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England finally boss Australia at the MCG

27th December, 2017
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Alastair Cook may have experienced some lows, but always emerged from them. (Nick Potts/PA Wire.)
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27th December, 2017
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A rejuvenated England dominated with bat and ball yesterday to inject some interest into this lopsided Ashes.

The tourists had their best day of the series so far, first producing a clinical performance in the field and then finally getting some runs from leaders Joe Root and Alastair Cook, who flopped across the first three Tests.

By stumps England were 2/192, trailing by 132 runs, with Cook and Root unbeaten on 104 and 49 respectively.

Earlier England maintained the impressive discipline with the ball they had shown on Day 1, except this time they got full reward.

At 3/260, with Steve Smith on 76 and Shaun Marsh 35, Australia had negotiated the second new ball and looked set for a total of well over 400. Instead England hauled themselves back into the Test by grabbing 7/67. They had a bit of luck, with Smith, Mitch Marsh and Tim Paine all chopping on to their stumps in the first session, but the tourists deserved some fortune after bowling with skill, patience and intensity.

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For the first time in this series Stuart Broad and James Anderson clicked in tandem. Broad in particular looked a different bowler from the moment he broke his long wicket-taking drought by getting Usman Khawaja caught behind after tea on day one.

After ambling to the crease during many uninspired spells in this Ashes Broad began charging towards the batsmen. Anderson, meanwhile, nagged away on a tight line and length, a strategy which did not always work on the truer surfaces at Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth, but was effective on this sluggish MCG deck.

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How England will wish that their veteran quicks had combined like this a few weeks ago, before the Ashes were lost. Regardless, it was a spirited display, and that determination flowed over into England’s innings. Australia’s quicks have had their way with the English batting line-up this series. The frailty of former skipper Cook has been key to the imbalance in this contest.

Yesterday, however, we saw Cook circa 2010 – a commanding figure rather than the vulnerable 2017 version. It’s often said that you can easily tell when Cook is in form because he starts lacing drives to the boundary. When he’s out of nick Cook barely pierces the field in front of square, looking to slice everything through point and gully or nurdle it off his hip or pads through backward square leg.

This is the way he batted across the first three Tests as he averaged just 13. Then all of a sudden yesterday Cook went from camping deep in his crease to striding confidently towards the ball. Down the ground, through wide on, past cover – he started timing his drives beautifully.

Alastair Cook

AAP Image/Dave Hunt

It wasn’t until he was on 66 that Cook made his first real mistake, trying to hammer a drive off the bowling of Mitch Marsh only to edge to first slip, where Steve Smith turfed a sharp chance. Root, meanwhile, looked equally as comfortable at the crease.

This pair was helped, no doubt, by the absence of the leading wicket-taker in the series, Mitchell Starc, who is nursing a bruised heel.

With Pat Cummins suffering from an illness and well down pace, and with Starc’s replacement, Jackson Bird, struggling for rhythm, the Australian attack was tame. Bird’s strength as a bowler is his precision, yet he was the least accurate of the Australian bowlers.

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He and Josh Hazlewood also bowled too short, particularly with the new ball. A graphic by cricket analytics company Cricviz showed that in the first ten overs of England’s innings Cook did not face a single delivery that would have struck his stumps

On a pitch offering variable pace, Australia will need to improve their accuracy greatly today if they are to keep England from building a decent lead.

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