One of the many disappointments was that, where Australia’s lower order contributed vital runs and equally vital hours, England’s again evaporated rapidly.
The Mitchell Starc-Scott Boland ninth-wicket partnership, which shifted the tone of the series and consolidated Australia’s first-innings advantage into domination, lasted 27.2 overs
England’s eighth, ninth and 10th-wicket partnerships, in four innings across the two Tests combined, have lasted 27.5 overs, equating to a wicket lost every 14 balls.
To illustrate the gulf between on-paper potential and on-pitch actuality, Gus Atkinson (with a century and four other scores over 35 in his 15-Test career) and Brydon Carse (three 35-plus scores in the recent India series, County Championship average over 30, two first-class hundreds) have scored 78-8 off 91 balls in Perth and Brisbane.
Brendan Doggett (Test novice, with a domestic first-class average of 8.5) and Boland (domestic average 12.1, previous Test high score of 20) have scored 41-2 off 125 balls. Australia have scored at a Bazballistic rate, but also played with a flexibility and awareness England have failed to apply for more than fleeting passages.
On the plus side, England’s spin attack is leading Australia’s in wickets taken after the first two Tests.
In the last 50 years of Ashes cricket in Australia, every time England’s spinners have taken more wickets than Australia’s in the first two Tests, they have gone on to win the series – in 2010-11, 1986-87 and 1978-79.
In Brisbane, when Will Jacks took the first wicket by a spinner in an Ashes Test in the southern hemisphere since Steve Smith dismissed Jack Leach in the fourth Test four years ago, England roared into a 1-0 lead in the spinners’ wickets tally for the series.
Admittedly, England were 2-0 up after two Tests in 1978-79, and 1-0 ahead in the other two series, but where there is a statistical straw, let us clutch it, and clutch it hard, before it floats off into the wind.
For those wishing to build an entire house of statistical straws, you could also point to the fact that the last time England were bowled out in under 80 overs in the first four innings of an Ashes was in 2005, another triumphant series.
And, after Stokes and Jacks’ 96-run stand, you could note that every time England have had a seventh-wicket stand of more than 90 in Australia since the Second World War, they have won the Ashes (Ian Bell and Matt Prior putting on 107 in 2010-11, Geoff Miller and Bob Taylor combining for 135 in 1978-79).
Blow that one down, Mr Wolf.