England do not have a tougher cricketer right now than Mark Stoneman. He is alone in being bemused by the poverty and paucity of Australia’s sledging; forged in the northeast, he came here expecting more. He has absorbed more blows brought by bumpers — on day one at the Waca there was a broken bat and a broken helmet — than anyone else. He is truly toughing it out and with some, if not lavish, success. Having survived a leg-before appeal from Josh Hazlewood that never looked right, he took three straight boundaries off Mitchell Starc for the second successive innings, and was particularly severe on…

Source: The Times December 14, 2017 09:00 UTC