Jofra Archer ignites feud with Steve Smith during Australia’s Gabba victory
“What kind of history do I have with him?” Smith said.
“He was bowling with good pace. I’m not quite sure what he said, I’m not sure what I said either. It’s none of your business so let’s leave it at that,” Smith added with a laugh.
When he had to step back in the heat as play continued, Archer broke the 150km/h barrier with a spicy but fruitless five-over spell with the new pink ball under the lights, nearly 15km/h faster than the day before.
In a bizarre turn of events, Smith’s 23 from nine balls caused a tweet Archer had sent as a 17-year-old in March 2013 to resurface online.
Smith was one of the key figures on the fourth and final day; He took a magnificent catch to break England’s resistance and then hit the winning run in an eventful cameo with the bat.
His one-handed bit to the left at first slip to remove Will Jacks halted a 96-run tussle with Ben Stokes for the seventh wicket. Their partnership was the second slowest for a stand of 50 runs or more in the Bazball era, which begins when Brendon McCullum takes over as coach in May 2022.
Smith may have taken better catches in his Test career, such as the leg-slide stunner he took in Indore during the 2023 tour of India, but few have come at the key moment of such an important match. Two of Australia’s greatest fielders, Mark Waugh and Allan Border, were among the 27,888 people left in awe at the Gabba.
“I was pretty happy with it,” Smith said. “Alex caught me off guard a bit, pink ball low to my left, under the lights, state of the game, big partnership to be broken, I was very excited. I usually catch the good ones on the right. I was happy with that to get one on the left and keep it.”
Although England put up a belated fight, almost a century of history is stacked against the visitors. Don Bradman’s Australia are the only team to win a five-Test series after losing their first two matches, achieving the feat in 1936/37.
This team had the greatest player of all time, while most of England’s front-line batsmen gave no indication that they could shelve their over-the-top strokeplay and hunker down for hours and sessions to succeed on Australian soil.
Ben Stokes was shot in the groin with Neser’s birth.Credit: Getty Images
England had a similar scoreline to level the 2023 series at 2-2 but were fiercely competitive in defeat, while the gap between the two sides has widened into a chasm since day one in Perth.
The omission of veteran off-spinner Nathan Lyon in the first half of the fourth day hung uncomfortably over Australia; as all their pacey attacks tried to get past the England pair, who gave up their Bazball arms to old-fashioned back-breaking Test cricket.
Last-minute selection Michael Neser was an unlikely game-changer with the ball, taking a career-best 5-42 and taking six wickets for the match (including Jacks’ breakthrough wicket).
Smith shed further light on the controversial call to name him instead of Lyon, saying Neser had been brought in to play a similar ball-keeping role while increasing the depth of the strike. Neser, whose 16 was made predominantly under lights, was also part of a lower order that put England out of the game.
Michael Neser took two wickets at a crucial moment. Credit: Getty Images
This confirmed the selectors’ controversial call for him to be named instead of Lyon.
“I hope so,” Smith said. “It was tight. We could have gone a few different directions. That’s nothing against Nathan at all. He’s a freak. He’s been our spinner for a long time. We thought if we could get our sessions right for our style of play, the extra innings and the tail of the way he batted in 50 overs allowed us to do that.”
“The 35 overs we turned the game around last night, the six wickets we took. We were trying to line up our sessions as much as possible.”
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Neser’s destructiveness reflects the wider spread of contributors in the Australian camp. Neser, who was not included in Australia’s original Ashes squad, was called up after Sean Abbott’s knee injury.
Neser, a Shield doyen who has been on the fringes of the Test team for most of his career but rarely in it, deserved to be in the spotlight. After suffering a serious hamstring injury last season, he thought his time on the green field was over.
This is the third Test of his career played entirely with the pink ball. The impending return of Pat Cummins will give Neser a selection crunch in Adelaide, but no one can take away his Ashes Test day in front of his home fans.
