Sitting two-nil down before this third Test and needing three straight wins to regain the Ashes was, said Ben Stokes, the “perfect place” for his England team. A captain with his own tankard and bar stool at the last chance saloon can only get them so far, however, and his fellow drinkers must step up to keep their Ashes hopes alive.
That England got to within 26 runs of Australia’s first innings 263 all out – a total ballooned by their own butterfingers 24 hours earlier – was down to the latest display of shock and awe from Stokes. With his body falling apart, and teammates regularly kicked out of the back door in a six-wicket performance from Pat Cummins, Stokes cracked 80 more runs of bloody-minded defiance when all hope seemed lost for his troops.
And on a ground with recent form for substantial fourth-innings run chases, an attack already shorn of Ollie Robinson and rested for only 52.3 overs just about delivered enough incisions before the close. Australia had reached 116 for four from 47 overs and a lead of 142 runs, the tourists more than happy to shut down proceedings in the final stages as Mark Wood, down on pace but not heart, hurtled in.
Rain is due over the weekend and a draw would ensure Australia retain the Ashes. But having already seen regular holes punched in their own hull, they will want to leave nothing to chance on a surface that is expected to ease. Mitch Marsh, their first-innings centurion and looking solid, will resume on 17, Travis Head on 18. There is plenty of work to do before they can tell their hosts “time please, gentlemen”.
The third innings of this fast forward affair began in what has become almost traditional fashion, Stuart Broad producing a carbon copy dismissal of David Warner when an edge again flew to Zak Crawley on one. Make that 17 times in Test cricket. But it was increasingly clear this would be a grind for England’s jaded seamers and Moeen Ali, now the spinner in a four-man attack, would need to step up for the captain who had charmed him out of retirement at the start of last month.
And step up he did, Moeen claiming the wickets of Marnus Labuschagne and Steve Smith in the space of nine balls to hit 200 in his Test career. The former was dropped by Jonny Bairstow moments before in what has become an increasingly desperate showing for the wicketkeeper but was soon held by a tumbling Harry Brook in the deep for 33. Smith’s was a weirdly timid demise, chipping to mid-wicket on two.
It was also weird that Bairstow chose to offer Smith a few words here given his own travails. Still, a catch did settle in the Yorkshireman’s gloves when Chris Woakes found the edge of Usman Khawaja’s bat to end his latest display of obduracy on 43. With it an England team earlier revived by their talismanic captain could head into day three upbeat. Who knows, if rain does follow, they may even get the chance to recharge.
But for the dropped catches on day one that allowed Australia off the hook, things would be markedly different. To that end, and with blue skies overhead first thing, there was an expectation that at least one of the guilty parties would look to make a statement. The Yorkshire members will no doubt point out that appearances for the club are fleeting these days but Joe Root and Bairstow, cheered to the rafters as they galloped out, still know every blade of Headingley grass.
Instead, from 68 for three and still 195 runs in arrears, both Tykes were terminated inside the first 30 minutes of play. Root fell second ball, guiding Cummins with an open face to first slip on his overnight 19, while Bairstow fared little better. His best work comes when playing the ball from underneath his nose but when Mitchell Starc sent down a wide delivery, the eyes lit up and an ambitious drive flew high into the cordon.
So began the Brummie engine room – Moeen and Woakes. Stokes and Moeen got their heads down in a stand of 44 that featured a couple of succulent fours from the latter. But by lunch England were 142 for seven, the city of a thousand trades delivering a lamentable hook from Moeen that soared to Smith on 21 – the ball after top-edging one just short – and a skittish 10 from Woakes ended with a feather behind on the pull.
Australia had been clinical but then came the fightback, England somehow trowelling 95 runs on to their pile in 62 balls after the break. It started with Wood cracking a gunslinger’s 24 from eight – three sixes and one four, remarkably – only to be shut down by Cummins for his fifth. But the Headingley crowd had been stirred into life and Stokes, struggling with a newly pulled glute, that dodgy left knee, and having worn blows to the hand and box, summoned the inner beast once more.
Here was the Stokes from last Sunday and that incendiary 155 at Lord’s, rolling out the hits for his audience. After all, who turns up at a Rolling Stones gig hoping for new material? Sitting 28 from 68 balls when Wood fell, the all-rounder took on Starc initially, three fours smeared across this rapid outfield, before turning his attention to Todd Murphy in a baptism of fire for the Ashes newcomer.
Murphy could have had Stokes twice in two balls before the onslaught, it must be said, Starc failing to grasp a tough tumbling effort and the off-spinner then powerless to pouch a ball drilled back in his direction. The upshot? Some five sixes launched by the increasingly grimacing Stokes, the all-rounder raging against the dying of the innings.
But in the end, and with Broad bounced out to hand Cummins his sixth, Murphy got his man when a weary Stokes picked out long on. Smith was the catcher, this his fifth of the innings to equal his own record for an Australian outfielder.
Whether at slip or in the deep, the ball followed Smith on another day of goading from the crowd. But those hands remain so wonderfully adhesive – something which is proving a major difference between these two teams and may well have been fired back later when Bairstow sent him on his way.
