Head, Marsh hold key in low-scoring Headingley Test

The pair who pulled Australia back from the precipice on day one now hold heavy responsibility to keep their team afloat in a wildly fluctuating third Test with England eyeing another fourth-innings run chase to keep themselves in the Ashes contest.

After another rollicking day on which both teams seemed hellbent on handing back any hard-earned advantage, Australia are 4-116 and an uncomfortable 142 runs ahead in their second innings after claiming England's last seven wickets for 169 earlier in the day.

Knowing they need to set England a pursuit beyond that given events of last weekend at Lord's, their hopes rest with undefeated pair Travis Head (18no) and first innings century maker Mitchell Marsh (17no), the combination that put together a match-changing stand of 155 on Thursday.

But that advantage is significantly less than it might have been if not for another bout of heavyweight counter-punching from England captain Ben Stokes whose contrasting innings of 80 once more might yet keep his team in the Ashes battle.

With thunderstorms forecast for the remaining three days of the third Test, Australia will know they need only to draw this Test to retain the urn they've held since 2017-18.

But that aim was obviously far from front of mind when their two top-ranked batters Marnus Labuschagne and Steve Smith fell to what can only be described as questionable shot selection to leave their team in peril heading into Friday's final hour.

On what outwardly appeared the best batting day of the series to date – under flawless sunshine on a fast-paced pitch – 11 wickets fell for 285, all of them to catches and a majority of those behind the wicket.

Perversely, it was yet another dropped catch by butter-fingered England that triggered their barnstorming final session comeback where they snatched 3-87 from 35 overs.

When Mitchell Starc had Chris Woakes gifting his wicket on the dot of lunch, Australia took their tucker in a state of satisfaction having steamrolled through England's middle-order to snare four wickets in the session while still holding a first-innings lead of more than 120.

Image Id: 5B617E8EE8D84AC5BCF76E254AC0DDB3 Image Caption: Ben Stokes (80) was a thorn in Australia's side once again // Getty

Furthermore, the only recognised batter unaccounted for – the ever-dangerous Stokes – was battling injury having hurt his right hip while scrambling for a single shortly before the adjournment.

With doubts over whether England fast bowler Ollie Robinson would be able to bat having left the field on day one with what was later revealed as a back spasm, Australia's Ashes rivals were clearly up against it … the exact circumstance on which Stokes thrives.

Despite his physical impairment, which saw him routinely end up on his hands and knees as flexibility failed in the face of Australia's short-pitched barrage, Stokes surged from 27 to 80 off 41 balls faced after lunch and – once again – dragged his team back into the match in the process.

Rather than ceding a lead of 100 or more, the margin was hauled back to 26 with 95 runs bludgeoned from just 10.2 overs in the afternoon session in a manner that must have stirred some bitter memories in the Australia dressing room.

That feeling of history – both recent, and from four years earlier – repeating became more resonant in the third over of their second innings when opener David Warner again succumbed to his new-ball nemesis Stuart Broad.

Warner perished in precisely the same manner he went in opening over of the first innings, pushing forward hard at Broad operating around the wicket and nicking to second slip where Zak Crawley again plucked a neat catch.

It was the 17th time Broad has knocked over Warner in Tests and, provided both make it to the end of the five-match series, there's a chance it may overtake Glenn McGrath's 19-times stranglehold over Mike Atherton as the most prolific domination of an individual opponent by any Test bowler.

With Robinson still absent and Stokes indicating his body was too broken for him to bowl even before today's latest injury setback, it seemed England's best chance of making deep incisions into their rivals' batting was first-innings fast man Mark Wood.

So when Wood, who had claimed 5-34 and demolished Australia's lower-order with searing pace in the first innings, finished his three-over spell wicketless and Khawaja and Labuschagne made it to tea with the lead at 55, the visitors looked to have weathered the initial storm.

However, that all changed shortly after the pair posted their 50-run partnership at which stage the game seemed to be slipping from England's fingers.

It was quite literally the case when Jonny Bairstow fumbled yet another chance, his third of what is proving a wretched Test for the maligned England gloveman, when Labuschagne was 33 and Wood was nearing the end of another hostile spell without success.

Labuschagne's attempted pull at a short ball, delivered around the wicket as a clear tactic, brushed his glove and landed in the middle of Bairstow's left glove at full stretch, only to dribble to the turf.

No sooner had the groans around his home crowd at Headingley subsided than the crowd were baying in delight and disbelief as Labuschagne aimed an ill-advised slog sweep at the next ball he faced from Moeen and holed out to deep mid-wicket.

The mood and momentum of the afternoon shifted markedly on that moment of misjudgement as England, down and seemingly out after a forgettable first session, sensed their chance and seized it.

Having plucked a breakthrough against the run of play, Moeen – who bowled unchanged through the entire final session – grabbed another in his next over to send the Western Terrace into rapture and set England on the sort of third innings rampage that has become a feature of their reinvention under 'Bazball'.

In a 100th Test that has proved more a celebration of his catching than his batting, Smith whipped a full-length ball at knee height to mid-wicket as England's fielders danced and hollered, the most demonstrable response coming from Bairstow who chirped 'see ya, Smudge'.

It was Moeen's 200th Test wicket, a remarkable achievement given he retired from the long-form game two years ago only to answer an SOS from Stokes prior to this Ashes series, and becomes only the third England spinner to reach the milestone behind Derek Underwood and Graeme Swann.

If Australia could see any solace in their predicament at 3-72 and just 98 runs ahead – having lost 2-4 in 14 balls – it was the immediate menace of Wood had passed after the express quick sent down five overs unchanged at the conclusion of which he was clearly spent.

However, the introduction of Woakes as a more sedate replacement yielded perhaps the most important scalp when he slid a full delivery across Khawaja which Australia's most prolific batter of this rollercoaster series nicked to Bairstow who gleefully held the chance.

On a day where largely cloud-free skies saw Yorkshire summer push past 25C, England's best hope of posting a hefty lead on a premier batting day lay with local lads Joe Root and Bairstow who resumed on 19 and 1 respectively.

That aspiration evaporated within two balls of play beginning when Cummins extracted sufficient bounce to have Root reflexively pushing at a ball he could have let harmlessly past and the resultant edge wobbled to Warner at slip.

Had Root – who turfed two straight forward chances at slip a day earlier – been fielding in that prime position to himself, there's a good chance today's innings might not have ended before it started.

But despite being wrong-footed by the ball's erratic path, Warner's catching was more assured than his subsequent batting and the Headingley crowd was hushed.

It's the tenth time Cummins has snared Root in nine Ashes contests, with the former England captain scoring just 226 among those dismissals which represents less than half his career Test batting average.

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Cummins opted to open with Scott Boland from the Howard Stand End, but after a couple of overs he swapped him for Mitchell Starc which delivered immediate results.

Bairstow had struggled to find any rhythm in his normally fluent batting and when he was tucked up by the first two balls he faced from Starc he couldn't help himself but throw his hands at a full delivery angled across him and Australia's slips catching again proved unerring.

At 5-87 and still 176 runs adrift with both hometown heroes back in the shed inside half an hour, Australia's day could scarcely have started more profitably even though England's batting had been deepened by the inclusion of allrounders Moeen Ali and Chris Woakes.

But the situation in which the home team found themselves saw a distinct change in tactics with 'entertain at all times' sacrificed in favour of 'survival at all costs'.

Stokes and Moeen effectively dropped anchor and went more than 11 overs without posting a boundary, believed to be unprecedented since relevant Test records have been kept (ie the birth of 'Bazball').

However, their reliance on sharp singles to keep the board ticking and the crowd from insurrection came at a cost when Moeen knocked Boland to mid-on and Stokes – fearing Cummins would throw at the striker's end stumps – stretched for his ground and soon after found himself in strife.

At the end of the next over, he was seen gingerly flexing his right leg and two overs later he summoned medical help for an examination of his right hip/buttock which was revealed to be the source of his obvious discomfort.

With Stokes increasingly hobbled, Moeen decided he would be the man to move things along and after he finally found the boundary – to a raucous roar from the western terrace – he repeated the dose twice in a solitary over from Cummins who was pitching full at the stumps.

Cummins then adjusted his mode of attack next over, and went short to Moeen who obliged by coughing up his wicket in a barely believable manner.

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Having survived a miscued pull that soared into the clear blue sky and landed in vacant territory behind square leg, Moeen unfurled the same stroke with the same result next ball he faced only to find Smith standing in the very place the earlier mishit had landed.

Moeen's brain explosion brought Woakes to the wicket, with no change in the bowling blueprint given the right-hander's well known distaste for bouncers.

Australia persisted with the bouncer ploy to Woakes and neither party was surprised when he feathered an attempted baseball slog through to keeper Alex Carey, and almost apologetically called for a review in an act of misplaced hope.

Woakes's dismissal meant 14 of England's past 25 wickets in this series had fallen to pull shots, underscoring how heavily Australia's adoption of the short-ball blueprint late on day two at Lord's had altered the course of the campaign.

It also ensured England went to lunch 7-142, still 121 in arrears and having progressed – by the benchmark of their Test performances over the preceding year – at the soporific rate of barely three runs an over.

Normal service was resumed after the break when Mark Wood came out swinging, and rattled up runs at greater speed than he'd shown with the ball on day one when he regularly topped 150kph.

Wood brought the newly refreshed crowd alive by belting the first ball he faced form Starc over fine leg for six, then carving a boundary beyond the slip cordon and following up with a second six, struck even sweeter over backward square leg.

England's best bowler then continued the charge against Cummins, lathering him for another six over mid-wicket before sending a fly ball into orbit with Mitchell Marsh arresting its descent at wide mid-on.

But the enterprise Wood had shown was taken up by Stokes upon his departure, and the game entered hauntingly familiar territory as the England skipper reprised his heroics from Headingley four years ago, and the even-fresher-in-memory assault at Lord's last Sunday.

Stokes was 28 from 69 balls faced when Wood's wicket fell – seven deliveries later he was 44 and the deficit decreasing with every swing of his unerring bat.

Cummins then went for the one tactic denied his team during Stokes's hitting frenzy at Lord's due to the absence of injured Nathan Lyon, and threw the ball to his 22-year-old spinner Todd Murphy playing just his fifth Test and first in the Ashes cauldron.

Murphy might have snared his first Ashes wicket with his second delivery which the England captain tried to deposit in the sparsely populated second tier of the Howard Stand only to sky a miscue to mid-off that Starc was unable to clasp after running 20m and launching a despairing dive.

That maiden wicket then could have come next ball when Stokes, who had fallen backwards in pain and disgust at his mighty mishit and therefore couldn't hobble through for a run, slapped a scorching return catch at Murphy who couldn't hold the waist-high chance travelling at warp speed.

It was those couple of near misses that must have encouraged both Cummins and his greenhorn spinner that he was the best chance of slowing Stokes' charge, although that faith seemed sadly misplaced when the first two balls of his next over were launched down the ground and into the crowd.

The first of those blows brought up Stokes' 50 – off 86 balls faced – with 30 of those coming from the previous 17 deliveries flung at him.

His hitting became all the more urgent, just as his movement was coming with ever-greater restriction, when Broad holed out to a stunning diving catch by Smith running to his right at deep backward square leg with Labuschagne also haring towards him.

Three more sixes off Murphy who had clearly not encountered such brutality in his five-Test career to date, took the deficit below 30 and Stokes within sight of a second consecutive Ashes century scored in identical and brazenly belligerent fashion.

But in attempting to leap from 80 to 86 in a single blow, Stokes flew close to the sun once too often and Smith held another outfield catch, equalling the record for most by a non-keeper in a Test innings (five) which made for a stark contrast to England's fielding in this series.

2023 Qantas Ashes Tour of the UK

First Test: Australia won by two wickets

Second Test: Australia won by 43 runs

Third Test: Thursday July 6-Monday July 10, Headingley

Fourth Test: Wednesday July 19-Sunday July 23, Old Trafford

Fifth Test: Thursday July 27-Monday 31, The Oval

Australia squad: Pat Cummins (c), Scott Boland, Alex Carey (wk), Cameron Green, Marcus Harris, Josh Hazlewood, Travis Head, Josh Inglis (wk), Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne, Nathan Lyon, Mitch Marsh, Todd Murphy, Michael Neser, Matthew Renshaw, Steve Smith (vc), Mitchell Starc, David Warner

England squad: Ben Stokes (c), Rehan Ahmed, James Anderson, Jonathan Bairstow, Stuart Broad, Harry Brook, Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett, Dan Lawrence, Jack Leach, Ollie Pope, Matthew Potts, Ollie Robinson, Joe Root, Josh Tongue, Chris Woakes, Mark Wood

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