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

Excellent catch from the man on debut! “He’s used to the swirling winds of Instow” says Vic Marks next to me, and he would know. Running around from long leg, Overton had plenty of ground to make before diving. Expertly done. Well bowled Woakes too, setting Paine up with a couple of full balls at the stumps before going upstairs. England’s third wicket of the morning, the local lead 305. Hmmmmm.

43rd over: Australia 90-6 (Marsh 5, Paine 11) Moeen’s turn. How will he go? Can he get any turn this time around? What’s the go with the cut on his finger? Let’s have a look. Finds his range to Paine quickly enough, but the batsman is able to get on the front foot and score through the gap at cover for one. Good flight to finish, prompting an expansive stroke from Marsh but clipping an inside edge rather than the middle of the bat. Encouraging enough to begin.

Peter Siddle Watch.

42nd over: Australia 89-6 (Marsh 5, Paine 10) Woakes has the last before the drinks break. And he gets one jagging back into the left-hander Marsh, beating him on the inside edge. Other than that, Marsh looking very much on it. Neglected to mention a couple of overs ago, the overthrows pushed Australia’s lead beyond 300. Now 304, as they take a brief breather while grabbing a cup of cordial.

41st over: Australia 89-6 (Marsh 5, Paine 10) Anderson a touch less potent this time around, Marsh seeing off the majority before picking another single off his hip. Five runs for him in the innings, all made in similar fashion.

40th over: Australia 88-6 (Marsh 4, Paine 10) Woakes gets a go now, replacing Broad from the City End. Marsh takes another single behind square to begin. Doing that with ease so far. The new bowler finds Paine’s edge, to ground. But the real action of the over is when the newer of the two men bunts into the posh side and gives it the old ‘yes, no maybe?’ at his partner Marsh. Some scampering is required, the throw is taken, but Broad fails to back up adequately so Paine ultimately gets four overthrows for his error. Great game like that, cricket.

39th over: Australia 83-6 (Marsh 3, Paine 6) Anderson again, and he keeps generating ample movement. Paine grabs a couple through midwicket to finish. Has bowled 18 of the 39 overs so far.

38th over: Australia 81-6 (Marsh 3, Paine 4) Broad goes again. Cool conditions outside, so the two champions can keep pushing. Marsh is able to let a couple go, but forced to play the rest. Soft hands, good batting. Maiden.

“Enjoying your work today!” says Alistair Gillett. We live to give. “Kevin Pietersen is on Ch 9 getting stuck in to Peter Handscomb’s technique. Wonder what the Melbourne Stars dressing room will be like come Big Bash time?” I put to Handscomb before the Test the scrutiny over his technique at Brisbane. Fair to say he couldn’t have cared less.

37th over: Australia 81-6 (Marsh 3, Paine 4) Attention shifting to Jimmy for not having claimed a Test five-for in Australia. Nearly gets one first ball here! Paine beaten with another beaut. He makes contact through cover two balls later, finding the gap and three runs. Marsh’s turn. Quick single to finish, Crane on it quick at mid-off but his shy misses. Probably just home even had he hit direct.

Brian Withington has a view about the amended DRS rule, where umpire’s call decisions don’t burn a review. “Am I alone in thinking that retaining a review for a batsman on “umpire’s call” is mistaken logic?,” he emails. “Such a review shows the batsman was out but it was a close-ish call. There is no margin in the umpire’s favour if the ball is shown to be missing, however narrowly. Whereas a fielding side review that is frustrated by umpire’s call has genuine grounds for retaining the life because the batsman “should have” been given out. Discuss.”

Lesser of two evils, for mine.

36th over: Australia 77-6 (Marsh 2, Paine 1) Another nice clip from Shaun Marsh. Different gravy this week, this bloke. Paine does likewise later in the Broad over. No worries for him so far. These two put on a clutch stand on Sunday. Degree of difficulty just as high at the moment against some world-class seam bowling.

“I swore black and blue I was going to have a proper night’s sleep, and just wake to whatever result awaited me at 6am,” Sarah Bacon, you shouldn’t say things like that during an Ashes series. “But it’s beyond my control. Despite a heinously busy day of packing for this weekend’s European rugby championship in France (La Rochelle, in case you wondered), I awoke bright as a button at 2.42am! So. It is what it is. Coffee is being inhaled. And If this means I’m to be subjected to several hours of crowing English commentary along the same lines as yesterday, I’ll survive. I may be an Aussie happy living in the UK, but it’s not like Australia could actually lose this one. Is it? We can’t … surely…”

The very fact that the conversation is heading in this direction is an advance. A proper scrap. It’s what we want. All the way to Sydney in January. Are you with me?

35th over: Australia 75-6 (Marsh 1, Paine 0) Jimmy taken four wickets in this innings, five for the match, and had four others given that were overturned. That’s via Gerard Whateley on the ABC call’s fact and I like it. “Sweaty palms time,” by his assessment. Maybe so. Paine leaves the two balls left in the Anderson over.

James Lane is united with Bob. Sort of. “Holed up in Paris, deadlines tightening, monkish discipline… Doesn’t the key to Bob’s pleasure lie precisely in his self-denial? If there’s anything more exquisite than watching sport, surely it’s not being able to. The OBO is the patch of sunlight on the wall of his cell that reminds him how beautiful the outside world could be.”

Taken! What a brilliant catch by Malan, that was motoring. Off the face off the bat, as Handscomb made room for himself in an effort to carve behind point. It hasn’t worked, the Victorian’s very sketchy stay coming to an end. It would be overstating a bit it to say this is game on, but England are certainly up and about.

34th over: Australia 74-5 (Handscomb 12, Marsh 1) Broad fantastic here. Early on has a ball jagging back at Marsh, then later beats him with an absolute peach. Has to play, ball decks across the left-hander, misses everything.

33rd over: Australia 74-5 (Handscomb 12, Marsh 1) Marsh continues where he left off the other day, tucking one off the pads first ball. Less convincing is Handscomb, who gets two through an unconvincing leading edge. Australia’s lead is 289, I should note. Wonder how long Jimmy will push on for?

Cameo over. Handscomb gets Lyon back on strike after finding three through cover. The nightwatchman backs away to again flay, but is only able to bunt up to Broad at mid-off. Did his job.

32nd over: Australia 68-4 (Handscomb 7, Lyon 14) Oh that’s hit Lyon. First ball of the new Broad over. He tried to duck, but the bouncer followed him and made a thumping sound. Understandably, they take a few minutes, the Australian getting a quick test to ensure he’s seeing everything as he should. Back to it now. And he hits the next ball for four over third man! Bouncer again from Broad, predictably, and ramps it delightfully. And Lyon goes again when Broad gets it full! This time bending his knees and creaming a square drive. “That is the shot of the Test Match!” says Simon Katich on the radio. Utterly lavish. With things vaguely going his way now, Lyon has another crack but misses. No edge though. Guess what? He ends the eventful over with another crack. Doesn’t get all of it this time though, pitching over extra cover off a leading edge by the looks, two more added. Ten from it.

“Eh up Adam” opens Ian Johnston. “I must say that the timing of these games is a blessing and a curse for those of us working in Bangkok. Play starts shortly after getting to work and ends around (official) home time, which makes catching up on OBO easy. On the other hand my efficiency is non-existent… At least today is a public holiday so I can also be semi-efficient while feeling I am making up for last time.”

What we’re here for: helping avoid life’s actual responsibilities.

31st over: Australia 58-4 (Handscomb 7, Lyon 4) Handscomb slowly working into it, a couple through midwicket to end the over. Nicely timed again, with generous applause from the attentive crowd. Beaten earlier in the set by another screamer by Jimmy though, about the fourth time he’s gone by the edge in three overs so far today.

Meanwhile, Scott Lowe is, shall we say, thinking ahead? “I think last night showed Australia have a loooong way to go before they can think about being a top side. Smith was jumping around like someone was firing a pistol at his feet. So maybe England can console themselves by knowing they will easily win the 2019 Ashes.”

30th over: Australia 56-4 (Handscomb 5, Lyon 4) Broad all over Lyon here, but the nightwatchman sticks it out. He’s beaten defending early in the over, way too good. Then again later on when trying to launch into a drive. Excellent length from both the England veterans this morning.

“To rub salt into the wound,” Ian Forth notes, “I believe this is the first Ashes match since the introduction of DRS that Handscomb would have been able to review his decision after two unsuccessful reviews by Smith and Khawaja.”

29th over: Australia 56-4 (Handscomb 5, Lyon 4) Jimmy goes again. And he’s on with the ball taking off delightfully away from Handscomb earlier in the over. He adjusts, driving a couple through cover to get his account away for the morning. Already an excellent contest emerging between the two.

True story about my fondness for the Lancastrian. When he debuted for England I photoshopped a Victorian football jumper onto him as my display pic on MSN Messenger. This, you see, is why I was/am so popular at parties. Geoff is sitting next to me. “You use the OBO for personal catharsis. There are things you need to share.”

28th over: Australia 54-4 (Handscomb 3, Lyon 4) Disco Stuart Broad from the City/Southern/Broadcast/Riverbank End. Sent down gently enough to begin, Lyon leaving them defending then getting out the way then doing it all again.

Bob has replied, economically: “So learn French, schmuck.”

27th over: Australia 54-4 (Handscomb 3, Lyon 4) Consensus on the internet is that the snicko spike was just before the point where the ball went by the glove. Fair enough. Beat him again a couple balls later. Jimmy is up and about. As are the Barmies, with the loudest rendition of Jerusalem I’ve heard this series from them. Shameless re-plug for a thing I wrote about England cricket’s relationship with the tune? Why not.

NOT OUT! Overturned! Hot spot has the ball hitting Handscomb’s shoulder, thus the deviation. But did snicko not have a spike just before that? Isn’t that enough to uphold an original decision on the field? I thought it was. Anyway, they get on with it.

HAS HANDSCOMB GLOVED JIMMY? He is going upstairs. It was given on the ground! HERE WE GO.

Before we kick off… an email from Robert Wilson. Morning (evening?) to Bob in Paris. “I’m getting strangled by a double deadline for tomorrow. One’s a month late, the other a mere week (honestly, people are incredibly humourless about these things). So I’m pulling an all-nighter. But there’s a bottle of wine whispering my name and there’s the bleedin’ Ashes in Adelaide. I’m absolutely forbidding myself from watching even wicket highlights but I think the OBO is allowable. So the pressure’s on, pal. It’s you and me. Light up my life, float my boat, flick my switches. BUT NO MORE LAXMAN AND RAHUL VIDEOS FFS!!!”

I feel you mate. I am here for you. But is this the right time to tell you that the copy of Eureka Street I picked up on the not-so-dark web is in French not English?

Righto. Jimmy has the ball. The Barmies are singing. PLAY!

Nomenclature. “Cricket is good at continually refreshing its vocabulary,” writes Ian Forth. “Reverse swing is quite a recent coinage. Were England to win this test (they won’t, I hasten to add), I humbly suggest we refer to matches like this as a Reverse Adelaide.”

You can add the Reverse Malachi to that, which gets a run to describe a fast bowler’s short-ball bluff. We used to use Reverse (or Double) Malachi in politics as well, for similar effect. All derived, of course, from Happy Days. “When the Malachi Brothers execute this maneuver on Pinky Tuscadero’s car at the climax of the demolition derby,” according to Urban Dictionary. Also a NOFX song. Spanned a few genres in this post, ay?

Opening the batting on the e-mail. John Phaceas. “So looking forward to seeing GOAT carving the pie-chuckers all around the ground today. I see shades of Dizzy Gillespie.”

Well, he did clobber a six to long leg in the first dig. As I’ve written around 100 times since moving into this caper, we were at the same club in Canberra before he made the sound move to Adelaide – the rest being history. That season, he whacked 90-odd in 50 balls against ANU. It will happen for Australia one day. And when it does, I’ll run on the ground like Greg Richie did when Steve Waugh made his double in Jamaica.

This is such a great cricket ground. I know we carry on about it a bit, but indulge me in case it finishes today and we have to wait twelve months to return. Every morning here the members queue way back so that they can charge to the best seats behind bowler when the football siren sounds at midday so signal that gates can open. I enjoyed watching it all play out before. To think that the footbridge joining the city and the ground was a point of controversy when being built four years ago. Visionary.

Myth-busting. Whenever an Australian team has the chance to enforce the follow-on you can be sure that the commentary will be dominated by comments about Kolkata in 2001. The “VVS Effect” and all that. It is underpinned by the idea that Steve Waugh was so burned by the experience that it never happened again. False.

As Geoff Lemon detailed after a deep dive we went on at Lord’s a couple of years ago, Waugh had the chance to pop the opposition in for a second go on seven occasions after VVS and Rahul did their thing. He elected to do so each time. Australia won them all.

Of course, the world has changed since then. The health of fast bowlers has never been more scientifically managed. No one is denying that. But don’t point to SR Waugh when making the case, and leave VVS out of it. Okay. I feel better now.

Adam will be here shortly. In the meantime, here’s a reminder of how we got to this stage: