Ashes 2017-18: Australia v England fourth Test, day four – live!

28th over: Australia 76-2 (Warner 29, Smith 9) Maiden again from Anderson to Warner. Again, defending more than leaving. Putting in a real shift, is Warner. Great to watch. As Jim Maxwell notes on ABC, we are watching Australia’s two best batsmen against the number one seamer in the world. Well worth a visit if you are in Melbourne and having a quiet day. Ample room – couldn’t be more than, say, 27,248 here right now.

“Hi Adam.” Good afternoon to you, Kate Chambers. “Enjoying yours and Rob’s blogs during the game. Watching the Test, reading the ABC and Guardian blogs and I missed the link to Vic Marks’ possible interview mentioned yesterday during lunch. Can you send me the link?”

With great pleasure. Meant to drop it in at lunch but forgot. You can pick up Geoff and my chat with Vic Marks (and the previous episode with Jason Gillespie) here. Talking on a lot (lot) more than the here and now. Their lives in cricket, and beyond. As a shameless podcaster I have to also add: please leave a nice review. It helps. Algorithms, y’know.

27th over: Australia 76-2 (Warner 29, Smith 9) Shoooot. The familiar Steve Smith off-drive from Perth. There it is. The way he shuffles, somehow finds extra time other players have once finally set in position. Lashes that down the ground. No need to run for that. Drives through cover again when Broad overpitches, for one. Then Warner takes him to mid-on for another. Good batting. They could do worse than putting England under a little bit of scoreboard pressure in this first hour. If these two are still there when the deficit is knocked off then it could be a different game.

“Thanks for a fascinating OBO.” Aw, thanks Thida Aung. “Helps visualize a match I used to watch on TV. I love England in other sports but support Australia in cricket. Have done so ever since that summer at Leeds when I first deciphered the game while writing a thesis. (My thesis suffered but I had a lot out of my first Ashes.)“ Great to have you with us.

“Just one question on my mind.” Okay – shoot. “Why can’t I find any link to you guys’ live commentaries on my tablet webpage on days England are not doing well or seem so (e.g. the 2nd day of this Test among others)? A bit surprising – and telling.” Ooooh, conspiracy theory! Doubt there’s anything to it, but can only ask the question.

26th over: Australia 70-2 (Warner 28, Smith 4) Anderson to Warner. Enjoyed their little stoush before lunch. He’s round the wicket to him again from the southern end. Uses his bat in defence to five of the six deliveries. They’re keeping him honest. Hard graft. Good cricket. Another maiden. 28 from 85 balls – perhaps his slowest strike-rate in Test cricket? Or in any innings he’s ever played since birth?

Some emails before the players return.

“What a shame that Jimmy’s dismissal of Khawaja occurred just after Geoffrey Boycott had thrilled us with his incessant complaining about Anderson bowling round the wicket to the left handers,” writes Brian Withington. “What does the Burnley man know about bowling?” Very good.

“Forgive if I sound an idiot.” You won’t, Aditi, please continue. “Doesn’t the effectiveness of reverse swing depend on the batsman being able to spot the shiny side. If he doesn’t pick out the shiny side, like the proverbial tree, did the ball really reverse swing?” Despite having bowled for 20 years, I’m no good for this. Vish, you reading?

Right. They’re back on the field.

25th over: Australia 70-2 (Warner 28, Smith 4) Broad has the last over before the break. It’s a maiden to Smith. But so close to having the captain with the penultimate delivery, attempting a lavish drive on the up without a lot of footwork. We don’t see that very often from the Aussie superstar, just before an interval too. Lunch it is.

So, after picking up Anderson with the first ball of the day to end England’s innings (Cook carrying his bat with 244 not out), Australia have lost Bancroft and Khawaja as they work to eliminate their 164-run first innings deficit. The former looked fantastic before chopping on, but he won’t escape plenty of people questioning whether he’s the right man for the South African tour in March. It’s a tough business like that.

Khawaja doesn’t have the same sort of immediate pressure, but after a lean 2017 it might not be long before he has similar nagging queries coming his way. On this occasion, he edged an Anderson delivery that didn’t do a lot from round the wicket. More to the point, it was at a crucial time with ten minutes to go before lunch. At the break, Australia trail by 94. I’ll be back in about half an hour to see what happens next.

24th over: Australia 70-2 (Warner 28, Smith 4) Ticking it over again in this over, scoring from four of the six balls in this Anderson set. Smith busy, to fine leg a couple of times, racing back for a second when the chance was there. Then through the gap at cover. One to come before lunch.

Geoff is angry about people slagging off Cook’s achievement. Truth told, he’ll probably never be respected in Australia. Not the way he should be. Just the way it is.

23rd over: Australia 65-2 (Warner 27, Smith 0) Broad to Warner. Defending well. Leaving when he should. Warner has faced 77 balls for his 27 now. Really knows how to shift gears these days. He’ll know how important it is to be there for a good few hours yet. Another maiden.

22nd over: Australia 65-2 (Warner 27, Smith 0) Australia still trail by 99 as the captain joins his deputy. The Barmy Army are up and about. They were last night too. I went along to watch Shakerfaker, Australia’s best Oasis tribute band (I have to say that, they’re mates of mine, but they are superb) and the Barmies were there in force. Mostly singing about Alastair Cook, which I quite enjoyed (and joined in with). Smith has to defend four of the five remanining deliveries, Jimmy attacking his stumps from the get-go. Wicket maiden. Ten minutes until the lunch break. If they can sort one of these two out before sandwiches, Joe Root’s men should be just about over the line.

Vish has written thousands (and thousands, and thousands) of words on reverse swing after interviewing scores of experts on it. That context to his tweet here.

Edged, gone! First ball of Jimmy’s new over forces Khawaja to play around the wicket, it straightens just enough to win the edge, safely taken by Bairstow. Watching again, it hasn’t done an awful lot. Just played the wrong line. “Maybe just a hint of reverse?” Glenn Maxwell asks on the radio commentary. Dare I say, some pressure on Usman? 162 runs at 27 so far this summer, in six hits.

21st over: Australia 65-1 (Warner 27, Khawaja 11) Moeen off after three overs. Hmm. Stu Broad is back. Beats Usman! That’s moved away from the edge. Here comes that reverse, I reckon. Warner watches carefully later in the over. Has a big job ahead of him here.

20th over: Australia 64-1 (Warner 27, Khawaja 10) Jimmy v Warner. That’s a heavyweight battle. Warner still unable to find gaps when using his bat. Elects to leave a couple, relatively close to his off-stump. Nice scrap between the two.

David Goodman hits me with some more marathon stays in the middle. “Not quite the same as being on the pitch for every ball of the game, but there is another interesting list of players who have managed to bat on all five days of a test. Boycott makes that list as well, and the most recent entrant is Pujara last month.”

19th over: Australia 64-1 (Warner 27, Khawaja 10) A third double-digit over of the innings as Usman goes bang, bang! Gets himself down the strip to Moeen and unfurls a lofted straight drive for SIX! Beautifully executed, the ball landing in the members at long-off. An even better stroke to finish, driving the off-spinner inside out through extra cover. Gorgeous batting. And what sort of dent will that leave in Moeen’s confidence?

18th over: Australia 53-1 (Warner 26, Khawaja 0) Jimmy is back, replacing Woakes who has just taken a wicket. They must want their numero at Khawaja before he’s set. He’s bowling to Warner here to begin. Defending, leaving. Then beats him! Great bowling. Is that some reverse? Definitely moved away after angling in from round the wicket.

John Davis is having himself a deep dive. “Following an anniversary reminder on a social media site that today is (UK time) the seventh anniversary of England winning the Ashes in Australia and then following links, I ended up re-reading the over-by-over coverage of the horrible day when the spot-fixing case erupted – and, as a by-product, took away the glory from a stand that should have been celebrated forn decades. Although this saddened me again, it was nice that it brought into focus that this series has been all about the cricket – and in its quiet way that is something to celebrate. Thanks for all the hard work that goes into the updates.”

Cheers, John. Last year I went back and had a look of James Dart’s OBO from the Trent Bridge Test in 2005. Turned into a ball by ball at the end. Great reading.

17th over: Australia 52-1 (Warner 25, Khawaja 0) Warner drives Moeen down the ground for one. Khawaja hits a couple of pushes nicely, but straight to fielders.

“That chat between Root and Ravi put me in the mind of some indulgent grandfather grinning at his grandson’s tales of mischief,” emails Aditi Capam. If they can get it reversing sooner rather than later, Root won’t mind a bit of a telling off. All part of it.

16th over: Australia 51-1 (Warner 24, Khawaja 0) Was that a bit of booing I detected as Usman walked out? Hard to tell. Maybe related to the catch late yesterday? Anyway, he’s out there now and sees out the over without using his bat.

Another chop on! The ball after Bancroft lashes a gorgeous on-driven boundary to bring up the 50 stand he’s one deflected back onto his stumps. Not playing a vertical bat shot the way his three teammates fell on morning two, but the result is the same.

15th over: Australia 47-0 (Bancroft 23, Warner 24) Moeen on for a bowl. Not a great setting for him really. Good luck. Three singles down the ground. No issues there.

14th over: Australia 44-0 (Bancroft 21, Warner 23) Maiden from Woakes to Warner. He’s stroking the ball well enough, but just can’t pick the gaps. Yet more chatting with the officials. Umpire Dharmasena this time having a word to Woakes at the end of his set. Colour and movement.

“What is wrong in throwing the ball short of the keeper or having a shy at the stumps?” poses Sachin Paul. “It’s not against the laws of the game and the custodians of the laws (not spirit) , the umpires, have no grounds to talk to Root.”

The umpires definitely raise this on a regular basis. I’ll take a look. It won’t be in the laws, but the professional code (via the ICC) contains a lot of other bits and pieces.

13th over: Australia 44-0 (Bancroft 21, Warner 23) Big over for Australia. Curran into his fourth over and serves up Warner an overpitched delivery, the punchy vice-captain doesn’t miss out cover driving to the boundary. Bancroft’s turn later in the over, picking up a couple through cover. Didn’t have a lot of room there, did it well. Leaves the best to last, leaning into his second stellar straight drive of the morning. The West Australian looks on here. Drinks. Umpire Ravi at the break has a chat to Joe Root. Presumably another word about the way they are throwing the ball in from the deep. Naughty.

12th over: Australia 33-0 (Bancroft 15, Warner 18) Woakes drags his length back a bit here. Was far more dangerous when he kept it up on day one. When he does give Warner a chance to get on the front foot he pushes between cover and mid-off but they can’t quite work out who is going for it, beating them both. Three added.

Fair bit of chat online about the ball. I’m just going to leave this tweet here without comment for now.

11th over: Australia 30-0 (Bancroft 15, Warner 15) Umpires aren’t happy with England throwing in on the bounce. Can’t imagine it’ll stop them. Nice cut shot from Bancroft off Curran, who is looking the better of the two in the middle at the moment. Certainly wasn’t the case on Boxing Day. Warner keeps the strike with a single to mid-off.

My man Johnny Starbuck has more to add on being out there for a full match. “I thought this question had come up a few months ago. Turns out (according to TMS) that Cookie has already done it, at Edgbaston.”

10th over: Australia 26-0 (Bancroft 12, Warner 14) Back to back maidens from Woakes to Warner. Better length. Bowling to a 7-2, Warner picks out the fielders. Maxwell now being asked questions about selection on radio. Handling them carefully. Speaks really well. “I have a lot of unfinished business in the baggy green.” I’ll post the audio from this chat when the ABC post it. “I always felt like I’m a red-ball cricketer but it probably took me too long to work out how to bat for long periods of time.”

9th over: Australia 26-0 (Bancroft 12, Warner 14) Ooh, that shoots through! Bancroft gets a dangerous one from Curran. Next up: a very close leave. Working into his best spell of the Test Match, the young man on debut. Then finds Warner’s inside edge to finish the set. Not easy to do. Well bowled.

Aditi Prabhudesai isn’t thrilled with the review a couple of overs back. “So England while failing to detect the edges off their own bats, can spot a mysterious edge some few miles away. Didn’t get cash back off the unused edges yesterday eh England?”

Glenn Maxwell is on ABC radio at the moment. I didn’t catch the exact words, but he’s had a decent crack at the MCG pitch. Won’t be popular with the curator, but this is one of the joyous things about the man: he says what he thinks when asked. Part of the reason, I suspect, why he isn’t the most popular bloke going around.

8th over: Australia 24-0 (Bancroft 11, Warner 13) Woakes sends down a maiden to Warner, which gives me time to catch up on that correspondence.

Johnny Starbuck and Jon Keen are all over the question of who has been on the pitch for every ball of a Test. Boycott, of course. Jon continues: “For the whole match in the Headingly Test where he got his 100th hundred in 1977. He was last out in the first innings, then (I think) unbeaten when England batted again.” Sounds convincing enough to me. Any other takers?

Brian Withington believes: “I am guessing Cook has a sporting chance of achieving this, especially if Australia bat well into tomorrow. Dismissing Australia cheaply would obviously frustrate the requirement for a full match, but perhaps carries other compensations for the success starved English follower? Over to those who give a damn about such things for rigorous analysis and consideration of the impact of rain interruptions and personal comfort breaks.”

On twitter, @byekitty has a good one: “Just learned from ABC commentary that Cook took a record off Bradman too! Highest ever score not out over night that wasn’t added to the next morning.”

7th over: Australia 24-0 (Bancroft 11, Warner 13) REVIEW! NOT OUT! Curran is on to replace Jimmy and England reckon Bancroft has got a little under edge flashing at one well outside the off-stump. They go upstairs for a look, but he’s not anywhere near that really. Poor referral from Root. A lot of emails to chugg through at the moment, bear with me.

6th over: Australia 23-0 (Bancroft 11, Warner 12) Woakes replacing Broad from the southern end. Bancroft takes him down the ground for one to begin. Warner takes another later in the over through midwicket when he’s a touch short. Not much going on here for the seamer.

5th over: Australia 21-0 (Bancroft 10, Warner 11) Davey’s turn. Jimmy gives Warner enough time to steer through the empty cordon. Well, not entirely empty – there is one slip and a gully. Actually, that says more about the pitch than it does Root. A couple more through point from the left-hander, the shot he plays so well from the balls of his feet. Then a couple more off the pads to finish. Busy.

4th over: Australia 13-0 (Bancroft 10, Warner 3) There is a close-up camera on the pitch and it is completely bare. No chance of this breaking up for the spinners. No good. Have a read of this from Dan Brettig last night for more on that. Back to the middle, and it is an eventful over with Bancroft taking charge. Albeit not before Warner is able to take a single to deep point. Yes, you’re reading that correctly: Root has a deep point in the fourth over. Come on. Anyway, Bancroft’s turn. Broad is short and the opener is pulling hard and well. Easy runs. Next ball, one of the shots of the match, a straight drive so neat that it nearly hits the stumps. Haven’t seen him play one of those since the second dig in Brisbane.

3rd over: Australia 2-0 (Bancroft 1, Warner 1) Warner carefully watching Jimmy. Then defending, then clipping to midwicket to open his account. Bancroft ducks then prods. Good early contest.

“If England win by an innings,” Roger Sweetman writes, in stark contrast to the email from the previous over, “Cook will have been on the pitch for the entire test. Had any player ever done that before?” I’ll ask Ric Finlay. Stand by.

2nd over: Australia 1-0 (Bancroft 1, Warner 0) Disco Stuart Broad to Bancroft from the Great Southern Stand End. Oh, and it’s a good one to begin with one shaping away from the right hander and past his edge. Lovely way to get going. Nice bouncer in there too. Maiden.

“Australia 350 off about 120 overs,” tweets @Notdcfcboss at me. “England require 190 off 60. Still fascinating and enough time for England to implode.” Don’t do this to yourselves.

1st over: Australia 1-0 (Bancroft 1, Warner 0) Jimmy involved in the first two deliveries of the day, with bat then ball. Couldn’t haven’t happened often. IF AT ALL? Come at me, stattos. Right. He’s wide to begin, then on Bancroft’s pads, taking one. First ball to Warner, and that’s just kept out! Shot through low. Joe Root likes that.

Some Cook stats, from the England camp.

• The 46th player to carry bat in a Test innings.
• 52nd time overall it has happened and 8th England player to achieve the feat.
• Atherton was last to do so 94* v NZ at Christchurch ‘97.‬
• He is the 4th England player to do so v Australia. All in Australia. Bobby Abel, Len Hutton, Geoff Boycott previously.
• He is the 7th to do so v Australia in all Test and first at MCG.

Tom Adam was all over that. A few minutes before play: “The key question is, who’s on strike? Because if it’s Jimmy this morning could be something of an anti-climax.” Played. “I get today’s Nostradamus award,” he adds after the fact.

First ball! Cummins around the wicket, into the ribs of Jimmy, who fends into the hands of Bancroft at forward short leg. How about that. Cook carries his bat, the first to do so for England since Mike Atherton in 1997 at Christchurch. (He’s sitting next to me, and clarifies that it was 94* – then got a ton in the second dig).

The players are on the field! Cummins to Jimmy. Play!

Right, I’m into the ground. And can report that the hessian is currently on the pitch. It is barely drizzling, but it might mean a slightly delayed start. We’ll see.

Robert Wilson weighing in on my topic of choice this morning. “Listen, Grasshopper,” uh oh. “From those who love you, who cherish and value all your smiles and tears, your dark days and bright, take a piece of advice. Please DON’T write about the use of technology for overturning on-field decisions. A subject dull enough to make raisins of your testicles, too many fine, brave young souls have been lost in those arse-grinding, deadly quicksands.”

Okay. I understand this isn’t riveting. Bit I do think it is getting less clear by the year.

“Mind you, if you do write about it. And you actually make it interesting then you’re James Effing Joyce and Don Rickles rolled into one. Anyway, Neil Hannon has sucked all the whimsical heft out of cricket arcana with The Duckworth Lewis Method. There’s nothing left for the rest of us.”

Okay, okay. I will wrap this up with a final couple of emails before play does resume.

Felix Wood has his say: “The problem with anything involving ‘benefit of the doubt’ is that there is always doubt on catches because of foreshortening (I have no idea what this means but if I say it with authority people nod). So it would be another thing in the batsman’s favour.” Yes! BATSMAN’S GAME.

Johnny Starbuck, too: “First, do away with using technology for judging doubtful catches. It is nowhere near good enough to be sufficiently convincing, so go back to the on-field umpires’ judgment. If a batsman is willing to accept a fielder’s word, then that’s up to him; otherwise, the benefit of the doubt still goes to the batsman. Second, use the technology and third umpire to spot no-balls and relay this immediately to the stumps umpire. It will take practice, but practice will improve performance, as we’ve seen in tennis. Third, get Hotspot and Snicko/Ultra-edge working a lot faster. It’s the third umpire slowing this down with repeated requests for replays, so introduce a percentage system with very well-trained AI predictive technology; anything over 96% certain is a confirmation. Fourth, feed much more data into the ball-tracking system, including actual pre-match fast and slow balls on the actual wicket, to provide information about the bounce.”

Whoa. You’ve been thinking about this more than most. “Lastly, if you wish to use any of this in your piece, at least credit the OBO readership.” Just try and stop me.

“Young Cookie,” writes Tim Hall , “a mere stripling of a lad compared to W.G. and other hisrtoricals… well, I hope he organises Broadband to hang on until he’s 300 to the good. Happy New Year, or as we say in this heathen North Jutland part of Denmark – ‘Godt Ntyar’.”

This raises an interesting point. How long can Cookie go on for? Writing for somewhere else about this last night, imagine he gets around for another four years? A fifth Ashes tour. He’ll have Sachin covered for runs and Tests. DO IT!

Meanwhile – and how good is this? – the MCC staff have been working overnight on a new sign for the Percy Beams Bar that has Alastair Cook’s name on it to replace Viv Richards (208) for the highest score as an overseas player at the MCG. The only question, as Gerard Whateley says on radio, is what number it will say.

Nath Jones to open the batting. “Get rid of the soft signal, and the benefit of doubt goes with the batsman. Compensate the bowlers by getting rid of umpire’s call on DRS, everyone’s happy.” Interesting. The politician in me likes the horse trading.

Oh, I neglected to give Geoff Lemon and my podcast a plug for those making their way into the ground now or killing time before play starts. We had a wonderful long chat with Vic Marks after the Perth Test. About his life in cricket. From Somerset to England tours to the press and commentary box. A decent chunk on his friendship with Peter Roebuck. Plenty there.

(If you like it, we’d be ever so grateful if you can give it a share/review, etc)

If a few committed citizens can change the world. Then surely a few committed OBOers can help change the playing conditions. Specifically, the soft-signal nonsense. And the use of technology for overturning on-field decisions more broadly. I’m determined to write about this after the series, but I want to come to this scrap armed with solutions rather than just complaints.

So then. How do we get this right? Do we take the on-field umpires out of it all together where close catches are concerned? Similarly, how do we define conclusive evidence for slight edges that could go either way? Lay it on me in the usual ways: email, twitter, etc.

Bad Day Boof, Sad Day Smudge. You always know Australia have had an ordinary day when the coach has to front the media at stumps. My piece from last night.

Adam will be here shortly. In the meantime, have a read of how Alastair Cook had doubts over his England career before yesterday’s knock: