Ollie Robinson struck an early Ashes blow for England when he needed just one ball to dismiss Marnus Labuschagne, Australia’s number three, at Hove.
Robinson has spent the last weeks bowling in the nets to Steve Smith. Now, he was up against Australia’s other middle other lynchpin, who hit half-centuries in his first four Ashes innings in 2019.
Bowling down the slope at Hove, Robinson aimed to attack Labuschagne’s front pad. He bowled a good length, seaming the ball in past a bat that was slightly angled towards the on side. When he had hit his target, Robinson burst off in celebration – a la Stuart Broad – before giving a perfunctory look over his shoulder to confirm that umpire Rob White had raised his finger. Labuschagne seemed to gesture that the ball might have been high, although replays suggested that, had it been available, the Decision Review System would not have saved him.
Robinson wheeled away in delight, running past Labuschagne as he was engulfed first by wicketkeeper Oli Carter, and then the entire rest of the Sussex team. Smith, fielding at second slip, congratulated Robinson with a high five.
For Smith, this moment might have been just a little bittersweet, with June 16 at Edgbaston in mind. But he could draw solace from his own performance later in the day. In the late afternoon sun, Smith unfurled an extra cover drive for four to his fourth delivery. He found the most fluent batting of his three-game stint at Sussex, reaching his maiden County Championship half-century with a backfoot punch. As he closed on an unbeaten 68, with Sussex 221-4, it confirmed that Glamorgan’s 123 owed to the unerring excellence of Robinson and the rest of the home attack, and some frail batting, rather than anything untoward about the pitch.
Yet Smith’s driving – and a particularly sumptuous flick through midwicket, off first-class debutant Zain-ul-Hassan – could not quite supplant Robinson’s duel with Labuschagne as the day’s most memorable action. The contest could not have been shorter; England will hope its effects linger into the start of the Ashes and beyond. Robinson only dismissed Labuschagne once in four Tests in 2021/22, but now has a dismissal that he will hope to reprise in the white heat of this year’s Ashes.
When he arrived at the crease in Glamorgan’s tenth over, Labuschagne took guard in characteristically meticulous fashion. He had two balls left to face from Aristides Karvelas, Robinson’s opening partner. Labuschagne left his first ball alone, exhibiting the swish-leave practised by Smith. To his second delivery, Labuschagne pushed the ball into the off side, running through for a sharp single which ensured that he retained the strike. Robinson lay in wait.
Yet, for all the exuberance of his celebration, there was no sense that snaring Labuschagne had sated Robinson. The over ended with him almost dismissing Sam Northeast too, but in a very different way: Robinson got a ball to rear up, into a gap between the bat and ribcage.
Returning in his second spell, again from the Crowell Rd End, he needed just three balls to embarrass Kiran Carlson – shouldering arms at a delivery that moved so sharply back that it uprooted his off stump. After he added Michael Neser and Timm van Der Gugten – two men raised in Australia, though van Der Gugten plays for Netherlands – Robinson ended with figures of 4-29 from 12 overs. Across his last two Championship games, he has now taken 18 wickets for just 146 runs, looking like the most threatening seam bowler in the country.
It could be a harbinger of what is to come later this summer. Often well down on fitness and pace, Robinson still took 11 wickets at 25.54 apiece down under in 2021/22. Happily, his fitness issues now seem a thing of the past. And so England will hope – and expect – that Robinson plays in all five Tests this summer, especially with uncertainty over the availability of so many other members of the attack.
As Labuschagne could attest, Robinson’s cocktail of seam, swing, an unusually high release point and dangerous bounce pose a threat in all climes. No longer is Robinson’s threat prone to diminish in his later spells. And so, in his 30th year, this Ashes series could mark the moment when Robinson becomes England’s attack-leader. Should it do so, the summer might yet end with the urn in new hands.
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