Good morning and welcome to live coverage of day two of the second Ashes Test at Edgbaston which Australia begin, after the day one cyclone, 379 runs behind England with 10 first-innings wickets in hand. This correspondent was fortunate to be among the crowd yesterday and can report that during those four overs of Australia’s innings, the crowd was louder than any I have heard at a match in England, Australia or India. But it wasn’t like that all day. There were nerves and exasperation, too, a delight in the tone set by Zak Crawley from ball one but a sense – spells of the Joe Root-Harry Brook and Root-Jonny Bairstow partnerships apart – of how precarious it all was. But that’s England under Rob Key, Brendon McCullum and Ben Stokes.
It always brings to mind that concluding speech from the schmaltzy film Parenthood which are hackneyed but nonetheless seem to have stuck for 35 years: “You know, when I was young, Grandpa took me on a roller coaster. Up and down, up, down. Oh, what a ride. I always wanted to go again. It was just interesting to me that a ride could make me so frightened…so scared, so sick, so excited…and so thrilled all together. Some didn´t like it. They went on the merry-go-round. That just goes around. Nothing. I like the roller coaster. You get more out of it.”
How do you judge the declaration – an act of hubris or chutzpah from England’s leadership? It’s a journalist;s cop out to ever write ‘only time will tell’ so let’s not bother. All I can say, having watched every minute of every Test of Ben Stokes’ captaincy, and written untold words chronicling them, that it felt right, the opportunity to try to expose Australia’s openers to the tension of seeing out those late overs. And David Warner was very skittish in that first over; he could have run himself or Usman Khawaja out twice.
What England are these days, as well as audacious, is shameless, in the best possible sense of the world. Whatever happens today – and it has been raining this morning followed by an afternoon of clouds and sultry temperatures – they will go to the grave with a ‘No Regrets’ positivity, like putting a Hell’s Angel at the wheel of a Mark II Jag. They’re going to use it for a blag.