Ben Stokes and Will Jacks put up a fight on the fourth day of the second Test at the Gabba, but the Australian victory that had felt inevitable when play resumed was finally sealed at 7.29pm local time, less than half an hour into the final session. The lights were on, but they are in danger of going out on England.
Set 65 to move into a 2–0 lead with three to play, a position from which they have never lost the Ashes, Australia knocked off the runs in 10 overs, completing their second eight-wicket win of the series.
Jofra Archer pushed the speedgun up to 94mph, and Gus Atkinson removed Travis Head, chopping on for 22, and Marnus Labuschagne, caught behind off a snorter for three.
There was even some late aggro, when Steve Smith irked Archer by top-edging a pull for four, prompting umpire Saikat to step in and tell Archer to cool it.
Smith responded by hooking the next ball fine for six, bringing up 1,000 Test runs at the Gabba, and gesturing in Archer’s direction. He still hasn’t taken his wicket in Test cricket. And, in any case, England’s new-ball pair were raging against the dying of the light.
If the moment of victory, completed with a Smith pull for six off Atkinson, took longer to arrive than many had expected at the start if the day, it confirmed the Australians’ superiority ever since they raced to 130 for one in 21 overs by the first interval on the second day.
They have outmanoeuvred England in every department of the game, and have now won 15 of their last 17 home Tests against their old foe. Will this fixture ever be competitive again? England have three games left on this trip to ram that question down critics’ throats. On this evidence, they will struggle.
Still, when Stokes and Jacks walked out at 2pm with the scoreboard reading 134 for six, and the deficit still 43, the darkest English prognostications foresaw an innings defeat. Their fans’ mood was still febrile after the ineptitude the night before: England owed them some kind of display of resistance, at least a little proof that they were willing to dig in.
With the pink ball losing all signs of life, and Mitchell Starc barely used, Stokes and Jacks took their chance to restore some pride, batting through an uneventful morning session to add 59 in 24 overs, and take England into a small but symbolic lead of 16.
If it cheered their supporters, it also resurrected questions about the lack of fight on the third evening, when England collapsed from 90 for one to 128 for six, at which point their assistant coach Marcus Trescothick suggested they hadn’t discussed the manner of their dismissals during the first Test at Perth.
Still, this was better than the alternative – another surrender – and the stand had reached 94 in nearly 37 overs when Jacks, on 41, fiddled at the relentless Michael Neser and was brilliantly held at slip by Steve Smith low to his left. Among the many things Australia have done better than England in this game is their fielding, and here was further proof.
Moments later, Stokes brought up a half-century from 148 balls, slower only than the 152-ball fifty he scored at Headingley in 2019 en route to his miracle 135.
But there was never any sense here that he was about to break free, and when he poked at one from Neser that angled in, Alex Carey held a smart catch standing up to the stumps. His wicketkeeping in this game has been a class apart.
The end came in a hurry. Atkinson witlessly pulled Brendan Doggett straight to midwicket, where Smith had just positioned himself as one of five leg-side fielders waiting for a slog. There have been some thoughtless shots in this Test, and Atkinson may have claimed the gold medal.
And Neser, playing only his third Test, had his first five-for when Brydon Carse edged to the infallible Smith at slip. The last four had fallen for 17 in 37 balls, in a flash undoing the work of the seventh-wicket pair. The contrast with the doggedness of Australia’s lower order ought to be one of the many lessons England take from this game.
Australia, meanwhile, may be allowing themselves to dream of a 5–0 whitewash. They’re relentless frontrunners, and enjoy nothing better than to leave England in their wake. Bazball isn’t quite dead, but it’s very much struggling for breath.
