Ashes 1st Test Review - Clouds, Conditions and the Curse of the New Ball

An alternate look at the storylines behind an enthralling start to the series

Test cricket is pretty good, isn’t it?

After the build-up, with the myriad opinion pieces, previews and discussions of style, it seemed almost impossible that the actual cricket would live up to the hype. But boy, did the first test deliver.

Five days of crazy declarations, funky fields, over-the-top send-offs and, most importantly, incredible quality cricket. But there are much better writers than me to discuss the ebbs and flows of the game, so instead I’ve put together an alternate view of the match, offering up my analysis of the talking points around the bowling and, as ever, the great discussion of conditions.

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The least movement to start a Test in England, ever

“The average lateral movement (seam + swing) of 0.89° on offer for pace bowlers today is the lowest recorded in a day of Test cricket in England since records began in 2006.” - @cricvizanalyst, 5:34pm 16/06/23

Yes, I know I have just quoted a stat that involves degrees of swing, but this tweet shows what happened on the first day of the Test in terms of movement. Nothing. Ironically, one ball that did swing was the first of the day, straight into the middle of Zak Crawley’s bat - I am going to enjoy watching that a lot more than Steve Harmison’s wide in every future Ashes opening montage.

So what happened? Well, as always, we need to break swing down into its three components - the bowlers, the ball, and the atmospherics. I watched most of the play on Day 1, and here are a few things I noticed.

Firstly, the Aussie bowlers don’t try and swing the ball very often. With no Mitchell Starc, the stock ball from the four man pace attack is the wobble ball, which is set up to seam off the pitch, not swing. If the pitch isn’t conducive to seam, no wonder there is minimal movement - there isn’t a lot of variation in the attack.

That isn’t to say that they can’t swing the ball. Cummins can move the ball both ways in the air, he just uses those options sparingly. Watch his seam position on release and you’ll occasionally spot his out-swinger, which has a bit of wobble, but pointed to the slips, or his in-swinger, with the seam pointed to fine leg. The same goes for Hazlewood and Green, neither prolific swing bowlers, but definitely have the skills when they choose to use them. A low number of deliveries which are set up to swing will always result in a low average movement.

Next, when the ball did swing, it swung throughout the day. I’ve already mentioned the first ball of the match, but we saw some swing in Cummins’ second spell at around 20 overs, and again in his third around 40 overs. The continual ‘pockets’ of swing tells me that the outfield was lush enough that they were able to maintain a shiny side. This is the key to conventional swing, as all club cricketers with red stains on their whites will know. The ball wasn’t preventing them from moving it in the air. Something interesting also happened from around over 70 in the first innings, but I’ll discuss that a bit later.

Finally, the sunshine wasn’t a problem. I’ve already mentioned that it swung at all points throughout the day, and the atmospherics were pretty consistent. In fact, the warm air will have helped to counteract the high pace of bowlers like Cummins, and allowed him to swing the ball in later spells. More information on the effect of hot days is in the preview post so I won’t rehash it here.

All in all, it was much more the bowler tactics and archetypes than the conditions influencing the lack of swing. A flat pitch then hindered seam movement leading to the low ‘combined lateral movement’. I hope this is the last time I have to use that metric on this site, it really is one of my least favourite stats going.

Stuart Broad backs up his pre-match talk

Before this game, there were many comparisons drawn between Broad’s comments around his ‘new’ out-swinger, and the great Shane Warne’s pre-series ritual of unveiling his latest mystery delivery. So when Marnus Labuschagne walked out to bat on Day 2, it seemed inevitable that Master of Ceremonies Broad would have something special for him.

And he did. A full, out-swinging delivery, drawing the stoic Australian No. 3 into a loose prod, which only succeeded in delivering an edge behind. A truly great piece of Ashes theatre. Announce plans, execute skills, reap rewards. A perfect set up, several months in the making.

“In 2016-17… I felt like I lost my action on the right-hander front, but I’ve learnt that lesson” - Stuart Broad discussing his bowling techniques and practice, 2020

None of this, however, should take away from what a skilled and thoughtful bowler Broad is, even towards the back end of his career. He regularly works on new methods and ideas, as seen in the interview above from 2020 in Sri Lanka.

In terms of his out-swinger, he has struggled with his seam position at times, and is always compared to the his opening partner, Anderson, who has never had such problems. Yet it was Broad who showcased the power of swing on the biggest test stage this week, and lit the fire of a great battle with the Australian middle-order for the next few weeks.

The clouds didn’t boost England’s bowlers

“How do England conjure up these conditions? Batted twice in the sunshine and bowled twice in largely overcast conditions. Amazing Australia have been competitive.” - Mike from Perth, BBC Live Text

Did anyone actually see the ball swing more when it was cloudy? Was there a flurry of wickets at the start of Day 5 when the skies were leaden? Or are we slowly getting round to the idea that overcast conditions are more confirmation bias than anything else. Yes, I will die on this hill (me too! - Sam G)

On Sunday, there was a short period between rain delays when England lost two wickets when it was cloudy and dark. But you cannot tell me that the ball visibly swung more in that period than other times in the first 20 overs of the innings, which included blue skies on the morning of Day 4.

Sadly, I think that this confirmation bias of ‘clouds = swing’ often extends to the bowlers as well. I talked before about the lack of swing being somewhat down to bowler choice, and often they choose to try and swing the ball when it’s cloudy, because they also think it will swing more. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. Just watch the seam positions if you don’t believe me.

Ricky Ponting doesn’t like a brand new Dukes ball

It’s always nice when a well respected player echoes some of the points you believe aren’t considered enough when discussing swing. I mentioned in my Things to watch for Twitter thread that the new Dukes balls might take a few overs to swing due to the heavy lacquer and imperfections that need to be polished out before the ball will swing consistently.

It was Ricky Ponting on commentary, however, who really got this point across to the public, especially during the discussion of taking the new ball in the final session of the match. His argument was that the new ball wouldn’t swing much, and simply come off the bat harder, and maybe make it easier to score. Whether that comes from his experience as a player, or simply his sharp eyes from watching the game, I can’t tell. But thanks, Punter, for backing me up, even if you have no idea that you did.

I would also point out that I didn’t see many attempts from Broad or Robinson to try and use swing at the end of the game after taking the second new ball, so it is hard to work out how true Ponting’s predictions were. Interestingly, Anderson and Broad both swung the brand new ball at the start of the 4th innings, including the edge that flew between Bairstow and Root in the slips. My advice is always to try and swing the new ball before deciding that the lacquer needs to be polished off. Some new balls are good for swing, others less so (testing boxes and boxes of new balls in a wind tunnel has taught me this) but you won’t know what you have picked until you try. Still, it’s a narrative to watch as the series progresses.

Signs that reverse swing will play a part in the series

Another of my predictions pre-series is that we would see some reverse swing this summer. The hot weather and hard pitches will lead to abrasive surfaces and outfields, helping the ball to become rough enough to reverse. We saw this at the end of the first innings, when Cam Green was moving the old ball a long way - check out 13:05 in the video below.

The rain on Days 3-5 will have hampered the prospect of reverse swing, but this test has definitely provided an omen of things to come. I am excited to watch Mark Wood with a reversing ball, as he is someone truly capable of hitting 90mph+ on a regular basis.

That’s it for my review of the first test, I hope everyone enjoyed it as much as I did, even if England came up short. The Women’s Test later this week also promises to be a great encounter, and I will try and write a few things to look out for in that game as well. Feel free to share this with your friends, and send me any feedback, thoughts or questions, and let’s hope we get a full summer with this much drama!