Ashes: Joe Root headlines England’s latest chapter of ‘Bazball’ with a batting masterclass

Are you not entertained? If the first day of this Ashes series was any sort of indication for the summer ahead then we are in for a thrilling ride. Anticipation can have a habit to set you up for disappointment but after the months of waiting this was no day of anticlimax.

This was a day of Test cricket as composed by AI. There were just enough of the familiar parts to make the picture recognisable, but the form they came in was unusual and made for a confusing tableau.

The platonic ideal of an ebbing and flowing day of Test cricket was on display at Edgbaston today, one side seemingly grabbing the game with both hands only to see it snatched from their grasp by a hundred partnership or a quick pair of wickets. The balance of power fluctuating from session to session, laurel-resting officially outlawed.

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And yet there was nothing normal about this day of Test cricket, Zak Crawley thumped the very first ball of the match for four through extra cover – if first balls of the series have been portents of doom in the past, think Harmison bowling to first slip or Rory Burns bowled first ball, then this seemingly boded well.

At the very least it signified that England were set to play as advertised – the Bazball revolution continues and will be televised, just sadly not as it happens on free to air.

There was little normal about the way Australia started either, their counter to the threat of an opening onslaught from England was to post a curiously defensive field – it was as if they had decided to start the Test in the drifting middle overs of an ODI game.

The ease with which Crawley played and with which England plundered singles – on average 18 singles are scored in the first session of Test Matches, they managed 54 – had some questioning their approach and yet at lunch England were 124/3, the session narrowly Australia’s.

There was an all too familiar normalcy to the way England were seemingly squandering the advantages of winning the toss and making a good start with the bat. Harry Brook and Ben Stokes gone in the space of nine balls, England slumping to 176/5.

A Joe Root-led recovery with the bat has fortunately for England fans also appeared with some regularity and once again that is exactly what they got. He and Bairstow put on 121 for the sixth wicket, 176/5 became 297/6, the balance of power shifting once again.

Yet among the supposedly normal came Root reverse scooping an 88mph Pat Cummins delivery over the wicketkeepers head for six, that can’t have happened to him much before in Test cricket, based on today’s evidence he might have to get used to it a bit more.

As the afternoon wore on, it felt as if the morning session had been months ago and then when you looked at the scoreboard there was still over an hour left to play.

There was still time for local hero Moeen Ali to smash a six to have the ground roaring at its loudest, Root to bring up a first hundred against Australia since 2015 – his 30th overall – and Stokes to make a surprise declaration to have a quick crack at Australia with the ball before the close.

There was a sense before the series started that nobody quite knew what to expect. After its first day that situation remains almost the same just in an entirely different way, all we do know is it should be very entertaining.

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