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Lessons from the past provide Headingley pointers

Australia need only to look back a week or even just a few days to find hope that their bowling grind will be rewarded on Sunday

Should Australia's vision of retaining the Ashes start to flag during what's expected to be the final day at Headingley, they need not look far into the past for a reminder of how alarmingly fast fortunes can turn.

It was exactly a week earlier, under the glowering clouds and the burning floodlights of Lord's that Tim Paine's team felt they had successfully snuffed out England's surge to victory due to the resolve of two defiant batters.

Only for that situation to be flipped by a freakish turn of events, and by bowlers sufficiently gifted to exploit them.

Australia had begun their second innings last Sunday facing a match scenario from which it was accepted that only England could fashion a win – they needed to score 267 runs or survive 48 overs in gathering gloom.

They seemed to have achieved the latter when Marnus Labuschagne and Travis Head forged a stoic fourth-wicket stand of 85 that was only broken when Labuschagne clubbed a sweep shot into a close-in fielder and the resultant rebound catch was claimed by England skipper Joe Root.

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From there, in the space of five overs, Australia lost two more wickets and played out a gut-churning final 22 minutes as England pushed relentlessly for victory.

A week later, England launched their tilt at an equally improbable triumph in contrasting conditions on day three of a similarly remarkable third Test at Headingley.

Their assignment was 359 runs - a total no England outfit has ever scored in the fourth innings of a Test to win – or survive for 268 overs (somehow scoring barely a run per over) to claim a draw.

Both those scenarios loomed as pipe dreams when openers Rory Burns (7) and Jason Roy (8) were sent packing within the innings' first hour to leave the hosts 2-15 and staring at the likelihood the Ashes were lost.

But by stumps, the England dressing room was nursing that same cautious hope their rivals had dared to ponder from the players' balcony at Lord's last week before pandemonium broke loose in the final half-hour.

Watching Root take his team to within 203 runs - firstly with Joe Denly (a partnership of 126) and then with his steely deputy Ben Stokes (an unbeaten stand of 15 from more than a dozen overs) – there grew a view that the win which seemed so distant upon embarkation had materialised, in albeit ghostly form, on the horizon.

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"I still think we’re in very good position," the dogged Denly said after play on Sunday.

"There's a lot of belief in that dressing room, and a lot of excitement about tomorrow."

The excitement that had coursed through that room in the five minutes or so after lunch was doubtless created by the flurry of blokes rushing to strap on their pads, given their experience of England's first innings a day earlier.

But surely, and then slowly, the madness was replaced by a methodology that had been sorely absent on Friday when England were skittled for just 67, in less than 28 overs and just over two hours.

So stark was that contrast that the final hour on Saturday in Leeds, played under gloriously soft late-summer sunlight, yielded just 18 runs from 17 overs.

In an ordinary year, that would have been interpreted as a negative mindset and one that wouldn't best serve England against such an obviously well-drilled and always dangerous bowling attack.

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However, that was before England banked the self-confidence that accompanied the gilded trophy and bulging purse handed to World Cup winners.

It was their top-order's capacity to withstand the suffocating pressure and multi-pronged potency of Pat Cummins, Josh Hazlewood and James Pattinson, as well as spin pair Nathan Lyon and Labuschagne, that buoyed hopes.

"We're not getting too far ahead of ourselves," Denly said.

"We understand there is a tricky period in the morning with new ball coming up (after a further eight overs).

"But we have Rooty and Stokesy - two world class batters in - so get through that, and we will be in a great position."

It's the arrival of a brand-new ball within the first hour of play on day four that also excites the Australia bowlers, who did everything except take regular wickets during five-and-a-half hours of unrelenting toil on Saturday.

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If that new ball proves as decisive as it has across the first three days of the Test – in which 11 wickets have tumbled within the first 20 overs of each of the three completed innings thus far – then Australia will regain outright favouritism.

And retain the Ashes.

That's because, as they found when Labuschagne's dismissal came against the trend of play at Lord's last weekend, the culling of one wicket carries the potential to send a team into free-fall.

"That's how it works over here," Labuschagne said at day's close, with England 3-156 and Root unbeaten on 75.

"You always find that there's big partnerships, but then there's one, two, three wickets.

"It can happen very quickly, so that's why you've just got to make sure you shut that scoreboard down and make sure you keep the pressure on.

"Because when you lose one or two wickets, all of a sudden the scoreboard can look a lot different.

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"That'll be what we're trying to do tomorrow, trying to make sure we're shutting down the scoreboard and making sure we're bowling balls in good areas with that new ball."

Friday's first session-and-a-bit at Headingley – played under the same sort of cloudless sky and warming sunshine that is forecast for day four – proved an extreme example of the new ball's destructive power.

England did not simply lose wickets in clumps, they all fell into a single, steaming pile.

However, as Labuschagne pointed out, the pitch upon which that carnage was wrought has now evolved into a far better batting surface.

That's despite the first few signs of variable bounce becoming disconcertingly obvious during Saturday's low-scoring evening session.

"The wicket has flattened out a little bit, day three is probably one of the better days to bat," Labuschagne said.

"So if we show the same discipline we had today, with the new ball tomorrow we'll definitely reap the rewards."

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It's not only Australia's recollections from their scare at Lord's a week ago that offers salutary caution and comfort heading into day four at Leeds.

The visitors might be boosted by the previous Ashes campaign in Australia, specifically the second Test in Adelaide (played with a pink ball and under lights) that threw up a hauntingly similar scenario to this game.

On that occasion, England entered the final day needing a further 178 runs to reach their target of 354 with six wickets available, including Root who resumed on 67.

When he was caught behind by Hazlewood (who has dismissed England's captain more times than any other bowler in Tests) without adding to his overnight tally, England were duly bowled out 121 runs shy.

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Or Root's team might prefer to take heart from another defeat they suffered – at Headingley, two summers ago.

That was when the West Indies were set an apparently ungettable benchmark of 322 on a day-five pitch, against an attack featuring Jimmy Anderson, Stuart Broad, Chris Woakes and Stokes.

And on a pitch that offered that quartet nothing other than heartburn, the West Indies reached their goal with five wickets to spare.

2019 Qantas Ashes Tour of England

Australia squad: Tim Paine (c), Cameron Bancroft, Pat Cummins, Marcus Harris, Josh Hazlewood, Travis Head, Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne, Nathan Lyon, Mitchell Marsh, Michael Neser, James Pattinson, Peter Siddle, Steve Smith, Mitchell Starc, Matthew Wade, David Warner.

England squad: Joe Root (c), Jofra Archer, Jonny Bairstow, Stuart Broad, Rory Burns, Jos Buttler, Sam Curran, Joe Denly, Jack Leach, Jason Roy, Ben Stokes (vc), Chris Woakes.

First Test: Australia beat England by 251 runs at Edgbaston

Second Test: Match drawn at Lord's

Third Test: August 22-26, Headingley

Tour match: Australians v Derbyshire, August 29-31

Fourth Test: September 4-8, Old Trafford

Fifth Test: September 12-16, The Oval