made when Alex Carey was given not out on route to his #Ashes century.

DETAILS >> https://t.co/ZcSMm51C5e pic.twitter.com/YJ3lErlgza

— Fox Cricket (@FoxCricket) December 17, 2025

Carey had 71, Australia 245/6 when Tongue drew what looked, and crucially sounded, like a clear edge from a waft outside off stump – the Australian keeper reviewing certainly more in hope than expectation.

The review showed a clear spike of noise but before the ball passed the bat, and yet presumably because it was outside the agreed margin of error for the technology it was ruled not out. If there was any doubt that Carey had hit it, the man himself dispelled it after the close of play, describing it as “a nice sound as it passed the bat.”

Saker meanwhile was in no doubt about England’s thoughts on the matter: “I think the calibration of the snicko is out quite a bit and that has probably been the case for the series. There’s been some things that don’t really measure up.

“At that stage, it was a pretty important decision. Those things hurt, but you get through it. In this day and age you’d think the technology is good enough to pick things up like that.”

Hopefully it is not an error that goes onto have a real impact on this game. How the problem is dealt with over the rest of the series, remains to be seen.