Cook century caps England's day out

It was not quite Steve Waugh at the SCG, but Alastair Cook’s final-over century this evening added poetic punctuation to a career that now seems defiantly far from over and has enabled England to hold hopes of avoiding another whitewash defeat in Australia.

Cook, England’s most successful Test batter but one who has endured intense scrutiny since stepping down from the captaincy in favour of Joe Root, showed that he is far from a spent force at the elite level posting his 32nd hundred from just 166 balls faced.

Having entered the day’s last over on 93, rather than face an anxious overnight wait he was gifted the sight of occasional leg-spinner Steve Smith with ball in hand.

A collection of belated Christmas and birthday presents followed, as Cook helped himself to 11 runs including a pull to the backward square leg fence from a rank long-hop that carried him to three figures.

Of equal significance, the unbeaten 112-run partnership between Cook and Joe Root crowned the tourists’ best day of their Australia sojourn, and sees them 135 runs adrift of Australia’s ultimately sub-par first innings total of 327.

Indeed, England’s stumps score of 2-192 is hauntingly similar to their hosts’ 3-244 posted at the close of the opening day and if they can avoid a reprise of Australia’s collapse this morning they stand a strong chance of seizing the advantage in this Test.

Apart from a few fleeting moments during the opening Test in Brisbane and again when facing the pink ball under lights on the third evening in Adelaide, Australia has enjoyed an Ashes campaign where events have rolled largely in their favour.

That became less and less the case today as an England seam attack that was supposedly beyond its best and further blunted by a moribund MCG pitch scythed through Australia’s batting, then their previously flaky top-order found some steel.

The visitors’ reply to Australia’s lowest first-innings tally of the campaign was galvanised by the two players who were foreshadowed as England’s best batting hopes before the summer began – former captain Cook and his successor Root.

Cook’s career obituary was being drafted even before the completion of his 150th Test appearance in Perth earlier this month, not so much due to the manner in which he was dismissed for seven and 14 but due to his on-field demeanour.

Which several self-appointed body language experts interpreted as betraying Cook’s waning interest in international cricket, even though England’s greatest-ever Test runs-scorer (who turned 33 on Christmas Day) had addressed that very topic pre-match.

And had reiterated he held no immediate plans to retire.

Cook’s minimalist technique and abbreviated repertoire of strokes has left him exposed on pitches exhibiting exaggerated pace and movement, but has served him splendidly on the subcontinent where there resides neither bounce nor live grass.

Which is rather like the current strip at the MCG, and Cook’s new-found comfort after a lean run was coupled by that good fortune that every batter of some longevity requires from time to time.

While he looked far more at ease on the challenging surface than any of the seven Australian batters who perished in the course of a session at day’s start, Cook’s innings – the first time he reached 40 in his past 11 attempts – should have yielded little more than a half-century.

The sharp slips catch that the left-hander offered on 66 from the bowling of Mitchell Marsh would have represented a fair snare by Steve Smith given his view of it might have been initially obscured by keeper Tim Paine up at the stumps.

But having got both hands to the opportunity, and then gifted a second chance when it bobbled past his right shoulder as he spun and fell, Smith was demonstrably livid by his failure to clutch a rare catch behind the wicket in this most attritional match.

It only added to the frustration of the Australia skipper whose own knock had effectively ended by his own hand in the day’s first hour, and whose bowling arsenal was blunted by the illness that struck Pat Cummins and noticeably reduced the fast bowler’s pace as well as his capacity to remain on the field.

On such a slow pitch, it was to be Australia’s supremacy in speed that was to provide the most telling point of difference with England’s ageing or inexperienced seamers.

But with Mitchell Starc missing through injury and Josh Hazlewood and Jackson Bird unable to coax any assistance from the surface, the sight of Cummins reduced to bowling at barely 140kph as he battled a stomach bug gave England hope as well as heart.

Come the end of a day that had begun with the game in Australia’s grip, England had not only prised that open but managed to put themselves in a potential position of strength if they can push on to a lead of some substance tomorrow.

It was not how most had expected day two of a previously one-sided campaign to play out.

For all the ticks and superstitions that Smith routinely carries with him to the batting crease, it’s unlikely he’ll enter a day of Test cricket in which the omens more clearly point towards yet another three-figure score.

With 65 runs already chalked against his name, on a pitch universally adjudged as flat and docile (with a dash of sluggishness thrown in) and facing a bowling attack he has held at his mercy since the series began, the only debate attached to Smith’s imminent 23rd Test century centred on when and how it would arrive.

A certainty only heightened when he peeled off a couple of neat boundaries – the second of which was an exemplary swivel-pull to the backward square leg rope – to indicate he had quickly re-acquainted himself with whatever vagaries existed in the MCG surface.

So it was incredulity that replaced inevitability when the skipper raised himself en pointe to dismiss an innocuous short, wide ball from new cap Tom Curran into the vast spaces that beckoned on the off-side, only to heave it towards his toes instead.

It was difficult to immediately determine who bore the strongest sense of disbelief as the flashing bails lit up in the harsh late morning light – the singularly focused Australia captain, the already expectant MCG crowd or the England players as they jubilantly celebrated Curran’s maiden Test scalp.

If it was the latter named, then the tourists seemingly embraced that means of dismissal as the most viable on a pitch that offered few other answers and it featured in two more unforeseen moments as Australia’s innings unravelled.

Fresh from his breakthrough century in Perth a week or so previously, Mitchell Marsh gave the impression that he could carry that sort of touch directly on to the MCG and – after rattling off one clinical cut shot to the third man fence – he tried the self-same stroke that had accounted for Smith.

With feet planted and angled bat attempting to force a half-tracker (this time from seamer Chris Woakes) square of the wicket, only to learn for himself the perils that cross-bat strokes posed to his stumps.

When Tim Paine became the third Australia batter to employ such a fraught method – albeit one aimed through the leg side – he too disturbed his own stumps when he fell to James Anderson shortly before lunch.

At that point, England’s ideal morning seemed complete.

Against educated predictions and brutal logic, they had snared the four Australia wickets that stood between them and a daunting first innings deficit including the in-form Shaun Marsh who fell lbw to a canny DRS submission lodged on behalf of Stuart Broad.

The removal of Bird – who unveiled a new-look technique that carried several cosmetic resemblances to Smith’s quirky ‘walk across the stumps’ style, but none of its effectiveness – minutes before lunch meant Australia had surrendered 5-82 in the 25-over session.

And the loss of Pat Cummins and Nathan Lyon with no addition to the total in four overs after lunch made it 7-82, and England suddenly found themselves batting perhaps a session or even two earlier than most had anticipated.

For the first time in the series other than the disastrous second innings against the pink ball in Adelaide, Australia’s bottom-half had failed to find resistance and the reliance of their batting order upon Smith was laid bare.

Around half of the runs that Australia have scored in this campaign (1014 of 2070, or 49 per cent) have been made while Smith has been at the wicket.

The challenge for England’s batters, and one they have failed to answer across the first three Tests, is to find someone able to emulate that level of dominance throughout day three.

Australia XI: Steve Smith (c), David Warner, Cameron Bancroft, Usman Khawaja, Shaun Marsh, Mitch Marsh, Tim Paine, Pat Cummins, Nathan Lyon, Josh Hazlewood, Jackson Bird.

England XI: Joe Root (c), Alastair Cook, Mark Stoneman, James Vince, Dawid Malan, Chris Woakes, Jonny Bairstow (wk), Moeen Ali, Tom Curran, Stuart Broad, James Anderson

2017-18 International Fixtures

Magellan Ashes Series

Australia Test squad: Steve Smith (c), David Warner (vc), Cameron Bancroft, Usman Khawaja, Peter Handscomb, Shaun Marsh, Mitchell Marsh, Tim Paine (wk), Mitchell Starc, Pat Cummins, Nathan Lyon, Josh Hazlewood, Jackson Bird.

England Test squad: Joe Root (c), James Anderson (vc), Moeen Ali, Jonny Bairstow, Jake Ball, Gary Ballance, Stuart Broad, Alastair Cook, Mason Crane, Tom Curran, Ben Foakes, Dawid Malan, Craig Overton, Ben Stokes, Mark Stoneman, James Vince, Chris Woakes.

First Test Australia won by 10 wickets. Scorecard

Second Test Australia won by 120 runs (Day-Night). Scorecard

Third Test Australia won by an innings and 41 runs. Scorecard

Fourth Test MCG, December 26-30. Tickets

Fifth Test SCG, January 4-8 (Pink Test). Tickets

Gillette ODI Series v England

First ODI MCG, January 14. Tickets

Second ODI Gabba, January 19. Tickets

Third ODI SCG, January 21. Tickets

Fourth ODI Adelaide Oval, January 26. Tickets

Fifth ODI Perth Stadium, January 28. Tickets

Prime Minister's XI

PM's XI v England Manuka Oval, February 2. Tickets

Gillette T20 trans-Tasman Tri-Series

First T20I Australia v NZ, SCG, February 3. Tickets

Second T20I – Australia v England, Blundstone Arena, February 7. Tickets

Third T20I – Australia v England, MCG, February 10. Tickets

Fourth T20I – NZ v England, Wellington, February 14

Fifth T20I – NZ v Australia, Eden Park, February 16

Sixth T20I – NZ v England, Seddon Park, February 18

Final – TBC, Eden Park, February 21

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