Play gets underway early once more, featuring an extended morning session of two and a half hours to make up some of the time lost on the first day. The cricketers are making final preparations to begin play.
Charity and Command on Display
Events are handled superbly in Australia. On the first day of this fifth Test came a moving homage to the sufferers and heroes of the Bondi incident, and on the third day the Sydney Cricket Ground was became a wave of pink to once again generate donations for the McGrath Foundation.
Between the wickets, however, Australian benevolence was in far shorter supply. Across three sessions their batters ground England’s bowlers into the dust, addressing any queries about their motivation since securing the Ashes and throwing up a few more regarding their beaten opponents.
Faces flush from the ordeal, Ben Stokes and his team departed at stumps exhausted and overwhelmed. Steve Smith’s century number thirty-seven, 129 not out from 205 balls, had followed the second half of Travis Head’s explosive 163 from 166, and with it Australia had reached 518 for seven from 124 overs. The lead stood at 134 runs overnight and looked an daunting one.
Veteran's Viewpoint
The legendary Neil Harvey, 97, offered his perspective in a delightful interview.
I've been let down by England. I think the way they tackle the batting side of things, they get too reckless, nobody seems to want to build an innings, like a Cowdrey or a Boycott.
It might work against ordinary teams but when you get a top-tier team like Australia it's a completely different proposition. I used to score runs at a fair pace, and everyone gets a lot of enjoyment out of it, but when you try to play this Bazball style it reduces the chances of winning an important Test. I'd like to see them pull their hooves in.
A Baptism of Fire
Forty-five minutes into a somewhat cloudy morning at the Sydney Cricket Ground, Matt Potts entered the England attack from the Randwick End, and immediately began trying out his variations.
His first ball was wide and clobbered through cover by Travis Head. His second ball was both short outside off stump and slashed over gully by Travis Head. His third ball was on a good length and driven past midwicket by Travis Head. His fourth ball was defended with a show of concentrated care, to raucous, sarcastic applause from a crowd that had begun to get involved. A tough initiation, Pottsy. And yes, it's always like this around here.
Joining the Pantheon
There was a time, while Steve Smith was at the peak of his batting prowess, when “best since Bradman” was used with assurance. The thing about that phrase is that even when the recipient has reigned supreme for years, it gets applied too quickly, given the point of comparison is a career spanning twenty years. Lots of players attain greatness for a time, no other has stayed as long.
The amalgamation of those phases, though, propelled him into a rare position on the third day. In the statistics of the game there are achievements, then there are mountaintops. For a long time in Smith's Ashes-heavy career there have been two peaks drawing gradually closer in the mist. Donald Bradman's 5,028 runs against England is one that even Smith will never conquer. Jack Hobbs's 3,636 runs against Australia is the one he overtook on Tuesday.
Preamble: An Anticlimactic Finale
The latest Ashes series, possibly the most underwhelming series in the 144 years since Fred Spofforth raised hell at The Oval, is heading for a appropriate end. Australia are on course to overwhelm England at Sydney and win the series 4-1, a scoreline not even the most partisan Pom could argue with.
It's been a triumph of know-how, maturity, skill, talent and Travis Head. His bold 123 at Perth opened English wounds that have yet to mend; four Tests later he is cheerily grinding salt into them. Head's surprisingly ruthless 163 helped Australia to 518 for 7 at the end of day three, a lead of 134. Steve Smith will continue on 129 after making a century that looked unavoidable even before he faced his first ball.
Australia, despite a number of flaws in their team, have won the series with an ease that is hard to understand. Maybe that's an Anglocentric view. It's not Australia's fault that England did not show up – even if, on some level, they probably desired a greater challenge.
The last rites will be conducted either this evening or tomorrow. There's a chance of a one-sided finish when England bat, just as there was in the concluding effort of 2013-14 and 2021-22. Their bodies are exhausted, their confidence broken, their spirit crushed. It's nearly time for everyone to go home.
