Ashes 2017-18: Australia benefit from blunt-edged England attack in Adelaide Test, but losing Steve Smith sets them back

England will feel that they are still in this Test match, and having had a poor first half of the day, they will be delighted with how they came back into it. The three best batsmen in the Australian team have been dismissed and Australia haven’t scored quickly. This is the best worst-case scenario having won the toss and put Australian in to bat. Still, the gamble of having a bowl hasn’t paid off. There are few words that make England fans feel more uncomfortable than their team’s captain saying: “We’ll have a bowl.” So, when Joe Root did just that it would have always drawn parallels with that time Nasser Hussain put Australia in at the Gabba in 2002 and they were 364 for two at the end of the first day. [caption id=“attachment_4238949” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] England’s Stuart Broad with his hands on his head after bowling to Australia’s Steve Smith during their Ashes Test in Adelaide. AP[/caption] There were solid reasons to think that bowling first in this Test was the right move. In both previous day/night Tests at the Adelaide Oval the team that batted first lost. The pitch had some grass on it, although not as much as we have seen in those previous pink ball games at this venue. The ball does do more than you would normally see in Australia when the lights are on in the third session. However, despite the understandable logic behind the decision this is still the Adelaide Oval, and batting first here has always worked out best over the 75 previous matches that have been played at this venue. It was clear in the opening exchanges that this pitch was pretty flat. Having put Australia in, England needed to be at their absolute best with the ball. That isn’t what the English got. Australia have a huge advantage in this series considering that they can look to see off James Anderson and Stuart Broad safe in the knowledge that the second and third change bowlers are nowhere near as good. They were happy in Brisbane to score two-an-over against Anderson and Broad and attack the others. On the first morning, it was not difficult for Australia to sit back and wait for the weaker elements of the England attack when the big boys bowled far too short. This meant any early movement that England did get could be easily negotiated by the Australian openers as David Warner and Cameron Bancroft continued from where they had left off at the Gabba. Rain coming and going meant there was only 13.5 overs before the first interval and Australia reached 33 without loss having looked completely untroubled. It is perhaps fitting with how poorly England bowled that the first wicket came as a result of a run out. A misfield from Moeen Ali in the covers kidded Bancroft into thinking that there was a single on offer. Moeen deflected the ball into the hands of Chris Woakes who threw down the stumps. The first wicket to fall to a bowler actually came from the back of a length tactic, with Warner playing a shot that was neither attacking nor defensive and edging Woakes through to the wicketkeeper. Usman Khawaja, the batsman who is the best of the rest in this Australian line-up after Warner and Steve Smith, played very well for his 54 but he should have departed 10 runs earlier when he hooked a ball from Woakes that went to Mark Stoneman at mid-wicket. Stoneman went at it with hard hands and put down a catch that should have been easily taken. A jab at a wide one from Anderson three balls after the second interval brought about Khawaja’s downfall, but Smith was still there. Smith, like some sort of batting automaton jerking his way to yet more Test runs, looked a lot less assured than at Brisbane, but then Smith never looks great when he is scoring runs. Effectiveness will always trump attractiveness when it comes to run-making. The evening session would have been England’s best chance of getting Smith out. If he has one weakness it is to late lateral movement, but in fairness this is true of any batsman. Anderson and Broad were miles better after the dinner break, bowling much fuller and asking serious questions. Still, it was Smith who was the key and neither of England’s senior seamers could find a way through. Instead it was Craig Overton, a 23-year-old on his Test debut, who found his way through the Smith defence. An off-cutter hit his pad, then his bat and then the stumps. With Khawaja, Smith and Warner all gone, England had a chance of getting Australia all out for a manageable total. This remains a very placid surface. In this match, as they did in the first Test, England have kept things tight even if they have not been taking wickets. That means that a significant improvement with the new ball on Sunday afternoon could allow England to put themselves in charge of this Test. Another bowling performance by England like the one we saw in the opening overs of the first day would mean that Australia would be able to exert a stranglehold on this Test which they are unlikely to release.