“Show class, have pride and display character. If you do, winning takes care of itself.” —Bear Bryant

By Prof. B.K. Viswanath

Bravo! It looked as if the folks in the English church on a Sunday morning were bestowed with a boon for their knelt down prayers, when Chris Woakes savagely dispatched a pitched up delivery by Mitchell Starc to the yawning boundary fence at Headingley, Leeds.

But for the swashbuckling pair of Mark Wood, ‘Man of the Match’ and his senior partner, Chris Woakes, an all-rounder, the match could have tilted in Australia’s favour.

Wood not only transformed the game in favour of England by capturing 5 wickets for 34 runs with some menacing fast deliveries, he also scored a useful 24 and 16 n.o. with the willow. But for the duo, Woakes and Wood, and their captain Ben Stokes who scored a scintillating 80 in England’s first Innings, the result of the match would have been reduced to a ‘burnt ball’ Ashes series.

Towards the end, Wood had the audacity to hook a Pat Cummins delivery into the football field for a six to the joy of his fans. He also drove a beautiful cover drive to the fence off Starc. It is to be noted that for reasons unknown, both Wood and Woakes had not found a place in the first two Ashes series.

England’s victory was also made possible because of the Rain God on day 3 of the second Innings before the tea break.

At Headingley, Ben Stokes won the toss and elected to field again, as Wood and Woakes came out with their effective bowling. The Aussies began their 1st Innings rather shakily as David Warner again became a victim to his nemesis Chris Broad.

Australia were dismissed for 263 and for them, Mitchell Marsh scored a run a minute 118 and Travis Head battled hard for his 39. Woods scalped 5 wickets and Woakes also grabbed 3 victims.

Warner was again mesmerised by an inswinger as the batsman was plumbing in front of the wicket. The clash between two seasoned players has been going on for years and when Warner was out to Broad’s delivery, it was the 17th time in Tests.

Similarly, Joe Root has also been facing hazards when Pat Cummins bowls. The Australian captain and the seamer par excellence had removed Root before he could settle down to make a big score.

Root had a healthy average with the bat coming in at 1 drop, only to be confronted with the wiles of Cummins swing and short deliveries. Root had a good batting average but Cummins has been able to reduce it to 22 in as many Tests.

At Headingley, Head batted soundly for his 77 and Usman Khawaja made 43, as Australia were folded up for 224 requiring England to get 251 for a victory.

The English opener Zak Crawley stood up boldly facing Mitchell Starc to score 44. In England’s Innings, it was Harry Brook who steadied the Innings while others faced problems. The English tail showed maturity and were gritty enough to overhaul 251 runs.

The excitement of the roller coaster factor was evident when the English snatched a victory from the jaws of defeat.

A lot of crazy happenings occur in cricket and it had a good narrative when England clashed with Australia at the same ground -Headingley in 2019 and that too in the third Test.

At that time Australia made 179 runs in the first Innings and followed it up with 246 in the second.

England were dismissed for a paltry 67 in the first Innings and faced an almost impossible task of getting 359 for a win.

The English captain Stokes, produced a brilliant spell of bowling, capturing 4 wickets in the match. When he came to bat it looked as if Australia would snare England in the match.

Under pressure and fierce bowling, Stokes batted like a champion and made a classic 135 not out. Again, it was Stokes in the match at Headingley 2023, who made a quick-fire 80 and saw England through in the Test match, Stokes was on 44 when the tail end batsman were getting out but he and Wood brought respectability to England’s Innings.

In 2019, it was a neck to neck fight as both Australia and England had won two matches each and the score was 2-2. In this test at Headingley, England had won by one wicket with the match at Lords being drawn, the fight between Australia and England has always been keenly contested with one team trying to beat the other with grit and classic batting and bowling,

In the latest Test at Headingley, Australia was coasting smoothly but fell out towards the end as their two front line bowlers Starc and Cummins had exhausted themselves and the absence of Nathan Lyon was telling on them.

This is where crazy things have happened in Headingley and sometimes crazy is good as was evident in England’s case.

[Note: The author, a resident of Mysuru, is presently at New Jersey, US]