Pat Cummins’ remarkable 68-minute press conference took a clear-eyed and devastating aim at Usman Khawaja’s integrity – Australia are in a civil war with no obvious resolution, writes LAWRENCE BOOTH
Offered the chance to kick Australian cricket while it was down, England made humiliating contact with fresh air on the opening day of their eight-match white-ball trip.
Only hours after Pat Cummins had added a twist to the sandpaper saga by dismissing Usman Khawaja’s claims that the whole squad knew about the ball-tampering plans in South Africa eight years ago as ‘complete and utter nonsense’, Harry Brook’s side were blown away for 131 in the first ODI – having at one stage been 65 for eight.
Australia then romped home by seven wickets with more than 26 overs in hand to take a 1–0 lead into the second game of this three-match series in Adelaide on Sunday. For England, anyway, complete and utter nonsense felt about right.
It is not quite a year since they began their Ashes campaign here at the Optus Stadium by being bowled out in 32.5 overs in their first innings and 34.4 in their second – before stumbling to a 4–1 defeat.
Now, they obligingly split the difference, dismissed in 33.4 as Mahli Beardman, a 21-year-old fast bowler from Dunsborough, a couple of hours drive down the coast from Perth, picked up six for 34 – the best figures for Australia by an ODI debutant.
His first victim was Joe Root, caught behind for a painful 17 off 36 balls, and his second Brook, who had made only a single when he fidgeted fatally outside off stump.
That might have been enough to satisfy most newcomers, but Beardman had barely started. Jordan Cox made two before edging a poke, and Sam Curran top-edged a pull to fine leg for a duck.
When Liam Dawson, yet to score, squeezed a drive to backward point, Beardman had five wickets in 28 balls – not bad for a player whose only previous taste of international cricket had come in a T20 in Pakistan in January.
He then ended a lively last-wicket stand of 29 by removing Jofra Archer, who had just driven him down the ground for four. It was the only authentic boundary England managed off his bowling: the other, a streaky inside edge from Root, summed up the problems posed by his pace, bounce and accuracy. As bids for a place on next summer’s Ashes tour go, this was hard to ignore.
‘Laying in bed last night, that’s not what I had planned,’ said Beardman, who was taken under his wing by Australian fast-bowling legend Dennis Lillee after a mutual friend spotted him as a young teenager bowling at a bin down the side of a house. ‘It was an incredible game and it all happened so fast.’
If England had learned lessons from their collapses in the last year’s Test here, they showed little sign of being able to implement them. Players drove on the up, as they had so heedlessly a year earlier, and failed to cope with the Perth bounce.
England head coach Brendon McCullum was critical of his side’s failure to adapt to the pitch, and called on them to learn from their mistakes going forward.
‘It’s a bit like batting on a trampoline,’ said McCullum. ‘There are certain shots that are very difficult to execute. We talked about trying to put those away. We probably knew we were in for a low-scoring contest, but we expected to get a few more runs than 130.
‘We’re disappointed but there are some good lessons for us. If you look towards the World Cup in South Africa there’s going to be some pitches there that will test us from a bounce point of view.’
And all this after they had played a warm-up game at the WACA – a grievous omission before the Ashes – and trained with such intensity that white-ball mentor Kevin Pietersen had declared it the best practice session he had seen from an England team.
In the event, their top-scorer was Gus Atkinson, who hit an unbeaten 29 from No 10, including England’s only six.
Mitchell Marsh, stroke-less in the previous day’s press conference, put that into perspective by clearing the ropes four times during a 29-ball half-century, while Cooper Connolly – dropped by Tom Banton at midwicket on five – hit two sixes himself.
England’s only consolation had come at the start of Australia’s reply, when Atkinson bowled Travis Head first ball off the inside edge. Head it was who had taken care of Australia’s fourth-innings chase here a year ago, thrashing a 69-ball century that knocked the stuffing out of Ben Stokes’s attack.
Instead, it was Marsh who went for his shots, stopped only when he flicked Jamie Overton to Ben Duckett at deep midwicket, by which time Australia were already halfway there. For a few hours, at least, no one was talking about sandpaper.
By Lawrence Booth in Perth
