Why the Sydney Test has dead rubber written all over it |
The participants can deny it till they’re blue in the face, but there are telltale signs of a dead rubber at the end of a Test series.
The players still want very much to win, of course; and a Test match is a Test match; and there are World Test Championship points on the line; and 3-2 looks a lot better to English eyes; and there’s professionalism and pride and all the rest.
But there has been a difference between the super-intensity of Perth, Brisbane and Adelaide, and what has followed. Trust me, Sydneysiders have some experience here.
Picture what would be different on day one if Australia were trailing 2-1 in this series and needed to win at the SCG to retain the Ashes. Would Usman Khawaja’s retirement have been staged before the match, and been allowed to turn into the spectacle of contention that it has been?
As it is, we have had the chance to celebrate or debate Khawaja’s career in a pre-match mini-jubilee. He got to bring his kids onto the field for the anthems. It was nice. But if this were a must-win Test match for Australia, there would be questions about risking the slightest distraction.
The single-minded aggression that typified the first 11 days of this series would no doubt have been maintained and Khawaja – whose return in Adelaide was instrumental to........