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The opening Ashes Test moved forward quickly on the third day in Cardiff with the loss of 15 wickets and the scoring of 332 runs at a fair clip. Australia will begin the fourth day needing 412 to win the Test.
You can follow the live scores and blog of the fourth day of this opening Ashes Test from 8:00pm AEDT.
Resuming at 5/264, Australia would have hoped to get as close as possible to England’s 430 but they fell away quickly once the new ball was taken.
Before that though, there was a small matter of Shane Watson getting out in his 30s, again lbw, to Stuart Broad. The clamour for his place in the side will rise again.
That’s if Australia fail to get close to chasing this humongous total down.
Why humongous? Because statistically, only four teams have ever chased down more than 400 in the final innings to win a Test and while batting in the fourth innings has become slightly easier in recent times, it will require more than a solid effort from the top Aussie order.
What will definitely be needed is for the likes of David Warner, Steven Smith and Michael Clarke to kick off from their starts. Unlike in the first innings.
There were four scores in the 30s for Australia in the first innings and that’s not going to win teams Tests on tracks which are by no means minefields. One of those four 30s should have gone on to get a century and that’s where they will need to improve come the second innings.
There’s enough on offer for the bowlers, so it’s not like England have a lot to worry about. The ball kept hooping around throughout the day, and the new ball will specially pose a threat for the opposition.
That’s because of the class of the bowlers taking – in these conditions both James Anderson and Stuart Broad can make the ball talk. And as was on display in the early part of the third day, even when the ball wasn’t doing much, they restrained the stroke-play, prevented the Aussie batsmen from getting away to a quick one and in turn when the new ball came, shot the lower-order out without too many on the board.
A word on Warner here. For some strange reason he looked like he wanted to play a very different game from what has been on display so far in his career. Why change when it’s a formula that’s worked?
One can hope he will go back to that in the chase; after all, an aggressive start could go a long way in settling the nerves down and setting up a good foundation for the middle-order.
An exciting fourth day’s play beckons which has England starting out as favourites to go 1-0 up. Can Australia make a match out of it and salvage something going into the second Test?
Follow the live scores & blog of the fourth day of this England versus Australia 1st Ashes Test match from 8:00pm AEDT on Saturday and post your comments in the section below.
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