SAM MORSHEAD AT EDGBASTON (ft Jofra Archer): England were devastating with bat and ball as they cantered into the World Cup final - and their fast bowler seemed to see it all years before the event...
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That's unlucky finch
— Jofra Archer (@JofraArcher) April 13, 2013
Win toss, win game, they said. Bat first and dominate. Only 14 matches had been won by the chasing side at this World Cup, and four of those were against Afghanistan.
England might have only been unsuccessful in pursuit on three occasions in home ODIs over the past three years, but all of them came this June just gone.
When Eoin Morgan called incorrectly, then, it was surely advantage Australia?
Not if Jofra Archer was going to have anything to do with it.
Thrown the ball for the start of the second over, he produced a zinging inducker which rapped Aaron Finch on the front pad.
The captain reviewed, perhaps more out of hope than expectation. It was a wild decision, a decision taken in the heat of the moment. Technology showed the ball knocking hard into middle and leg, so hard that you would not have been surprised to see the Hawkeye stumps cartwheeling backwards.
England sensed blood.
***
Warner ya dumpsy boy
— Jofra Archer (@JofraArcher) March 22, 2013
Finch and David Warner had been so crucial to Australia in this tournament. It was their opening stand at Lord’s which dented England’s confidence and laid the platform for a famous win, and between them they had made 1,145 runs going into the knockout phase.
What would Australia do if they lost both cheaply?
We were about to find out.
In charged Chris Woakes - the Birmingham lad from the Birmingham End. What a year it is turning into for him, by the way - his beloved Aston Villa being promoted and a World Cup final in the space of a couple of months.
Woakes is England’s white goods bowler; when he’s there, you don’t really think about him. But when he’s not working properly... boy is it a pain in the backside.
He took advantage of some early zip off the pitch, got some lift away from Warner and... kerching. Australia’s in-form left-hander dangled his bat like a fisherman nodding off by the lake. Jonny Bairstow took the catch at slip.
***
2 for 10 :/
— Jofra Archer (@JofraArcher) November 24, 2013
Peter Handsomb had been parachuted into the Australian squad after Shaun Marsh was felled by friendly fire incident in the nets.
He had not played an ODI since the end of March, but it looked a lot longer than that.
Handscomb was scratchy at the wicket, seemingly finding it difficult to adjust to the pace, could quite easily have been given out lbw without scoring and then tried to drive at a short-of-a-length ball from Woakes, which he really ought to have waved on through.
Inside edge. Timbers a-tumbling. England in elysium.
***
Played Steve Smith
— Jofra Archer (@JofraArcher) December 10, 2014
In the less-than-seminal comedy Stranger Than Fiction, Will Ferrell is driven to distraction by a narration taking place in his head. This summer, Steve Smith is experiencing something similar.
You wonder whether, when Smith heads down to the closest Co-Op to the Aussie team hotel, he is bombarded with abuse in the vegetable aisle, heckled near the delicatessen.
It is a wonder he manages to get any work done whatsoever, given most of us will blow our top at the slightest murmur of scaffolding going up near the office window.
Yet on he plugs; relentlessly, methodically, racking up runs when his country needs him.
He was resolute here, eating up deliveries from Woakes and Archer, and giving Alex Carey chance to breathe.
It took 35 balls for Smith to find the boundary, but he reached 50 in 72 - again to the apparent displeasure of the crowd.
Had it not been for their erstwhile skipper, Australia’s embarrassment could have been magnified by a factor of 10. Eventually he went, on 85, run out through his legs by Jos Buttler.
***
All batsmen buy 2 helmets cause went we meet they will be in use ..
— Jofra Archer (@JofraArcher) March 5, 2013
Alex Carey probably shouldn’t have carried on.
Blood oozed from the dazed keeper’s chin, an Archer bouncer having breached his defences, sneaking in underneath his leading arm, a sneaky left hook.
We all know the conflicts of emotion when it comes to head injuries in sport. More should be done to educate and instigate change - umpires can keep players off the pitch for fear of slipping in the outfield, yet they are powerless when a five-and-a-half-ounce lump of leather crashes into a human skull at 90 miles per hour.
Carey continued, his head wrapped in bandages, a 2019 Rick McCosker. Later he would take seven stitches too, although he was cleared of a fractured jaw.
“He’s tough, he’s very tough,” Finch said afterwards. “It will take a bit more than that to take him out of the game.”
That is the mindset that needs to soften, but innings like Carey’s will do little for the cause. Because the gloveman was exceptional once again, just as he had been all tournament.
With the possible exception of Mushfiqur Rahim, there has not been a more influential keeper-bat at the World Cup. He and Smith added 103, and Edgbaston got nervous.
***
Rash man
— Jofra Archer (@JofraArcher) April 20, 2017
It had been a quiet World Cup for Adil Rashid.
We might find out when the tournament is done that the legspinner’s shoulder problem has hindered him more than might be immediately evident, but something has not quite been right.
In the group stages, he claimed eight wickets at an average of 54.12, with an economy rate a shade below a run a ball. He struck every 55 deliveries. In every category, his figures were the worst of England’s bowlers.
Three mundane overs here suggested the story would be the same, and then something clicked, like a bikechain rediscovering its groove.
After firing through his deliveries much quicker than he usually might, he offered more air to Carey, and the Aussie obliged with the first and last loose shot of an otherwise watertight innings to be caught in the deep.
Three balls later, Marcus Stoinis was confuddled by a googly that ripped back and struck him on the thighpad in front of off. It was delicious, delightful, dastardly legspin bowling.
From 117 for 3, Australia were 118 for 5, the complexion of the game changed.
***
Maxwell you gine out stupid every game ?
— Jofra Archer (@JofraArcher) April 23, 2016
Glenn Maxwell has every shot in the book, the trouble has been in this World Cup that very few of them have come off.
Maxwell is a thrill-a-minute cricketer, an innovator, a game-changer, but during Australia’s campaign he has looked a little lost, grasping for his role in the side, never quite hitting his potential.
It must be so frustrating for Australia, their selectors, fans and - most of all - for Maxwell himself.
Members of the Aussie press pack, who know the man better than most and see first-hand the work he puts in away from matchday, speak of a character always looking to better himself, always trying to find new ways to score, and never prone to flights of whimsy.
The problem is, the rest of us see a player making it up as he goes along, the haphazard gambler chancing his arm with a comfortable bankroll to fall back on.
It’s a perception thing. But in this tournament, it has been supported by statistics.
Maxwell’s scores read: 4*, 0, 28, 20, 46*, 32, 12, 1, 12, 22. He has accumulated 177 runs at a strike rate in the 160s, but averages just 22.
Is he trying too hard to fit a persona? He has a back-catalogue of first-class innings which prove he has it in him to dig in his heels - a Test 104 in Ranchi, spread across 185 balls and more than four hours a prime example.
Maybe he hasn’t been helped by Australia’s failure to identify exactly how he can best be utilised - a designated No.6, a floating pinch-hitter, a finisher - but Maxwell has been everything and nothing at this World Cup.
He is facing Archer, his 23rd delivery of a stay which he has stripped of flamboyance. Maybe the ball sticks in the pitch, maybe he is done by a subtle drop in pace. Maybe. What if. Too late. The catch pops up to cover.
***
Jason went town!
— Jofra Archer (@JofraArcher) March 6, 2015
England need 224. They have only failed with three chases at home in four years, but each of those came in June. This batting line-up has spent nearly half a decade swallowing these targets whole. Yet, all of a sudden, in the past six weeks they’ve discovered the urge to chew.
So what of today, on a track which offered their bowlers plenty?
Jason Roy, that’s what.
Oh how England missed their strutting opener. Since his return, they have been a team transformed. One back foot cover drive on the up pings past the infielders like a barracuda in search of food, those rubber wrists send the ball flying over fine leg for six, and then comes the assault on Steve Smith.
Finch is trying to buy a wicket by introducing the former captain, but really he’s just donating to charity.
A full toss narrowly clears Maxwell on the rope at long-on; the next ball fizzes straighter, barely getting more than 20 feet off the ground; a third rises and rises and rises until it clatters into the top tier of the South Stand. Warwickshire suits brief that such a strike has never before been recorded at Edgbaston. Amazingly, the ball ricochets off the building and drops back onto the outfield, where Maxwell takes a one-handed catch. They’s not the rules here, Maxy. Jason makes the rules.
The Bairstow-Roy opening partnership passes 100 for the fourth innings in a row, they reach 500 together for the tournament - no English pair has previously managed that in World Cups - and even when Bairstow goes, spurning his team’s review in an attempt to overturn an lbw decision, his partner shows no sign of relenting.
Imagine this in the Ashes. Finch can, he says Roy is good enough. And they have played together for Surrey long enough for the Australian captain to know. Eoin Morgan likes the idea, too. Over to you, Mr Smith.
***
Umpire you smoking a spliff from zac? Da ain out
— Jofra Archer (@JofraArcher) March 2, 2013
It’s an hour after the last of the crowd has deserted Edgbaston, and Roy and wife Elle are taking baby daughter Everly on a stroll around the outfield.
It is hard to reconcile this Roy - the mild-mannered father, stopping to talk to his teammates’ kids, cradling his little girl in his arms - with the frenetic, furious whirling dervish which ripped a hole in Australia’s World Cup dreams just minutes earlier.
Roy should have got a hundred. He was furious about that too.
Umpire Kumar Dharmasena had raised his finger, despite the opener missing with an attempted hook by a gap large enough to demand a Tube announcement. Livid, he demanded a review. So emphatically, in fact, that despite England having none left in their locker, Dharmasena signalled for help.
No can do. Roy had to walk. He was spitting rage. “F***ing ridiculous”. The broadcaster had to apologise, having failed to cover the stump mic’s ears in time.
That dissent will be expensive for Roy, but no fine will ruin family time.
Not today.
Not with England in a World Cup final.
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