Ashes 2023 first Test LIVE updates: Warner, Khawaja to resume in Birmingham
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Everything you need to know about the venues, the teams and the form for Australia’s cricketing missions in England. Plus, our experts give their predictions. Please click here.
Daniel Brettig evoked some heavyweight historical imagery
Close observers of the Rumble in the Jungle in 1974 reported that, following the end of the first round, Muhammad Ali took a moment to compose himself. He was reckoning with how, after months of buildup, he finally knew what it was like to be in the ring with the powerful and merciless George Foreman.
“Ali looked into himself and said ‘this is the moment, this is what you’ve been waiting for, this is that hour, and do you have the guts’,” Norman Mailer recounted in When We Were Kings, “and he kind of nodded to himself like ‘you really got to get it together, and you will get it together’…”
This compelling day one of the Ashes was a similar kind of experience for Australia’s cricketers. Fielding in front of a raucous crowd at sun-drenched Edgbaston, they were finally face to face with a supercharged England batting lineup, playing the Bazball inspired by their mercurial leader Ben Stokes.
Day one as our writers saw it
Mal Conn writes:
Broad bowled the first over of Australia’s innings to Warner who, unlike the 2019 tour, hit every ball well, but twice created uncertainty with Khawaja given Warner’s eagerness to get off the mark. He eventually opened his account with a lovely cover drive to the boundary and repeated it in Broad’s next over.
Already Warner has passed most of his scores from four years ago, when his second-highest total in ten innings was 11.
The covers were on
Let’s recap day one
England elected to bat first, which shocked a few to say the least given their recent penchant for chasing. It was Bazball but not as we know it. Let’s call it postmodern Bazball. As it turned out, it was not a bad call given the conditions. A flat, dry pitch offering little movement allowed Brendon McCullum’s side to accumulate runs quickly.
It looked very good from the off, too. Zak Crawley set the feverish tone with a boundary in the very first ball of the series, only for England to lose three in the first session. After lunch poor Harry Brook was decidedly unlucky when a Nathan Lyon ball bounced over his head and landed on the stumps, and the wicket of Ben Stokes followed shortly thereafter. From there on, though, it was the Jonny Bairstow and Joe Root show, the former scoring 78 from 78 balls and Root completing his 30th Test ton to make 118 not out.
And then Stokes declared after 78 overs at 8-393. Are England taking the piss? Are they about to take 10 quickfire wickets? Or will Australia dig in? All questions we long to have answered and hopefully will in the next several hours.
Australia’s star of the show was Lyon who, as Malcolm Conn wrote, “was the glue that held Australia together, claiming 4-149 from 29 hard-bitten overs”.
A very good evening to you
Welcome to day two of the opening Test of the 2023 Ashes at Edgbaston. If yesterday was anything to go by, we are in for a treat. Australia, who survived their first four overs, resume with the bat. Specifically David Warner and Usman Khawaja. Let’s settle in for a long night. I’ve been told by a colleague not to consume coffee at a Bazball rate; will let you know how that goes.
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