England crumble in reply to 481

Steve Smith will make plenty more Test hundreds, many of them more memorable and – it’s reasonably safe to assume – a large proportion of them more significant.

But it’s unlikely he will post many more patient or poignant centuries than the 143 he fashioned over the course of more than six hours in what began as a lost cause but is suddenly shaping as a remarkable resurgence at The Oval in south London.

Steve Smith became the first Aussie since Matthew Elliott in 1997 to score 500 runs in an Ashes series in England in the midst of making 143 (restrictions apply)

Smith’s innings, and his middle-order partnerships of 144 with Adam Voges (76) and a rapid-fire 91 with Mitchell Starc (58), and some inspired final-session seam and spin bowling has carried Australia to within sight of a belated Test victory that seemed utterly unthinkable earlier in the week.

READ: Voges gives selectors food for thought

Certainly for England captain Alastair Cook who, while pointing out that the way this series has unfolded teams who make the early running prove impossible to rein in, had no inkling that might be Australia rather than his own.

Though perhaps in hindsight Michael Clarke’s farewell forecast that the game was likely to be run and won inside three days could yet prove strangely prescient, in a way that not even his most optimistic or jingoistic supporter could have dared imagine.

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Michael Clarke addresses a team huddle on day two // Getty Images

England resumes on what is expected to be a hot, sultry London Saturday at 8-107 and a distant 374 runs in arrears after they succumbed to the sort of batting implosion that had become Australia’s stock in trade over the preceding two Tests.

On a pitch that produces the occasional brute but more often serves up a beaut, the new Ashes holders showed a distinct unpreparedness to play the sort of knock Smith set himself to fashion from the time he got to the crease.

With the exception of Alastair Cook, who was first to depart when he played marginally inside a textbook off-break from Nathan Lyon that rattled his off-stump, and Ian Bell who received an equally glorious outswinger from Peter Siddle, many of the other casualties were self-inflicted.

Adam Lyth played the sort of half-hearted pull shot to Siddle’s second ball of his comeback match that can spell the end for an opener who has contributed just 105 runs at 13 for the series.

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Adam Lyth likely to be dropped after this match // Getty Images

Jonny Bairtsow and Ben Stokes fell playing similar cavalier cross bat shots, and Jos Buttler’s forgettable batting series remained true to type with an airy drive finding nothing but air.

And while Joe Root’s fine edge off Mitchell Marsh was barely detectable on video review, the fact the form batsman of the Ashes had struggled for 39 balls to score six suggested he was scarcely on top of his game either. 

In losing 6-32 in the twinkling of 68 balls as late afternoon sun beat down on the same pitch where Australia had rattled up 481 in conditions mostly less friendly for batting suggested they were feeling that dose of Ashes let-down that Cook had spoken so defiantly about avoiding.

Mitch Marsh claimed three wickets while Peter Siddle and Nathan Lyon picked up two apiece as Ashes-winners England put up a meek effort (restrictions apply)

But that would deny credit to the final iteration of a bowling attack that has been remoulded at almost every turn of this campaign, and to a team that looked and sounded so defeated before the final Test began but was suddenly rising to its promise to send off Clarke as a winner.

As ever in cricket, bowling becomes a much more straightforward skill when there’s a few runs in the bank. 

Essentially more than 60; ideally in excess of 450 as was the case today.

And for that to happen, at least one batter needs to stand firm as the centrepiece around which a total can be built.

In this case it was Smith, but not as we know him.

The 26-year-old, in his final Test as vice-captain before he inherits the leadership from Clarke and the largely blank canvas of a team in transition when it next takes to the field in Bangladesh, is by nature a gambler.

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Steve Smith walks off The Oval after his knock // Getty Images

A student of the ponies who is known to slip a form guide in his back pocket when he’s heading out on non-cricket duties, he habitually plays his cricket with a punter’s mindset.

Taking the attack to bowlers who are trying to pin him down, hitting the ball to parts of the field where orthodoxy suggests it should never go, backing his instincts when he feels an opening, a wicket, a match is there for the taking.

But those who wondered if the hyperactive, high-achieving captain elect also carried the capacity to park his flamboyance, play within external limitations and lead from the rear when that’s the position his team is bringing up will be warmed by today’s innings.

Smith’s 11th century in his 33rd Test – only Don Bradman (18) and Neil Harvey (12) have managed more at the same stage of their Australia careers – will not alter the outcome of this Ashes campaign.

But just as his maiden Test hundred at the same venue two years earlier helped construct the slipway from which Australia’s five-nil whitewash at home was launched, today’s knock might go some way to defining the short-term future.

After the battles that he endured yesterday when hatting was difficult due to heavy cloud, fading light and sporadic dustings of rain, the fact that he continued to grind it out when play resumed in bright sunshine this morning highlighted his diligence to the cause.

A natural strokemaker as much as he is a frenetic manipulator of the ball, Smith took 26 minutes of disciplined England bowling this morning to find a run 

It may be that even though, like all but one of those 11 centuries, it came in the first innings of the match when runs carry even greater currency, it won’t swing the result of the game.

For a moment it seemed it would not come at all, as the ball immediately after Voges was dismissed he thrashed wildly at a wide ball from Steve Finn, edged a catch to the ‘keeper and had cursed himself a dozen or more times before his walk to the boundary was halted.

The current trend by on-field umpires to outsource for the calling of front-foot no-balls meant the giant overstride by Finn had gone unnoticed by umpire Aleem Dar, but the ever alert television reply issued Smith a reprieve on 92 that he grabbed gladly.

Watch the second session highlights which include the no ball

A similar episode, which does call into question why the umpires in the middle can’t manage what has been core business for them across more than a century, cost Mitchell Marsh a wicket at the height of England’s capitulation this evening when Mark Wood nicked off to slip.

That would have seen England 9-92 and a chance to start their second innings in the lengthening twilight.

With rain forecast for Sunday and Monday, it’s likely Clarke will enforce the follow-on if the final wickets can be snared quickly in the morning.

Smith’s innings has ensured he makes the shift to captain with even greater credibility and from position of further enhanced strength given the inadequacies that others below him in the batting order have shown on this tour.

READ: Smith's London love affair continues

The challenge now for Australia is to find a few more spare batters in the shed who are hewn from similar raw materials, and can help to avoid the sort of form fluctuations that invariably characterise teams when a quorum of seasoned campaigners take their leave.

After that nightmarish day one at Nottingham, it was expected that Voges would be one of those taking his leave alongside Clarke, Chris Rogers, Brad Haddin and maybe even Shane Watson.

Retiring Australia opener Chris Rogers has spent a lot of time in London, and thanks to Qantas he takes you on a tour of his favourite venues in the famous city

But so assured did the 35-year-old appear until he was pinned in front by a gem of an inswinger by Ben Stokes that his composure and counsel – not to mention his sure-handed slips catching – might be just the foil Smith and his new deputy David Warner need in the next phase.

Australia: David Warner, Chris Rogers, Steve Smith, Michael Clarke (c), Adam Voges, Mitch Marsh, Peter Nevill (wk), Mitchell Johnson, Peter Siddle, Mitchell Starc, Nathan Lyon,

England: Adam Lyth, Alastair Cook (c), Ian Bell, Joe Root, Jonny Bairstow, Ben Stokes, Jos Buttler (wk), Moeen Ali, Stuart Broad, Mark Wood, Steven Finn