Anyone following this Ashes series, let alone writing about it, has wondered at which moment they can declare the death of Bazball. Maybe this is the joyless urge to destroy other people’s fun, maybe it’s righteous disapproval of some irritating aspects. All along, Bazball may have been a neighbourhood house party: great at your place, annoying next door.
Anyone waiting to time their solemn announcement with the imminent series loss is out of date. Given its fuel is confidence, England’s high-octane approach probably died during their adrenal collapse in Perth, when dazed players looked around and wondered why their mouths tasted like lightning. If the patient sat up and coughed in Brisbane, it promptly collapsed back on its pillows. So Travis Head, Usman Khawaja and Alex Carey were not killing off Bazball on the third afternoon of the Adelaide Test: like the Simpsons’ Krusty Burglar, it was already dead. More so, theirs was the meticulous assembly of the cremation pyre, due to be lit sometime on day four.
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Australia’s day drifted into a position of dominance through one of those dreamy, long-lunch Adelaide afternoons. There was an irony to that speed: Head was the player whose 69-ball century stole England’s gameplan in Perth, but he recognised the lack of need to play the same way here. Instead he beat England’s helter-skelter with normal, sensible Test cricket: a strike rate that spent the day somewhere between 60 and 70, plenty fast enough by historical terms while never needing to force it.
He had his fun, with the occasional skip and loft against spin and some trademark carves through the off side, but they were few and measured. He took on a short ball and a deep fielder once, with a risky six over the head of long leg, then had the discipline to put that away. He was mostly happy to ride the bounce and take singles into wide expanses when Ben Stokes set a short-ball field. He gave one chance on 99, dropped in the gully, then his hundred came up from 146 balls. Fireworks had not been required.
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The next irony was adding 86 runs with Usman Khawaja, Australia’s Bazball antithesis. From the beginning of the 2023 Ashes his every utterance with the bat seemed a direct repudiation of his opponents: Edgbaston hosted his century that was built over the course of eight hours, right after Joe Root had slashed an unbeaten hundred in two and a half. That was Khawaja’s high-water mark for the series, but the more madcap England became, the more he batted on in the same style, strike rate submerged as he soaked up the bowling.
The final irony of the day in Adelaide was that it should be Khawaja supporting Head: while the cremation preparations continued, the same pair were simultaneously nailing down the coffin lid of Khawaja’s opening career. If that spot didn’t belong to Head before Friday, it does after 142 not out with the chance of more to come. Steve Smith will return to No 4 in Melbourne. Despite Khawaja’s runs, with 82 and 40 in the match, his only chance is if selectors decide that for the next two weeks he is a more stable option at No 5 than Josh Inglis is at No 7.
If they do make that call, it would close a loop at the SCG, ending at the same venue and in the same batting position where his late-career resurrection began in 2022. But with this series surely his last, despite any clear indication from the 39-year-old, picking him for the coming matches would mean stalling investment in the future in favour of living more weeks in the present. Australia won’t play Tests again until Bangladesh in August and South Africa in October. Opportunities are precious before an intense 2027, touring India and England either side of the 150th anniversary Test in Melbourne.
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Head may now see all of that from the top of the order, notching his fourth consecutive century in an Adelaide Test, and joining Carey to become the first pair of Adelaide-born players to make hometown hundreds in the same match. They didn’t bat together in the first innings but made up for it in the second, their partnership growing beyond a hundred as stumps neared. For a long time, South Australians have felt underrepresented in the national side, and their history of high-profile representatives includes a lot of imports such as Donald Bradman or Clarrie Grimmett. So it was party time like never before to have the spotlight fully taken by two locals through the most festive session of a Friday afternoon.
Head and Carey will return on Saturday with even more opportunity ahead of them, 356 runs ahead and still two days to play. Jofra Archer battled, but has bowled on all three days, batted for several hours and was left with head bowed when Head was dropped from his last big effort. The other bowlers had little left, the fielding and placings were diffident, and it would take a continental upheaval for the batting to be any different when its turn comes due. The little rain forecast for day five surely won’t dampen the timbers sufficiently. The pyre is almost laid, and Australia’s bowlers will contend to see who can provide the spark.
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