Steve Smith derides English tactics - but Joe Root's side have already shown us their blueprint for Ashes success

If these three days have taught us anything, they have given us a glimpse into how England are going to try and win this series: through containment, constriction, frustration, attrition

Smith may have won this battle but Root and his men have not given up hope of winning the war (Getty)

The press conference was almost over, and Steve Smith had played most of it the same way he had just played England’s bowlers for eight and a half hours: delivery after delivery left outside the off stump. He was looking forward to getting back to the Australian dressing room and maybe treating himself to a nice, relaxing ice bath. Only one question remained. And as it turned out, the question was about England’s tactics. Good play. Steve Smith will always bite on a question about England’s tactics.

“I thought they were pretty defensive from the outset,” he said with a certain relish. “It was almost as though they were waiting for our batters to make a mistake. Unfortunately, the top four made those mistakes. But it felt like it was very defensive. It might be a series where boundaries are hard to come by. Yeah, I thought they were pretty defensive pretty early.”

Of course, when you’ve just batted over four sessions for 141 not out and put Australia in charge of the first Ashes Test, you can pretty much say whatever you want. And yet, in a way, it was perhaps the only loose shot Smith had played all week. For at stake here is not simply a tangential point of interest, but the battle that increasingly looks like underpinning this Ashes series: who benefits from an attritional series? And if we continue to get the sort of cricket we have watched over the last few days, who cracks first?

Smith was referring primarily to the deep-set fields installed by Joe Root in an effort to frustrate him and cut off his favoured leg-side scoring areas. At times there were six men on the leg-side, three in the deep, with no fielder in front of square on the off-side. “Boundaries were quite hard to come by, so it was just trying to get off strike,” he said. “They’re obviously trying a few things there, but it was about playing the ball on its merits, being really patient and waiting for them to bowl where I wanted them to bowl.”

Stuart Broad smiled when Smith’s “defensive” comments were put to him. “Perfect,” he said. “We know the Australians like to score quickly. If we can restrict them from scoring a lot of boundaries, then we’ll have periods of taking wickets. This pitch is pretty slow and flat and hard to get any movement out of, so as a seam bowler your job is to restrict scoring. Look, I think if Australia had got away from us, we’d have put a lot of pressure on ourselves.”

Broad also went into some detail on England’s plans to Smith. Root, in co-ordination with bowling coach Shane Bond and senior bowlers like Broad, has been busily assembling England’s bowling plans over the last few weeks. Together they studied every single one of Smith’s dismissals in Australia over the last four years, and noticed that for a player who loves to shuffle across his stumps, he hardly ever gets LBW or bowled. Attacking the stumps, therefore, was virtually a waste of time.

“A lot of the best batsmen in the world just don’t miss straight balls,” Broad said. “They don’t get LBW and bowled a huge amount. So it’s the outside edge that’s his biggest threat. He was incredibly patient, but if we get a pitch with any sideways movement or a bit more pace, it brings the edge into play.”

Root has been busily assembling England's bowling plans over the last few weeks (Getty)

Except with the ball barely deviating off the straight, the slip cordon was largely an irrelevance too. Which was why England resorted to the quirkier tactics of trying to bounce him out, bore him out, and even giving him a single to get him off the strike. “The less balls we can bowl at Steve Smith, the better for us,” Broad said. “He played with a lot of patience, he was disciplined around his off-stump, but credit to our bowling attack. It must be one of his slowest hundreds.”

Smith won this battle. But England have still not given up hope of winning the war. And if these three days have taught us anything, they have given us a glimpse into how England are going to try and win this series: through containment, constriction, frustration, attrition.

England have repeatedly talked about trying to take Australia’s pace bowlers into “third and fourth spells”, and here again Broad outlined England’s intention to break Australia, slowly and over time. “If you get over 40 overs in a Test match, you get into critical workload,” he said. “The Australian bowlers are a spell off 40 overs. If we can show a lot of patience in that first hour, take them into 50-55 overs for the Test match, then we put ourselves in a great position.”

Of course, it’s an approach with risks of its own. And the ferocity with which Australia’s quicks roared in on Saturday evening suggested that they may be in fine fettle for some time yet. Meanwhile, it was England who seemed to be feeling the pace. Broad, Chris Woakes and Jake Ball all hit 88-89mph in their first spells on Friday - even James Anderson touched 85mph - but had slackened to around 81-84mph by day three. Anderson, meanwhile, was grimacing with a possible side injury.

Steve Smith plays a shot for Australia (Getty)

“I don’t know where this ‘mystery injury’ has come from,” Broad said. “He’s just bowled 30 overs for 50. I spent the whole day with him, and he’s not moaned about anything. It was hot work out there and we had to rotate the bowlers a little bit. It was a plan to make sure we were always hitting the pitch.”

What about the missing pace? “We just bowled a huge amount of cutters today,” Broad explained. “Without the ball particularly seaming or swinging, we decided that rolling our fingers across it was the best way to go. On pitches like this you’ve got to subtly mix your pace a lot. I know historically you watch cricket at the Gabba and you want four slips and you try and snick people off, but this pitch just isn’t that. It’s been a complete surprise.”

To a more prosaic issue, then: what happens now? Australia will fancy their chances of chasing anything below 250. Assuming the same sort of run rate that we have seen over the first three days, that means England will probably need to bat all day, and maybe even beyond. “The first session’s a huge session for both teams,” Smith said. “So we’re going to have to be on our game from ball one.”

James Anderson celebrates the dismissal of Tim Paine (Getty)

For Broad, England are the ones in the driving seat. “We’ve got a lot of control of this game,” he said. “It’s in our hands to bat big tomorrow, to get above 250 or 300 on a final-day pitch. Look, I think we’d take the position we’re in. After three days, we’re probably the best-placed England side here for 30 years. If we set ourselves up well, we’ve got a good chance.”

All to play for, then. Australia remain favourites, of course, because this is Australia, and this is Brisbane. But if England can avoid defeat, then they will be able to claim at least partial vindication. And there is a certain irony, of course, in the fact that it has come to this. These are probably two of the most wildly fluctuating teams in the world game, with two aggressive captains, two aggressive coaches and a penchant for positive cricket. To watch them grappling with each other at 2.5 runs per over is a little like watching greyhounds play chess: both strange, and strangely enthralling.