Sydney loses more days to rain than any ground in Test cricket.
Drizzle arrived in the final moments of day two of the fifth Ashes Test but this was a day English misery poured.
Joe Root’s fine 160 put them in a decent position – a rare example of England putting up a score in this series with 384.
Even with two wickets to Ben Stokes, that position has been surrendered by one of the most wretched England bowling performances in recent memory which allowed Australia to roll on to 166-2 in 34.1 overs at the close.
Former England spinner Phil Tufnell marked it a “two” out of 10.
“Simple as that,” he said.
England’s problems run deep…
We have been here before over the past six weeks.
England’s pace bowling attack was supposed to provide new hope of winning in Australia. Luke Skywalker would have been better at holding a line and length.
In Perth and Brisbane, England’s philanthropy allowed Australia to reach 100 in 16.3 overs and then 17.2 overs – both in the top five for quickest they have reached three figures in 140 years of Ashes Tests.
This effort – 100-1 in 20.3 overs – was not far behind.
Again, England’s length was the obvious failing.
Brydon Carse and Matthew Potts set the tone with a wayward first six overs which included seven fours – all of them to cuts and pulls.
Potts and Carse bowled 47% of their deliveries shorter than 8m in the first six overs, compared to 19% by Australia across the same period on day one.
Potts, playing his first match of the series, ended the day with 0-58 from seven overs. Carse, as he has throughout the series, has been hit at more than four runs per over though Jake Weatherald was dropped off his bowling.
Stokes pinned Weatherald lbw in the 13th over and he and Josh Tongue brought brief control but Travis Head and Marnus Labuschagne were still able to combine for 105 runs in 113 balls for the second wicket.
Australia have scored a boundary every 13.4 balls in this series, already below the recent global average of one every 15.1 balls.
Across this innings, Australia have hit the ball to the rope once every 7.2 deliveries.
“It can’t be planning,” said Tufnell. “I think now it is coming down to ability. I don’t know whether they have got it.
“I don’t understand why professional bowlers can’t run up and try to hit the top of off stump six out of six. You’re the best we’ve got.
“They haven’t been able to string any sort of pressure [together]. Put the sheet of A4 down and hit that. They have been all over the place. I can’t believe it.”
This was the first time Carse has taken the first over of an innings in his 63-match first-class career, a move influenced by England’s selections for the tour and the injuries to Jofra Archer and Gus Atkinson.
Carse does not take the new ball for his county, Durham, but England have given him that role in every innings since the start of the third Test.
The tactic again denied Tongue, England’s best pace bowler in the series, the use of the new ball.
Across his full first-class career, Tongue averages 27 in his first spell with the new ball. Carse has taken five wickets at 82.
The other option would be for Ben Stokes to begin himself – something he has been reluctant to do throughout his time as captain.
England’s captain has only opened the bowling twice in his Test career – in Ahmedabad against India in 2021 and Rawalpindi against Pakistan in 2022 – but his reluctance is curious given the specifics of this series.
Australia have two left-handed openers in Head and Weatherald and Stokes has the best average against southpaws of all of the England quicks still standing.
“That is why I get so frustrated with this leadership group,” former England captain Michael Vaughan said on Test Match Special.
“It is almost like ‘we don’t care about anything that has been before’.
“Data and information is not everything but when you have got an opening bowler who doesn’t open the bowling, who when he does averages 80, why is he bowling?”
Stokes’ fitness record is one obvious caveat.
It is less than three weeks since he did not bowl at all during a day’s play in Adelaide to protect his body.
Expecting him to become England’s full-time opening bowler as well as captaining and batting may be optimistic.
But this series – in which Australia have scored 30% of their runs on the cuts and pulls – is a worrying hint to England’s future.
The days of James Anderson, Stuart Broad and Chris Woakes are gone with all three having retired. Mark Wood, who was ruled out of this series after one match, has said he will try to make another return but that feels unlikely.
In conditions that were expected to suit them, these are the bowlers England now have. There are few in the domestic game who could be picked with confidence of success.
Archer looks a banker for the coming years if his fitness allows.
Outside of that? Carse is struggling and Atkinson is not living up to the promise of his first 10 Tests which returned 48 wickets.
Alarms are ringing about England’s bowling future.
