One day was enough to remind everyone why pace can decide Ashes in Australia.
After more than a decade of bruising tours, England produced a single, thunderous session in Perth that felt like a statement. Nineteen wickets tumbled on day one — the most on an Ashes opening day since 1909 — and England finished with a 49-run lead, one tailender to remove and the chance to set an imposing target. For a side that has sometimes misread Australian conditions, this was a deliberately planned shock-and-awe moment.
The strategy to bring raw speed has been in the making since the 2023 home Ashes. That overhaul is why James Anderson was effectively eased out: England wanted the quickest unit they’d assembled in over half a century. The result in Perth vindicated that gamble. The attack averaged 87.6mph across the day, the fastest collective pace England have ever produced in a Test, and the effect on the Australian batting was dramatic.
The day began like a carnival on the Swan River — fans in party mood, colourful scenes around the ground — and quickly turned into a battering. England’s own first innings was brief and ambitious: 172 all out in 32.5 overs, the shortest opening-innings effort in an Ashes Test in Australia for 123 years and a rare Bazball low point. But the intent to challenge Mitchell Starc and score briskly was plain. When the seamers found their lines, the scoreboard barely knew what hit it.
Ben Stokes, Jofra Archer, Gus Atkinson, Mark Wood and Brydon Carse combined hostility, accuracy and relentlessness. Michael Vaughan hailed it as some of the highest-quality fast bowling he’d seen from an England attack. There were eye-catching dismissals: an Archer delivery trapped Jake Weatherald lbw; Carse produced a vicious lifter to uproot Usman Khawaja; Wood’s short ball hammered into Cameron Green’s grille and nearly sent him spinning off his feet.
Australia were repeatedly pushed onto the back foot. For long spells they were forced to play off the back foot — the most such deliveries faced since tracking began nearly 20 years ago — and their false-shot rate climbed to 35%, the highest in that same period. Steve Smith, standing in as captain and the most prolific Ashes run-getter since Don Bradman, was unusually unsettled: 49 balls for 17 runs and a false-shot percentage reportedly around 49%, one of the highest marks of his career.
Depth of pace mattered. England used five recognised quicks in a red-ball Test in Australia for the first time since 1998, giving them relentless options and different threats. The personal stories behind those names only make the performance richer: Archer is only three Tests into a comeback after four injury-plagued years and already looks like a genuine match-winner; Wood returned from 15 months out and, approaching 36, resumed blasting short stuff; Carse played having overcome a ban for historic betting offences; Atkinson has fought through personal tragedy since starting his professional career; and Stokes landed back in Perth, the scene of one of his earliest Ashes triumphs, to produce a match-turning all-round performance — a five-wicket haul and his best away bowling figures in over a decade.
Fast bowling has been the spine of England’s most famous Ashes victories in Australia, and this unit looks central to any hope of repeating those feats. Still, the job isn’t done: a match remains to be won and England’s batters must convert a promising platform into a definitive advantage. Australia will also come back stronger with Pat Cummins likely available for the second Test.
Perth has been a place where single-Test dominance can be deceptive — India won a Perth game after bowling their opponents out cheaply but still lost the series the following year — so this performance, impressive as it was, is an opening salvo rather than a verdict.
It was only one day, but a loud reminder: when England’s quicks are firing, they can make Australia look fragile. For now, after a long run of painful tours, one extraordinary day feels worth celebrating.