To rule out having to bat before stumps, Australia slowed down the proceedings just before close of play on the third day of the fifth Test match of the 2023 Ashes, at the Kia Oval.
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Two-one up in the five-Test series, Australia opted to bowl in the fifth game, at the Kia Oval, and bowled out England for 283. Day two ended with Australia getting bowled out for 295, thereby securing a 12-run lead.
England began at breakneck pace on the third day. Zak Crawley (73 in 76 balls), Ben Duckett (42 in 55), Ben Stokes (42 in 67), Joe Root (91 in 106), and Jonny Bairstow (78 in 103) all scored quickly.
They were 389-9 when Mark Wood fell, and No.11 James Anderson joined No.10 Stuart Broad with 14 minutes left in the day – including the extra half an hour, that is.
Despite having hinted at the contrary, Anderson walked out to bat amidst the kind of applause from the crowd one usually associates with the traditional farewell Test matches.
But even after that subsided, the Australian team showed no particular urgency to get along with the cricket. Some of them were busy in what seemed like important strategic discussions.
It is worth a mention that since an innings break accounts for 10 minutes, an immediate wicket would have resulted in the Australian openers having to bat for an over before stumps. To avoid that, Australia needed to bowl England out after 6.20 PM local time.
Todd Murphy had dismissed Wood off the second ball of his over. By the time Anderson left his first ball (the third of Murphy’s over), it was already past 6.20.
Australia bowled 16 balls in 10 minutes (which included Anderson getting hit on the arm, hitting two fours, and overturning a review) to round off the day’s cricket after four minutes of inactivity.
It’s taken an astonishing amount of time for Australia to get ready to bowl after the ninth wicket. Clear time-wasting so they don’t have to bat tonight. Broad and Anderson not particularly fussed either. Neither umpire bothering to speed things up #Ashes
— Louis Cameron (@LouisDBCameron) July 29, 2023
Law 41.9 of Cricket deals with “Time wasting by the fielding side”. If an umpire feels they have been deliberately slowing the game, they are expected to “- inform the other umpire of what has occurred”, following which the umpire at the bowler’s end would “warn the captain of the fielding side, indicating that this is a first and final warning,” and “inform the batters of what has occurred”.
None of these happened, which indicates that the umpires did not consider this as an example of time-wasting. It is worth a mention that the first three days witnessed 79.4, 78.1, and 80 overs of cricket – albeit excluding innings breaks on the first two (England bowled out Australia with under 10 minutes remaining on day two).
Deliberately slowing things is an age-old tactic used by teams in cricket, to – among other reasons – save Test matches, prevent new batters from having to come out in the last minutes of a day’s play, and ensure the DLS advantage is not lost.
The current incident is not without precedent either. The most famous incident took place at the 1984/85 World Championship final, Pakistan were nine down at Melbourne with more than half an hour left. Indian captain Sunil Gavaskar pretended to take Ravi Shastri off and get Chetan Sharma to bowl. By the time he was done with the charades, the clock had ticked over, and Gavaskar reverted to Shastri.
Pakistan had finished on 176-9 as India failed to bowl out an opposition for the first time in the tournament. At the Kia Oval, too, England finished the day on 389-9 as Broad and Anderson stayed put. They lead by 377 runs with two days left, including what is forecast to be a rain-filled fifth day.
