The Ashes: Australia look to Starc and Lyon at the Gabba, and why England must follow West Indies’ lead

For 33 years, the Gabba was Australia’s fortress.

They were unbeaten there from 1988 until Rishabh Pant inspired India to break the spell in January 2021, propelling the visitors to win the match and the series in the last hour of the last day. Since then, relatively speaking, the cracks have started to show. Australia have won only two of their most recent five Tests at the venue.

England arrive for what is their last scheduled Test at this ground. The second Test, which begins on Thursday, will be the 49th consecutive season with a men’s Test at the Gabba, but Cricket Australia has omitted Brisbane from their 2026-27 roster. The sequence is about to be broken. But what awaits the tourists in Queensland?

Perth has left wounds, and the Gabba will offer no respite, even if it poses a different kind of challenge.

The surface will be a test for overseas batters, but the real danger comes when day turns into night, the sun drops, the lights take over and the pink ball begins to play tricks. In that window, the ‘Twilight Zone’, survival matters more than scoring. A short phase can flip a match, as recent Tests have shown.

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The Gabba is built as a traditional Australian wicket; hard and lively with plenty of carry through to the keeper.

Since the turn of the decade, batting has become harder across Australia, and the Gabba sits among the most punishing venues for top orders. Over the past five years, batters here have averaged only 27.08 runs per wicket, compared with 32.00 in Perth. Even so, the scoring rate has stayed brisk at 3.45 per over — above Adelaide’s 3.21 and just behind Perth’s 3.61.

The Gabba is tougher to survive on, but teams still find ways to keep the scoreboard ticking over, helped by smaller boundaries than in Perth.

The bounce is deceptive. Steve Smith called the 2022 green-top “the toughest wicket I’ve played on in Australia” when interviewed during the game by Channel Seven, and the ICC rated the strip “below average”.

Curator Dave Sandurski aims for balance: enough moisture to last five days without baking, but pace and carry throughout. His template is the recent Sheffield Shield day-night at the venue, giving both batters and bowlers a fair chance. The hosts, Queensland, eventually won that game by seven wickets against Victoria, but the sides mustered 430 and 318-9 declared respectively in their first innings.

Severe storms and heat this week will shape the pitch. How fresh it looks will depend on the rain and the sun.

The day-night format adds another layer of difficulty. As afternoon turns into evening and the lights take over, the air cools and the pitch holds its moisture. That is when bounce and sideways movement come together and batting becomes far harder work.

In this period, only Adelaide Oval has been significantly tougher to bat on. For this sample, four of Adelaide’s five Tests have been day-night pink-ball games, a format that is even more punishing for batters.

Day-night cricket poses a peculiar challenge. It creates clear windows of vulnerability even for set batters, and wickets tend to fall in clusters rather than through slow attrition.

Australia know that pattern and will look to use it under lights.

Mitchell Starc, fresh from a career-best 7-58 in the first innings in Perth, remains the danger man. His overall Test average of 26.64 drops to 17.08 in day-night matches. Under lights, he is even more dangerous and, with Pat Cummins and Josh Hazlewood still absent, his spells are likely to be planned carefully around the periods when the pink ball is at its most threatening.

Behind Starc, Scott Boland (average 13.16 in day-nighters) and Brendan Doggett (five wickets on debut last month) offer depth. Together, they give Australia three seamers able to use both the extra bounce and the lateral movement in key phases under lights.

Once batters get through the new ball, there is some relief. As the pink ball softens and swing drops, scoring becomes easier and the game can drift. In a five-Test series, that is when a spinner is vital, both to control the rate and to protect the fast bowlers’ workloads.

Australia coach Andrew McDonald has highlighted Nathan Lyon’s value in that softer phase, when the ball stops talking and discipline matters more than raw pace. Lyon hardly bowled in Perth — he delivered just two overs, by design rather than form — but his record at the Gabba suggests he should be more integral this week.

In the January 2024 day-night Test against West Indies, he took 5-123, including the wickets of Kavem Hodge and Joshua Da Silva, whose 149-run stand had tilted the first innings towards the visitors.

In that match, Lyon sent down 50 overs at 2.46 an over, tighter than any of Australia’s quicks and offering far more control than West Indies’ seam attack, which went at more than four runs per over. His method is simple: overspin, repetition and a nagging length that attacks the stumps. The Gabba’s bounce does the rest.

Three of his five dismissals were leg before wicket. England will want to attack him but with Lyon fresh, they may need to be patient, absorb Starc, wear out the seamers and then pick their moments against the spinner.

England’s collapse in Perth, losing nine wickets for 105 between lunch and tea on day two, showed how quickly an innings can unravel. That can become likelier still if conditions tilt.

The Gabba has produced the same pattern. In that day-night Sheffield Shield match at the stadium last month, Victoria slid from 158 for 2 to 237-7 in their first innings, then from 114-3 to 143 all out in the second.

Against the West Indies last summer, the twilight spell was just as brutal in the fourth innings. Cameron Green, Travis Head, Mitchell Marsh and Alex Carey all fell in quick succession — Australia lost four wickets for 23 — as Shamar Joseph used that short window under lights to rip through the middle order in what proved a decisive spell.

Yet the same match also showed there is a way through it.

From 64-5, the visitors’ Da Silva (79 off 157) and Hodge (71 off 194) compiled that 149-run partnership for the sixth wicket, contributing almost half of the West Indies’ 311. It was not a Bazball-style counterattack but stubborn, disciplined accumulation: 51.5 overs and at about 2.9 an over, soaking up pressure, putting a high price on their wickets and trusting discipline rather than strokeplay while the ball was at its most dangerous.

At the Gabba, surviving those toughest overs is usually what creates the chance to score later.

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That West Indies partnership showed one way to play the Gabba. The wider record in day-night Tests shows how tough this will be for England.

Australia have won 13 of their 14 pink-ball Tests; the only defeat was that eight-run loss to the West Indies in Brisbane last year. England, by contrast, have two wins in seven day-night Tests and none against Australia. All three previous pink-ball meetings in Australia have ended in defeat.

The pattern around the toss and first-innings runs is just as stark. Australia have batted first in all three day-night Ashes Tests. Since 2021, the side batting first has won seven of nine pink-ball matches worldwide. For England, winning the toss and batting would be the ideal start because chasing under lights remains the hardest route into a game like this.

The innings split explains why.

Over recent day-night Tests, teams have averaged 38.7 runs per wicket in the first innings, then 25.8, 21.2 and 15.5 across the second, third and fourth. Run rates hold up at around 3.5 an over early on, but by the final innings, scores are shorter, wickets fall quicker and the scoring rate drops to 2.51. The first innings is the best chance to build a total, almost like putting runs in the bank before conditions start to drain them away.

For England, if they do bat first, the priorities are simple. They have to get through the danger window, accept slow scoring at times, front-load their runs when conditions allow and resist the urge to force the game when they are playing under lights. The irony is that accepting slow scoring and attrition is usually the sermon after England lose a Test under this regime.

Head is Australia’s most dangerous batter and played the decisive innings in the first Test, but his king pair in the previous day-night match at the Gabba will give England some hope of avoiding a repeat. But it all starts with the platform their batters can build.

And whether they can survive the short, brutal spells that decide matches under lights.