Australia survive Stokes epic in Ashes classic, take 2-0 lead

For two hours of mayhem at Lord's, England's warrior captain Ben Stokes threatened to lift his team to a most unlikely win in a blaze of barely concealed anger, before Australia ultimately held their fraying nerves to take a 2-0 stranglehold on the series.

The reason for Stokes's one-man war was a sense of injustice over teammate Jonny Bairstow's dismissal, a much-debated act that delivered a vital breakthrough at a crucial time but quickly took on the look of a self-inflicted wound as Stokes rampaged to a scarcely believable century.

Australia's 43-run win was sealed under watery sunshine at 4.10pm when Mitchell Starc fired a rare full ball into the leg stump of tailender Josh Tongue as he backed away to square leg, and instantly was met by a chorus of vehement jeers as rarely before heard at cricket's stately home.

And while the scorecard will show Pat Cummins team had earned their win by twice scything through England's batting on the second and fourth evenings, it cannot capture the drama and feeling that was unleashed by a single moment that will earn Bodyline-esque notoriety in Ashes folklore.

On a day where rivalries rose to the extent the bastion of British society – the blazer-and-tie brigade in that most sanctimonious of sanctuaries, the Lord's Long Room – flung abuse at Australia's players and staff as they took lunch, nothing could be considered too incredible.

Having begun with England needing a distant 257 and Australia therefore rated strong favourites to win, it took a turn towards infamy shortly after noon after Alex Carey's shrewd single-motion gather and throw hit the stumps with rival 'keeper Jonny Bairstow wandering from his crease.

From that incendiary instant, Stokes launched himself like a human wrecking ball at Australia's bowlers and thrashed 93 from 88 deliveries to turn a looming defeat into the prospect of one of his team's greatest wins in less than a session.

He singlehandedly reduced the margin from 178 runs at Bairstow's departure to just 70 through a 108-run seventh-wicket stand with Stuart Broad (who contributed 11) before he swashbuckled once too often.

On 155, he tried to plough Josh Hazlewood over mid-wicket only to find the top edge of his blazing bat for one of the few times in his 214-ball stay, and the resultant catch was accepted by Carey who was being routinely booed in the manner of Captain Hook during UK Christmas panto season.

The accepted pre-play wisdom it was solely Stokes who could carry his team over the line was proved when – upon his departure – England's final three wickets succumbed for the addition of 26 runs, 25 of them added by final pair Tongue (19) and James Anderson (3no)

The furore that will surely rage in the aftermath of the second Test will unlikely ruffle Australia, whose mission to win an Ashes series on their opponents' home turf for the first time since 2001 is now within touching distance.

In the 146-year history of the Ashes, across 80 series, only once has a team lost the first two Tests and recovered to win the series.

And that was in 1936-37 when England found themselves confronted by a force even more unforeseen and indomitable than 'Bazball' – Bradman, who averaged 138 across the final five innings of that campaign.

It remains to be seen if Stokes can recreate his virtuoso genius across successive Tests, as was Sir Don's defining trait, but anyone who bore witness to his effort at Lord's today would be wary in disavowing that premise.

For all the sheer brutality of Stokes's hitting, the defining feature of his innings was the clear-headedness he somehow managed amid the carnage.

Just as he achieved in the 2019 World Cup final where he remained unerringly unbeaten to carry England to a Super Over and then the title, just as he managed at Headingley weeks later when his calculated counter-attack brought victory against expectation and logic, Stokes stood supreme.

When he hit out, he almost always found the middle of the bat and, more often than not in the explosive phase of his 214-minute innings, he easily cleared the boundary riders who hovered like kids lurking hopefully in waist-deep water in a game of Boxing Day beach cricket.

And while the stakes were infinitely higher today, there was a sense Australia were suffering a not dissimilar form of Headingley hangover as the eerily similar scenario from four years ago played out.

Their strategy after passions were aroused by the run out-cum-stumping seemed to settle on 'well, he has to mishit one soon', whereas Stokes has provided scant evidence – at Leeds in 2019, and at Lord's in 2023 – that's a realistic occurrence.

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The fact Stokes and Broad posted a century partnership in 83 minutes of batting, from just 93 balls faced, underscores how fast events were flowing in England's favour when commonsense and conventional wisdom should have shown them rank outsiders.

While some of that freedom was surely a product of the 'Bazball' ethos embraced under the leadership of Stokes and England coach Brendon McCullum, it also carried a hefty dose of circumstance noting that – in wake of earlier events – they had already earned a moral win in the eyes of their disciples.

Stokes's assault was partly triggered by the knowledge he had only card-carrying tailenders to help out in pursuit of the 178 still required when Bairstow dramatically departed, but mostly because of the state of dudgeon into which he had entered.

While Carey might have been a lightning rod for the crowd's hysteria, it was Green – subsequently awarded Bairstow's wicket when the dismissal was changed to 'stumped' – who very publicly took the brunt of Stokes's outrage.

Image Id: 0B3B8A8196014B71A55891E6F43C495B Image Caption: Bairstow was out of his ground when Carey's throw hit the stumps // Channel Nine

He was on 63 when joined by Broad, but by the end of Green's next over the England captain was 77, the fury he was set to unleash laid bare when he swung so hard at the Australia allrounder's first delivery he let slip his bat that Carey retrieved from 15m away at backward square leg.

With the genteel politeness of Lord's suddenly replaced by the sort of baying more associated with bloodsports, Stokes's red mist then almost cost him his wicket although the flat-bat return catch he slogged at Cummins yielded an act of self-preservation more than a genuine bid to complete a dismissal.

The Australia captain persisted with Green even though his previous over had gone for 14, which goaded Stokes into an even greater frenzy that began with a brutal on-drive Hazlewood could only parry into the boundary rope.

England's habitual hero then belted three consecutive half-trackers over the boundary to reach a century that he pointedly refused to acknowledge, the second blow of which slipped from the grasp of Starc as he leaned over the boundary rope at deep fine leg.

He had stormed to his hundred by taking 35 runs from two overs by Green, and went to lunch 108no with the full voice of Lord's filling the ears and with anger spilling over in the Long Room where the venerable members reacted like librarians in a food fight.

Any suggestion the interval might see tempers settle was immediately disproved upon resumption, but it was Australia who had most demonstrably lost their heads.

With every fielder other than Carey deployed on the boundary rope, it became obvious the strategy decided upon by the rattled visitors was simply hope Stokes mishit one of his lusty blows, precisely the plan that had failed them at Headingley four years ago.

Image Id: 429DB4F7AFF9411AA4015952642547CD Image Caption: Lord's exploded to life with Stokes reaching his century before lunch on day five // Getty

After Stokes deposited Hazlewood's second delivery of the session over long-on for six, the not-so-bold tactic might have worked had Steve Smith not dropped a catch he made good ground to reach but ultimately muffed when he got there.

Having survived on 113, Stokes received another life one run later when – to the euphoric delight of the crowd – his attempted pull off Cummins couldn't be caught by Carey, diving away to his right as another chance eluded Australia.

The pressure under which the nine outfielders found themselves was underscored when Stokes, nursing a chronically injured left knee, pushed back for an ambitious second run on the arm of substitute fielder Matthew Renshaw, and might have pinched a third so wayward was the throw.

But the plan was ultimately vindicated as the boundary-scoring options dried up and Stokes was increasingly compelled to launch the ball into the sky to try and find the runs England needed.

Tellingly, the left-hander blazed five sixes but not a solitary boundary in adding 47 from 67 balls after lunch, although his effortless monopoly of the strike was revealed by the fact Broad faced just 36 balls during almost two hours at the crease.

The scenes that played out at Lord's on a sunny Sunday afternoon were sparked by the moment half an hour prior to lunch when a piece of canny keeping lit the fuse on an Ashes war that seems certain to rage for years.

Bairstow had ducked nonchalantly beneath four consecutive bouncers from Green, the last of which was the final ball of the over at which point the England batter – as he had done on at least one previous occasion immediately prior – started walking down the pitch.

No sooner had Carey taken the ball then he underarmed at the stumps before umpire Ahsan Raza had formally called 'over', meaning the ball remained live when it bounced into middle stump with Bairstow a metre out of his crease and still on the march, oblivious to what was going on.

England had benefitted from a strict interpretation of cricket's laws the previous evening when Starc completed a catch off opener Ben Duckett on the fine leg rope only to have the dismissal disallowed because he was deemed to have dragged the ball on the turf while not in full control of his movement.

The ruling that did for Bairstow essentially stipulates the ball is not deemed dead even when it has landed in the keeper's gloves provided there is no demonstrable gap before the next movement.

Therefore, because Carey threw the ball without a moment's hesitation upon taking it, even before Bairstow had left his crease in his second act of pre-emptive foresight for the day, third umpire Marais Erasmus ruled the dismissal had been completed within a single act.

That surely would have been understood in the England dressing room given McCullum, in his former role as New Zealand's wicketkeeper, had infamously run out Muthiah Muralidaran in a Test at Christchurch in 2006 when the Sri Lanka tailender walked down the pitch to congratulate batting partner Kumar Sangakkara on reaching his hundred.

In another glaring irony, Broad arrived at the wicket clearly bristling and immediately turned on Carey, telling him "you'll be forever remembered for this", an interesting take from someone who had flagrantly refused to walk on being caught at slip during the opening Ashes Test of 2013.

If Broad was incandescent when he joined Stokes, he might have been further inflamed when the second ball he faced from Cummins smashed into the grille of his batting helmet, not dissimilar to the blow he took to his neck when batting in the first innings that saw him sent for precautionary scans Friday evening.

Image Id: B874F02D9EE349D08BDB2DFBDAE0D12A Image Caption: England captain Stokes exchanges words with Cummins after Bairstow's dismissal // Getty

But if ever there was two characters born for the theatre and melodrama of this extraordinary afternoon, it was always going to be a distant hope to maintain their joint rage all the way to the finish line.

After all, the algorithm-driven win predictor that, like the 'time to arrival' feature on GPS mapping technology continually resets to ultimately deliver precisely the right outcome, suggested at day's start an Australia victory was an 85 per cent chance.

However, Stokes had already enlivened the sold-out Sunday Lord's crowd with consecutive boundaries from Starc's second over of the morning, a sweet clip off his pads followed by a forceful punch-drive that raced across the turf through mid-off.

But Starc stuck to his length as the ball, at 35 overs old, began to shape in the air and the challenge that posed became quickly apparent.

Stokes was tested with a yorker before he played and missed at a fast outswinger before, on 39, he was pinned in front of his stumps and following a lengthy delay that suggested he wasn't exactly certain, umpire Raza adjudged him out.

In a significantly shorter time frame Stokes called for that verdict to reviewed, and Lord's erupted as the big screen confirmed the ball had speared from the inside edge of his bat into his pad.

The rival skippers continued to joust, with Stokes stepping down the crease to try and rattle Cummins who immediately dropped his length and brought an an adjustment in stroke, with the resultant steer bringing a boundary through gully to notch the pair's century stand.

Stokes then posted his half-century to a near-standing ovation, the 41st time England's now-captain has scored 50 or more in his 94 Tests and his tenth in Ashes contests, where two of his three centuries prior to today came in fourth innings run chases.

As the target dropped below 200 and the first hour ticked by without joy for Australia's bowlers, the double change – Green on for Cummins, Hazlewood replacing Starc – brought a shift of tactics and a dramatic change in fortune.

Reappearance of the short-ball strategy did little to faze Duckett, who had succumbed to the ploy on 98 in the first innings and reprieved on 50 the previous evening when Starc's sliding catch at fine leg was deemed illegal because ball made contact with grass.

But Hazlewood got a delivery to climb than was comfortable to the diminutive opener and Carey – who had somehow foreseen events about to unfold – was positioned leg-side of the stumps in perfect position to haul in the gloved chance using just one gauntlet of his own.

At that stage, England were still 194 from victory and requiring an act of solo genius or an extraordinary turn of events – for that ambition to be realised.

Or, as seemed possible for a couple of crazy hours, both of those things happening concurrently.

2023 Qantas Ashes Tour of the UK

First Test: Australia won by two wickets

Second Test: Australia won by 43 runs

Third Test: Thursday July 6-Monday July 10, Headingley

Fourth Test: Wednesday July 19-Sunday July 23, Old Trafford

Fifth Test: Thursday July 27-Monday 31, The Oval

Australia squad: Pat Cummins (c), Scott Boland, Alex Carey (wk), Cameron Green, Marcus Harris, Josh Hazlewood, Travis Head, Josh Inglis (wk), Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne, Nathan Lyon, Mitch Marsh, Todd Murphy, Michael Neser, Matthew Renshaw, Steve Smith (vc), Mitchell Starc, David Warner

England squad: Ben Stokes (c), Rehan Ahmed, James Anderson, Jonathan Bairstow, Stuart Broad, Harry Brook, Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett, Dan Lawrence, Jack Leach, Ollie Pope, Matthew Potts, Ollie Robinson, Joe Root, Josh Tongue, Chris Woakes, Mark Wood