Melbourne: In the five years since England last had a productive opening pair, it always used to be a question of finding the right partner for Alastair Cook. More and more it looks as though England will have to find a partner for Mark Stoneman, who, aside from the glory tour of 2010-11, has been England’s most successful opening batsman in Australia since Michael Vaughan in 2002-03.
Confronting a brand new Kookaburra wielded by Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood, Stoneman has scored more runs than anyone bar the middle-order men Dawid Malan and Jonny Bairstow. Even if his average is only 32, it is higher than that of Cook in three of his four Ashes series in Australia, or Michael Carberry in 2013-14, or Andrew Strauss in 2006-07.
Yet Australia’s pace attack, and Perth’s bounce, have surpassed anything in his experience.
“I’ve not faced an attack before where they have three guys capable of cranking it up to the levels they do,” Stoneman admitted.
“I think that’s one of the things they’ve been able to manage throughout the series — they’ve always had a guy coming in relatively fresh. The bounce was a lot steeper than I’ve ever experienced. There were balls that I was picking up the length fine but I was perceiving the level of contact to be chest height, which I would happily get in behind and ride, but they just kept climbing and I ended up splicing them in front of my face.”
As an opener who has hung around, Stoneman has been hit more than most of the England players, while the Australians have been almost unscathed.
“You’ve three quicks coming in, you get one wrong and you wear it,” Stoneman said. “Crack on. I was under no illusions what was going to be happening before I came on the tour and it’s pretty much lived up to expectations. Bit of short stuff, then they try to nick you off or hit the stumps or lbw.
“It’s one of the perks of the job of being an opener. It gets your beans going a bit and you certainly know you’re in a contest. More often than not, if you can get through those periods then you can handle whatever else comes at you and make a good score. Unfortunately, so far, I haven’t quite gone on to make the bigger scores that would make a better contribution for the team.”
Stoneman speaks like his former Durham captain Paul Collingwood, so matter-of-factly, about facing one of the best Australian attacks. A screaming bouncer from Pat Cummins, or from Starc round the wicket at his head, is just “a bit of a barrage”, while England’s lower order dive for cover. “They have periods when they might be at the higher end of their pace bracket or just a fraction lower. You get a feel for how they’re performing and, if they have attacking fields set, you know you’re in for a bit of a barrage.”
Apart from Malan and Bairstow, Stoneman is the only England batsman to score a century on this tour, but that was in a warm-up, not a Test. How is he going to break that barrier which has stopped him reaching 60 in his Test career so far? “Just repeating things for longer. You hear the greats of the game or the top coaches and it’s just repeatability. You look at Steve Smith [in Perth] and he just kept repeating what he did. Any plan we had, he worked out how he was going to counter it or absorb it. He’s shown levels of patience and good attacking instincts and he just repeats. Simple, really.”
Staying in longer would allow him to retaliate against Australia’s big three. “I find out here generally against the new ball, with a little extra pace in the wicket, the bounce and big fields — so when men are out in the deep — you’re not going to clear them. So when the ball is bouncing that bit more, staying on top of it is harder work. I’ll probably just try to get my head out of the way a bit better next time. Ideally when they’re coming into fourth and fifth spells, that would be the time to take them on.”
Unlike Cook as he approaches his 33rd birthday, Stoneman seems to enjoy the masochistic task at hand. “I don’t think it could have been — despite the results — any better,” he said. “It’s been amazing. “Great attendance, the atmosphere is brilliant — albeit very one-sided. They’re not the nicest people when you’re playing against them. It gives you a different take on the population when they’ve got a few ales down their neck. And the — intensity of the cricket and the feel around it — it’s been second to none, really.”
