It Was Even Music To An Aussie's Ears As Barmies Serenaded Cook Revival

Adam Collins and Geoff Lemon, our Aussie journo double act, pay tribute to England’s marathon man

- Adam Collins and Geoff Lemon

 Adam Collins: How about that whitewash, then? Wasn’t the plan to trample all over England and end some old stagers’ careers?

Geoff Lemon: It’s more of a greywash now. Fifty shades or otherwise. Certainly some long slow punishment meted out by Alastair, the man with the soulful eyes. Of course, we’ve only had three days of the Boxing Day Test. This is the beauty of writing columns smack bang in the middle of a match. We can make predictions with absolute confidence. There is positively, definitively, indubitably no way that Australia can win this Test. (Unless Australia wins the Test.)

AC: Darren Lehmann said after play that they couldn’t. That’s good enough for me. It all came down to the fast bowling. Rather, the lack of it. It’s hard to bully the English when you don’t have the paddle to whack them over the a**e with. That was Mitchell Starc for the first three Tests. Jackson Bird never looked like it. I fear we’ve seen the last of him. After his year as a professional tourist, I feel for him. What a terrible pitch for a green-seam merchant.

GL: I don’t think he’s done yet. They know what he can do. It’s a big ask to have a guy play in the last Boxing Day Test, bowl beautifully, help win a series, and then not play again until the next time post-Christmas festivities roll around. It’s unreasonable to expect him to slot in. But yes. Australia was able to give England a paddling on an equally slow Gabba pitch. But Starc is missing, Pat Cummins is both sick and tired, and Josh Hazlewood has bowled heroically to create some threat on a placid strip.