search for a cricketing soul
Barney Ronay at Sydney Cricket Ground
t seemed fitting, as the final moments ticked down at the Sydney Cricket Ground, as the day, the match, the tour seemed to ooze and melt a little at the edges under a hard white January sun, that Ben Stokes should finish this Ashes series still standing, but only just.
It was at least a suitably slapstick final session in front of a scattered, holiday-ish crowd. Australia custard-pied their way to a victory total of 160, narrowly avoiding falling pianos, dangling off giant clocktowers along the way.
It felt fitting too that the endgame should revolve around England’s tried and trusted short-and-wide masterplan, a series that will remain fixed in the mind as an endless looping meme of an English seamer being square-cut to some distant crowing boundary.
In the middle of this Stokes spent the day wedged in at first slip, nursing his newly acquired groin injury, a cricketer who is by this stage basically a hat, a collection of splints nailed together and a grimace. Again, it is no surprise that Stokes should be grimacing, stricken and wincing with agony. As a rule, unless specifically stated otherwise it should be assumed Stokes is always grimacing, stricken and wincing with agony.
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a good tracing dis😀