Smoking Jesus. Take a moment to collect yourself. If you were watching that final day at Edgbaston, you deserve to let your nerves unspool. They must be clenched to raging little clusters of data. Do some deep breathing. Take your shoes off and walk on the lawn. Fists with your toes. Even if you’re not invested in either team, close Test cricket can make you sick, when awaiting each delivery feels like you’ve just chugged a large chocolate milk before jumping on Magic Mountain.
If you’ve paid any attention to coverage over the past five days, you might have heard one or two comparisons to the Edgbaston Ashes Test of 2005. Run totals of 407 on the first day, fourth‑innings targets for Australia of 282 and 281 respectively, falling short both times under clouded skies, simmering in the fetid steambath of noise generated by the Hollies Stand.
Until the dramatic work of Australia’s lower order, though, this was more reminiscent of Durham in 2013. That time Australia were set a chase of 299. Both involved David Warner giving Australia a flying start in the company of a left‑handed opening partner enjoying a late-career revival at around the age of 36: Usman Khawaja now, Chris Rogers then.
Khawaja was there in 2013, too, as was Steve Smith in the middle order and Nathan Lyon as the spinner. Both times Mitchell Starc was left out, and his pace was missed as England ran up a score in the third innings. Both involved a hulking blond all-rounder making useful runs at six, from Shane Watson to Cameron Green.
And both involved a Stuart Broad spell, one of his Ashes specials. Durham was the more dramatic: a streak of six for 20 across 45 balls after the door had been prised open with the removal of the top three. Edgbaston had Broad apply the crowbar: removing Smith and Marnus Labuschagne in the space of 12 balls on the fourth evening.
That spell more than anything was reminiscent of a decade earlier: the tall figure of Broad wading in on his heron legs, so elongated that his own shadow was jealous, his whites glowing a shade of gold in the late‑day sunshine. Cheered into his delivery stride each time by a liquored terrace of uncontained humanity, singing the same song about him being better than his dad. Chris Broad is a decent match referee but probably wouldn’t give much argument.
It was testament to Pat Cummins and Nathan Lyon, then, that Broad didn’t have the decisive influence on the fifth day. For a time it was England’s other talisman, Ben Stokes. As the captain leading their stated intention to set every game ablaze, he was set up opposite the approach of Khawaja. You could typify the contrast as fire and ice, but really it was fire and water. Whatever England tried to brandish, Khawaja doused.
He faced 518 balls in the match, where the other five Australian specialists managed 393. England’s entire team, both times, faced 866. There was something cussedly specific about the way Khawaja stretched forward to defend, time and again, occasionally diverting a single, even more rarely finding the boundary.
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So after a long wait, 70 overs into the innings, Stokes dragged his bad knee into action. In his second over, a cross-seamer took the inside edge on to the stumps. The immovable Khawaja was gone for 65. Stokes was away, with his incredible knack for shaping a game. Ignoring the new ball, keeping Joe Root on with spin that claimed Alex Carey’s wicket the very next over. Then Stokes so nearly recreating his famous World Cup catch, running backwards after Lyon’s hook.
But that particular miracle couldn’t repeat, and the extraordinary last stanza of this match took on an unexpected meter. In terms of playing style, the result owes its existence to England’s. Had they batted conventionally in either innings, there would not have been enough time for Australia to have played their own way and won, given the sessions lost to rain. But there would also not have been time for England to come so close to a win themselves. One more nick, and Josh Hazlewood at No 11 was every chance of offering a second.
And when the game came down to its last fateful overs, Australia’s captain put an attacking philosophy just as firmly on display. Needing 72 when Khawaja was out, and 54 when Carey followed, Cummins hit twin sixes off Root, then charged Broad and hammered four through cover point. Australia could have looked to bunker down with 15 overs to go, but it turns out that they don’t do draws either.
Which, much as you might like to avoid cliche, does take you back to 2005. Specifically to Australia’s lower order pulling a distant chase into the realms of possibility. Back then it was Brett Lee 43 not out, nearly getting home. This time it was Pat Cummins with one more run, with the opposite result, and with one of the best captain’s innings in an Ashes match. One thing is certain: in a couple of decades from now, people will still be talking about this one too.