Ashes 2017-18: Australia v England fifth Test, day one – live!

10th over: England 28-1 (Cook 3, Vince 0) If ever there were a man to counter a spate of irresponsible cover drives, it’s James Vince. I’m very disappointment that I’ve missed one last chance to blog Vince Stoneman, private detective, as he beats the crooked police chief and solves a case. Instead we’ve got Vince Cook, who’s probably a trust-fund DJ.

But Cummins has done Stoneman quickly! And Stoneman has done everything quickly, including driving another four down the ground. But Cummins goes with a shorter ball, an in-between length, and Stoneman was fending at it outside off. It took the edge high on the bat, and the opener’s lovely run-a-ball cameo turns out to be a glass of theatre prosecco – sparkling, but over far too soon.

9th over: England 24-0 (Cook 3, Stoneman 20) Hazlewood has swung around to the Paddington End, and Cook could have gone twice in two balls. Two decent deliveries just outside off, two big cover drives that miss the edge by a whisker. Trying to keep up with his partner? Chill out, Alastair, we’ve seen how you do your best work. As former Australian Prime Minster Paul Keating once said to his rival, I want to do you slowly.

8th over: England 24-0 (Cook 3, Stoneman 20) An early change, and Patrick is Cummins into the attack. He looks brisk, and Stoneman is jabbing a ball away in the air to midwicket. Gets a couple of slightly streaky runs, then four less streaky ones as he utterly nails a back-foot punch behind square on the off-side. You’d have thought that was an edge, given where it went, but he did that quite deliberately, standing up tall and using a straight bat with an open face outside the off stump, bring the face in a circular motion that helps whip the ball away. 20 from 19 balls, and he is on. But Cummins beats his edge with a beauty to close the over. This is such a good tussle already. New ball doing a bit, but how long will it last?

Graham is watching from a Chinese military base in Langfang. I’m glad they’re letting you access us. “I once watched Nirvana supporting the Violent Femmes at the now defunct Festival Hall in Brisbane. Bit like watching Moeen Ali supporting Mason Crane isn’t it? Or is it vice versa…”

Speaking of New Year’s Eves, as a slip of a lad during the 1999/2000 transition I saw The Violent Femmes get bottled off stage at the Falls Festival in coastal Victoria. Don’t say we don’t know how to welcome international guests.

7th over: England 18-0 (Cook 3, Stoneman 14) Gorgeous again! Let’s call that Rocky IV, as Stoneman gets a fuller length from Starc and plays the classic straight drive back down the pitch for four. The very next ball he gets more width and so opens the face and goes through cover for three. He’s off to a very nicely paced start in this innings. He’s looked good in the series when he’s positive early. Doubles his score in one over.

6th over: England 11-0 (Cook 3, Stoneman 7) Hazlewood to Cook, who defends out the maiden aside from one cut shot straight to point. John Starbuck is on form: “That Mason Crane: he’s probably tired of hearing it but he sounds like something brickies would use to haul up their mortar to the roof. Ashton Agar sounds like a poncy architect though.”

5th over: England 11-0 (Cook 3, Stoneman 7) Gorgeous stuff. Stoneman gets the short ball and goes back, then the yorker. But he still gets forward to it. Starc is a little leg side, and Stoneman clips that with perfect timing away to the fine leg fence for four. There’s a man down there, but it went square of him with such speed that it beat him.

4th over: England 5-0 (Cook 2, Stoneman 2) Cook is working Hazlewood’s straight line productively enough, another single to midwicket. Stoneman squirts another run from a tangled forward defensive shot. Very tight run, but they’re alert to the chance. Hazlewood follows up with another corker that bites off the seam and flies away from the bat’s edge. Tasty.

“Have a look at yourself, mate,” writes Patrick O’Brien. “Referencing pop bangers from single-named chanteuses? At your stage of life?”

Reckon I’m still just about the youngest in the press box. Anyway as Edith or Johnny might have said en anglais, I regret nothing.

3rd over: England 3-0 (Cook 1, Stoneman 1) Starc attacking with a full length this over. Stoneman is shuffling his feet an anticipation. He survives a big shout that’s going down leg, and survives an awkward short one that the batsman barely gets under. This after Cook got off strike thanks to a leg bye that hit him up near the hip.

2nd over: England 2-0 (Cook 1, Stoneman 1) Hazlewood to Stoneman from the Randwick End, and his first ball is a jaffa as well! In his own distinct style, back of a length and moving away, beating the bat through to Tim Paine behind the stumps. His next is straighter, and Stoneman jabs away a single off the pads. Hazlewood keeps up the attack on the stumps for Cook, who is equal to it. Wobbling the seam a bit in this overcast air is Josh. Eventually the double-century maker from Melbourne opens his account with a run to the leg side.

1st over: England 0-0 (Cook 0, Stoneman 0) We are officially away! I’m not dancing on my own anymore. And Starc begins proceedings with an absolute banger. Curling yorker, in towards middle stump, and while Cook a couple of weeks ago would have been bowled by that, the Cook of today jams down and keeps it out. Got forward enough. Gets a wider one and spears it to point, where Lyon makes a great diving save. Last ball of the over hoops away. This is great stuff.

Andrew Turner on email wants to know my movements. “If you were in Melbourne for NYE and didn’t attend the second-largest fireworks display in the state in Footscray park, you missed the fantastically amusing Immaculate Madonna. The show involved a sometimes roller-skating ‘Madge’ and a troop of not quite as young or talented as the real thing dancers. For a tangential cricket reference I walked past Tony Dodemaide on the way..”

If you want tangential cricket NYE stories, I spent the night at the Gasometer Hotel. It’s in Melbourne, not Kennington, but still. This is the New Year’s Test, after all. And the first three songs to greet me on arrival, mixed back to back to back, formed this glorious trio of dance-fever and optimism and nostalgia and catharsis and love, which should tide you over most of the 22 minutes until play begins. Bring on 2018.

No strategic toss declarations here. Narrow-minded, old-fashioned captaincy here. Unlike half of California, Joe Root has not been seduced by the green. He’ll back Stoneman and Cook to get through any early troubles and set up the rest of the order to bat and bat long. Two hours lost to rain, we’ll make up half an hour of that tonight and the rest via early starts across the next four days.

On reflection, if I were going to link to one Madonna song, this is the one that has been stuck in my head since our Christmas party.

“So if I understand it England need Joe Root to lose the toss – because if memory serves they have lost every test they won the toss for over the last two series. Maybe he should just concede the toss at the start?”

Can a captain declare the toss? That’s real funky.

Regarding the scorecard glitch, apparently it’s only happening on Androids, and we’re working on fixing it. I say that in the same way that ‘we’ won World War II, or the 1500 freestyle at Atlanta 1996. My personal involvement is limited.

“The original line-up of Ted Mulry Gang were on the Pokie Circuit back in 2000 and I was forced to attend by my brother-in-law (read: dragged from the TAB out to the back room.)” Philip Davis is on the email line.

“They were unbelievably good, playing to maybe a hundred punters most of which went nuts despite averaging in their mid-40s. They started with Jump In My Car, finished with Jump In My Car and encored with Jump In My Car.”

They will toss at 12:10, with play to commence at 12:40.

At the third stroke, the time will be 11:45 and 10 seconds. Boop, boop, boop. (I want you in my roop.)

“After being lured to Australia with promises of 40+ degrees and cricket in the sunshine I have now completed an unexpected hat trick of being rained on in every ground I’ve been to on this tour – Perth, Melbourne and Sydney. Never trusting my friends again.” Try all five, Kat Petersen. A clean sweep, a (white)wash?

There’s no bad time for this, really.

Whoooo! Cue celebrations across the land. From Mt Isa to Broome, people break out in a rousing chorus of I Am, You Are, We Are Australian. Dogs bark at sounds that only they can here. A rough and tumble parade surges across the Harbour Bridge. Wild Oats XI does a backflip over the Opera House. The hessian is rolled back, the umpires have a look, and the endless TV intro panels go on and on and on.

Quality.

“The Dan O’Connell Cricket Club!” exlaims Peter Salmon. I know that he exclaimed it, because he used an exclamation mark. It’s a little-known punctuation device that might yet catch on.

“I was talking about the Dan O’Connell just tonight at a pub in Hereford – about being there on St Patrick’s Day about 15 years ago. Some genius had organised the Great Victorian Bike Ride on March 17 – meant a phalanx of people in orange rode through the sea of green… Taken in good stead by all concerned. That was back when I used to go to the Dan’s poetry readings and shout loudly about anarchy and the overthrow of capitalism.”

It’s a small cricketing world. Poetry was my first introduction to becoming a writer, and involved many dozens of Saturday afternoons at the Dan readings. A Melbourne institution, in more ways than one. That’s been going on for more than 20 years, and the cricket club for well over 10. And here we are.

The covers are still down. There are ground staff milling about but no action to take them up as yet. There’s a slight feeling that it will start soon though. No umbrellas for the hardy curators. Bred tough. God, we’ve talked about pitches a lot this season. Urggggh.

Moeen, Moeen, Moeen, Mo-eeeeen, I’m begging of you please don’t take my man.

Some reader thoughts on Mo.

Brian Withington: “Sadly I cannot help but concur with your analysis – he looked like someone who had completely lost the plot in Melbourne with both ball and especially bat. I shudder to think what Cook must have thought of him coming out there and throwing it away so pitifully from ball one. Put to shame by Broad’s effort, and how many times can that be said since his dreadful injury?”

Dilip Kuner: “If Moeen is Cooked, then he should score a double century this match, surely.”

As the French would say: touch.

And finally from Enrico, a missive to the man himself.

“Absolute club banger that Geoff – highlight of the morning. Appropriate too, as venga means ‘come on’ in Spanish, which I am sure we are all feeling right now. Come on you Aussie boys!”

Rob Dwyer is speaking my musical language. Ok, while it’s still raining at the SCG, here’s a story. I saw the Vengaboys live once. Recently, comparative to how long ago they were a thing. Maybe three years ago? At the Corner Hotel in Melbourne. Pretty sure they were lip-syncing? But least two of the original VBs were there. They were a headline act with no support band. Their set went for 43 minutes. When they came out for the encore, they asked “Which of these songs that we’ve already played would you like us to play again?”

A+, would still go and see them tonight if possible.

“Just watching Swanny present Mason Crane with his Test cap. I wonder why players don’t wear their creams for this, rather than some ratty training kit.” I wonder why they’re so keen to get in the training kit all the time. Anytime they’re in the dressing rooms, for instance. And the kits are uniformly such hideous shades and designs that in most instances have nothing to do with the colours of the teams. Sponsor requirement, perhaps?

“Dermal underwear… Sweat pants?”

A medal for our reader Leo Nine.

Booooooo(m boom boom boom, I want you in my room. To cheer everyone up while we wait.)

Provocative title still for this musical classic is not under my control, incidentally. Nor are the sporadic errors in the scorecard plug-in at the top of the app. I am only one monkey in a long series of digital monkeys.

Is this Matthew Prior the former England wicketkeeper? Doubtful, he sounds reasonable and isn’t trying to fight anyone on Twitter. “I’m hopeful for Moeen in this Test – I kinda thought he didn’t see himself as a front-line spinner, but a swashbuckling batsman who happens to be handy bowling too? Didn’t he have a great Test with the ball when freed up by another spinner in the side? So perhaps we’ll see him at his best, and stop trying to ask him to be something he’s not. Or is that unfair on all?”

Sorry to disappoint, but I think he’s cooked. The second-spinner ghosts had been put to bed, and he’d finally accepted his role and that he was a good enough bowler. But he’s been so relentlessly under the cosh here that he’s fallen apart, in all aspects of his game. He came in worried about the short ball, and forgot about Nathan Lyon who has monstered him. That effort at Melbourne was honestly one of the worst innings I’ve seen from any batsman, anywhere in the order. It was pure desperation swatting, the sign of a confused mind. I’m amazed he’s still in the team. Maybe he pulls out some brilliant effort here, but I can’t see it.

“What about ‘dermal inversion haze’ as an alternative?” suggests Neale Roberts. I thought that was a Jimi Hendrix song. But Neale works for a health service so he’s probably right. Stephen sounds right as well.

“Dead rubber. Rain in Sydney. Midnight approaching. Days work ahead of me. Boycott droning away on BT Sport. And yet here I am. Made toast. Opened a bottle of red. Cricket, eh?”

Indeed, Pete Salmon. Meanwhile, the slightly agitated Grif from earlier has emailed to explain his jitters. “I hate this bit before the first ball, I’m wearing my pads and new gloves I got for Christmas waiting for it to start.”

Solid work. When the Dan O’Connell Cricket Club won a lightning comp in Melbourne I went to sleep that night wearing left-handed batting gloves. I’m not even left-handed.

It’s 10:36 local time now. 24 minutes to the toss.

Kim Thonger is on the email line with weather news. “Our dachshund (Dakkers by name) has turned in early. This normally means inclement weather on the way. I’m not convinced his rain antennae extend as far as Sydney but on the other hand, we live in strange and mysterious times, his legs are extremely short, so his ears are inevitably close to the ground, and even here in darkest Northamptonshire that must mean something is afoot.”

I’m hearing a lot about English places being ‘darkest’ today. It’s nighttime there, most places are probably equally dark. But perhaps it reflects (or doesn’t, in the absence of light) a certain national outlook. You want it darker.

“This weather mystery is like one of the old shipping forecasts: ‘Cromarty, Force 9, hail, good’. The ‘good’ refers to the fact that the fellow giving the forecast is relieved that he/she is nowhere near Cromarty,” writes Peter Rowntree.

The roller is on the pitch. Is it bowl-first green? No, not in those shoes. The patches are very much patches. Most of the track is dark straw-coloured. Bat first, grind through till lunch, then phase three is profit.

Understated.

I tipped an 11am start an hour ago, and we’re well on track now with 34 minutes to go and the hessian being rolled back to reveal… a pitch! A bit green, but only in patches, like the grass is an adolescent beard. Or in my case, a mid-20s beard. Late 20s. Early 30s. Shut up.

Harkarn Sumal channels his best Richie under the duvet in the darkest wilds of deepest Warwickshire.

“Evening Geoff, evening everyone. Your opening spell here has been sensational – poetic – akin to Jimmy under the lights at Adelaide. Got a shiny new pink keyboard, have you? Well played, well played.”

I’m only shamelessly posting this because of the keyboard line – I’d love one of those. Also because the Tim Winton book next to me includes the back cover quote, “If Winton never writes another syllable he should be remembered as the most important Australian writer of his generation.” If it’s good enough for Tim…

In far more important news, the covers are coming off.

I walked to the ground in it, and the covers have been on since. Unless I’m just one of the Fake Weather apparatchiks… You decide.

I’m getting varying reviews on part of the preamble. “I thought you were going well until “dermal expression”, says Tom Evershed. Well Tom, if you can think of a more ridiculous means of saying ‘sweat’. I’d like to hear it.

(I really would like to hear it.)

Enrico, however, is on board. He’s a man of the future.

No.

Ladies and gents, I give you the ‘Bureau’ of ‘Meteorology’. I mean, what do you expect from a communist infiltration organisation plotting to fool us all about the myth of climate change as one more step in instituting a New World Order for the benefit of the shapeshifting lizard people.

As always, the OBO is built on you. Or ewe. Or yew. It was a verbal briefing.

Please get at me on Twitter via @GeoffLemonSport, or on the email line via [email protected].

“Love the lilting prose, but is it pissing down now or what?” asks Grif. I wouldn’t use that formulation, it’s more like a leaking catheter. A slowly spreading damp patch. A few people have umbrellas up but that’s mainly to compensate for the annoyance of having to wait for such light drizzle.

One change for each, as far as we know. Mitchell Starc is back for Jackson Bird, meaning that left-arm-spinning flamingo-batting wonderboy Ashton Agar misses out, and my beautiful Agar article linked to below is wasted, wasted on these philistines running Australian cricket. I’ll amend it shortly, don’t worry. For England, the change is the leg-spinner and criminal defence barrister, Mason Crane, coming in for Chris Woakes who is (genuinely, I am assured by our newshound Ali Martin) injured rather than being left out. He’s got a side strain. Although with all this inclement weather, England might reconsider and throw in Jake Ball for another seam option. But as I’ve often said, Ball is no Mohammed Asif. And I’m sure if they picked him, they’d win the toss and have to bat.

Two Ashes series, women’s and then men’s, dating back until October. The first women’s game came a day before Cricket Australia’s AGM, at which they told us that the pay dispute that had paralysed cricket for some months mid-year was fine, everything was fine, there was nothing to see here, and of the people at CA who had instigated and escalated the fight, none would be held accountable or open to any public scrutiny. Swell.

The hope was that the drama would soon be forgotten once the cricket began, and to a fair extent that has worked. Though the divisions it has created between players and administrators may have ramifications that will make themselves manifest again further down the line.

So the Grand Tour began, starting with a Brisbane ODI that was an oasis of sunlight amid a solid fortnight of rain. To Coffs Harbour, where the pints cost half what they do in capital cities, and the beach is beautiful, and when locals referred to relatives who had left town they said “she got out”. To North Sydney Oval, and a pink-ball triumph with crowds and love and the fact that Ellyse Perry can create both, despite batting the conditions. Beth Mooney flowering in the shortest format to retain the Ashes, then again in Canberra with her blazing ton, only for Danni Wyatt to upstage her and tie the series for England. A classic.

Back to Brisbane to for Smith to grind in the disarming lack of heat, before he would flourish in Perth. In between, stately Adelaide, where the pink ball sang under lights as Jimmy Anderson waved the baton. But the music wasn’t enough. All three cities unseasonably cool and damp, and the same on to Melbourne (why do they even bother playing cricket in this country, &c, &c). Rain has circled this series like a black dog round a campsite, close enough to cause consternation, but not yet with any fatal intervention.

Now the circle has closed, and after five more days everyone at this carnival of ball and blade will scatter like dandelion seeds that have discovered purpose, back to where they came. Settle in, that we may describe their preparation for flight.

Hello, and welcome, as this Ashes cricketing odyssey comes to its final stage. We come to you from Sydney, morning in the coastal warmth, grey and dense. The glittering harbour town of 80s postcards has disappeared into myth. This city’s humidity held me up all night, buoyed on its swells, sleep appearing and disappearing like enchanted islands. Shadows loomed in the fog, and by morning there was not so much the sense of being rested as of being dissolved, becoming one more passing shape, one’s name and identity and purpose worn away as painted signage is in drizzle.

In this ongoing dislocation, we stumble our way to the SCG, slow knots of people tangled under a sulking teenage sky. The air is so still that it might have been shot. It drapes itself over you – you don’t so much walk to the cricket ground as push your way through curtains. There is no heat, but light sweat coats you anyway. The atmosphere is at saturation point; there is nowhere for your dermal expression to go.

The covers are presently on, though most of the many working crews on the ground are going umbrella-less. We may start a trifle delayed – though as anyone with recent Christmas experience behind them can tell you, a trifle delayed is a trifle denied. But soon enough the closing chapter will begin, a denouement that cannot change the story, but perhaps provide the symbolism for later interpreters to read, fingers scanning the verso as the other hand scrawls notes in the recto.

Pages, prepare to turn.

Geoff will be here shortly. In the meantime, read his feature on Ashton Agar, the man who made a famous 98 at Trent Bridge four and a half years ago.