The 30-year-old conceded 113 runs on Day 2 but rallied with late wickets to keep England alive in the second Ashes Test
THE GABBA — It says much about the character of Brydon Carse that towards the end of a day when he produced arguably his worst performance in an England shirt, he came back from the brink to potentially keep his team in this pivotal second Ashes Test.
The 30-year-old had shipped 95 runs across the first 12 overs he bowled, Australia’s batters seizing the momentum in this day-night contest to put the Bazballers’ Ashes hopes in serious jeopardy.
So bad was his performance with the ball that former Australia batter Mark Waugh, on commentary for Fox Sports, was moved to say: “That is third grade stuff. That’s not great for a Test bowler.”
Yet anyone who had watched Carse over the first 10 Tests of his career knows he has an uncanny knack of taking wickets however badly he’s bowling.
This is a player captain Ben Stokes once said has the “heart of a lion”. For much of this second day in Brisbane he was more of a Ragdoll, rolling over and having his tummy tickled as the home batters gorged on a diet of buffet bowling from the Durham man.
Yet he roared back in spectacular fashion, taking two wickets in the first four balls of his fourth spell to peg Australia back from 291 for three to 292 for five.
The scalps, Cameron Green and Steve Smith, men who had just shared a 95-run fourth-wicket stand to bring their team to the brink of England’s first-innings total, were big.
He also had a catch dropped during those eventful first four balls of his 13th over, Ben Duckett at gully spilling Alex Carey on nought.
Lesser men might have struggled to come back so strongly. Not Carse. There was no great skill in his breakthroughs. Green inexplicably stepped away from a delivery that bowled him, while Smith fell to a catch for the ages from Will Jacks at deep backward square leg.
Yet Carse continued pounding in, with the in-built belief that served him so well when he moved from his native South Africa to Durham at the age of 16 coming to the fore in the red-hot cauldron of an Ashes series.
It’s something that has helped him through the tough times, including being banned for three months in the summer of 2024 for breaching betting rules. Carse had gambled on 303 matches, although none he’d played in, between 2017 and 2019.
It says much about the esteem he was held in that he was handed his England Test debut in Pakistan weeks after that ban ended.
That faith was rewarded in his first Test in Multan when across 38 back-breaking overs he took four wickets on a pitch so dead that England scored 823 for seven declared on it.
He found even greater reward in New Zealand a couple of months later, taking 18 wickets at 17 to help England win the series 2-1. That’s where Stokes, who grew up with Carse at Durham, praised his heart, adding: “Whenever you chuck him the ball he’s going to give 100 per cent – he would keep bowling even if his toe was ripped off. He wouldn’t show any pain, he’d just keep going and going.”
That’s what he did on this second day in Brisbane, one that despite his three wickets was also largely disappointing for both Carse and England. Indeed, his century of conceded runs came in just 85 balls, the quickest by an England pace bowler in Tests.
There was still one more moment of pain for Carse right at the end of the day when he spilled a chance off Jofra Archer’s bowling to dismiss Michael Neser on six. It was the second drop off Archer’s bowling and England’s fifth on a day they were lucky to end still with a slim chance in this match given how badly they bowled.
Archer was easily England’s best performer on a day that threatened to get truly ugly for the Bazballers. They are still in big trouble, but if the rest of the team can dig deep and show the kind of character displayed by Carse, they may still yet have a chance.
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