17 June 2023 , 18:39
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Usman Khawaja deserves to put the kettle on and enjoy a 'kipper tie', as they say in Birmingham, after answering Bazball with a chanceless hundred.
On a flat, sandpaper-coloured pitch, England found out the hard way that it will take more than funky declarations, bowling changes and field settings to regain the Ashes.
Khawaja feared his Test career had run up a dead end when he managed only 122 runs in six innings on his last tour of these shores. But as the Aussies fought like a pack of outback dingoes to wrest control of the LV= Insurance first Test at Edgbaston, their Pakistan-born opener would not be moved.
Even when Stuart Broad speared the second new ball through Khawaja's defence, England's celebrations were short-lived by a marginal no-ball call. But if that was his only stroke of luck, Khawaja deserved it simply for spraying graffiti over Ben Stokes' Bazball manual.
He celebrated his 15th Test hundred by throwing his bat in the air like clansman tossing the caber at the Highland Games. Who can blame him?
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Watchful, if not actually timid, before lunch, 36-year-old Khawaja went through the gears to finish unbeaten on 126 out of Australia's 311-5 - just 82 runs in arrears.
By the close, he was threatening to bat the Aussies into a a position where they can call the shots over the next three days. Bazball is fun, it's entertaining and it's a breath of fresh air.
But like all other forms of cricket, it doesn't work if you don't do the basics right, and England may live to rue three mishaps – a missed stumping, a dropped catch and that Broad no-ball.
Usman Khawaja recorded an impressive ton at Edgbaston (Getty Images)They were desperate to make early inroads – and Broad's Ashes 'bunny' David Warner duly obliged. Everyone loves a pantomime villain, and Warner has fitted the bill expertly since he was suspended for punching England hero Joe Root in the face on a night out at the Walkabout bar 10 years ago.
Broad's response has been to dismiss Warner 15 times in Test cricket – not so much a bunny as the whole of Watership Down - and there were few redeeming features about the Aussie opener's lunge at a delivery which demanded more respect.
Marnus Labuschagne, perhaps distracted by a policeman in hi-viz jacket moving in front of the sightscreen as he prepared to take guard, perished next ball.
Fishing airily at a full-length delivery, the world's No.1-ranked Test batsman presented the diving Jonny Bairstow pouched a superb one-handed catch. Nice work, plod.
England's Jonny Bairstow had a mixed day behind the stumps (Getty Images)That brought Steve Smith to the crease – a man whose last 10 Test innings on English soil read like a threatening letter: 143, 144, 142, 92, 211, 82, 80, 23, 121 and 34.
Booed all the way to the middle – as he was in 2019 - over his role in the sandpaper ball-tampering scandal five years ago, Smith survived Broad's hat-trick ball, speared down the leg side, easily.
Was that hostile reception harsh or fair dinkum? Read all about it in the non-friction section of your local bookshop. But England were cock-a-hoop when skipper Stokes pinned Smith right back in the crease on 16 and DRS sent him packing leg-before.
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Mr Sandman, bring us a dream, the closest lbw that you've ever seen. Apologies to the Chordettes, purveyors of that No.1 hit back in 1954, but at 67-3 England could smell blood.
Australia's Steve Smith was trapped LBW for 16 (Getty Images)It was only Stokes' second Test wicket of 2023, vindicating his shuffle of the pack like a Monte Carlo casino croupier and using SEVEN bowlers in the pre-lunch session.
Khawaja and Travis Head (50 off 63 balls) rallied the Aussies until Head shovelled Moeen Ali's off-spin to midwicket. But Cameron Green survived a huge stumping chance two balls later, Bairstow spilling the toast as it popped out of the toaster, it was a big miss.
By the time Green was castled by Moeen spinning a prize jaffa out of the footmarks – not a tangerine, not a clementine, but an absolute jaffa – the Aussies were in calmer waters at 220-5.
Alex Carey, 52 not out overnight, played with ominous freedom, bit this was Khawaja's day in the land of strangled vowels. If you haven't quite mastered the Brummie dialect yet, Usman, this might help: What's the difference between a buffalo and a bison?
You can wash your hands in a bison.