The action begins ahead of schedule again, featuring an extended morning session of two and a half hours to recover some of the time lost on the first day. The players are getting ready to take the field.
Pink Tributes and Batting Might
Events are handled superbly in Australia. The opening day of this final Test featured a appropriate remembrance to the victims and first responders of the Bondi tragedy, and on the third day the Sydney Cricket Ground was turned into a sea of pink to once again generate donations for the McGrath Foundation.
On the field of play, though, Australian charity was in far scarcer quantity. Across three sessions their batmen wore down the English attack, dispelling any doubts about their incentive since securing the Ashes and throwing up a few more concerning their vanquished foes.
Faces flush from the ordeal, Ben Stokes and his team trudged off at stumps exhausted and overwhelmed. Steve Smith’s 37th hundred in Tests, 129 not out from 205 balls, had succeeded the second half of Travis Head’s blistering 163 from 166, and with it Australia had achieved 518 for seven from 124 overs. The lead stood at 134 runs overnight and looked an threatening one.
A Cricketing Icon's Opinion
The renowned Neil Harvey, 97, offered his perspective in a charming interview.
I've been disappointed in England. I think the way they handle the batting side of things, they get too careless, 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 quality outfit like Australia it's a whole new challenge. I used to score runs at a fair pace, and everyone gets a lot of satisfaction out of it, but when you try to play this aggressive approach it takes the odds away from winning an important Test. I'd like to see them rein themselves in.
A Baptism of Fire
Almost an hour into a somewhat cloudy morning at the Sydney Cricket Ground, Matt Potts came into the England attack from the Randwick End, and immediately began utilizing his variations.
His first ball was full and wide and hammered through cover by Travis Head. His second ball was both short outside off stump and hacked over gully by Travis Head. His third ball was short and straight and pulled past midwicket by Travis Head. His fourth ball was negotiated with a show of concentrated care, to jeering shouts from a crowd that had begun to settle in for the day's play. Welcome to the treadmill, Pottsy. And yes, it's always like this around here.
A Historic Achievement
There was a time, while Steve Smith was at the pinnacle of his batting prowess, when “best since Bradman” was used with certainty. The thing about that phrase is that even when the recipient has excelled 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 blend of those phases, though, elevated him to a exceptional position on the third day. In the statistics of the game there are milestones, then there are peaks. For a long time in Smith's Ashes-focused 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 climb. Jack Hobbs's 3,636 runs against Australia is the one he surpassed on Tuesday.
Preamble: An Anticlimactic Finale
The latest Ashes series, possibly the most disappointing series in the 144 years since Fred Spofforth made history at The Oval, is limping towards a fitting conclusion. Australia are on course to overwhelm England at Sydney and win the series 4-1, a scoreline not even the most partisan Pom could dispute.
It's been a triumph of experience, composure, skill, ability and Travis Head. His bold 123 at Perth opened English wounds that have yet to recover; 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 start again on 129 after making a century that looked unavoidable even before he faced his first ball.
Australia, despite a number of weaknesses in their team, have won the series with an comfort that is hard to understand. Maybe that's an Pommy outlook. It's not Australia's fault that England were not competitive – even if, on some level, they probably wanted 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 weary, their confidence broken, their spirit crushed. It's nearly time for everyone to go home.
