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Australia moved a step closer to regaining the urn through a bowling spell after lunch on the third day day that crashed any hopes England had of standing up to their opposition in Adelaide. We’ll have live scores and commentary of Day 4 from 11.00am AEDT.
If England’s performance at the Gabba could be termed dire then the way they folded up on the third day in Adelaide would have cast huge doubts over where they can go from here in this Ashes series.
Before the series began, many expected Australia to fight harder than they had in England a few months ago, but not too many would have taken them to go 2-0 up in the series.
They stand a good chance of doing that after a shocking batting performance left them 398 runs behind their opponents in the first innings.
First things first, and due credit must be given to Mitchell Johnson.
Ryan Harris and Peter Siddle were steady while Nathan Lyon got a few to spin across the left-handers but if they had been left on their own, one hypothesis is that England would still have been batting.
Johnson was the difference and a mighty one at that. Each time he came on to bowl, the English batsmen stood in attention and tried to block him out.
For a bowler who has been erratic all his life, that was the best compliment they could pay him.
The seven wickets he grabbed was, then, an icing on the cake.
The early loss of Joe Root and Kevin Pietersen wasn’t surprising given that it came to strokes that signalled positive intent. The execution went horribly wrong for them and it only underlined the fact that when expected to play outside their zone, the batsmen aren’t most comfortable.
Still, England looked like they had overcome those early alarms and would go into the lunch break three wickets down – having lost Alastair Cook previous evening – when a strange piece of batting allowed Australia to make a late inroad.
For some reason the English pair of Michael Carberry and Ian Bell went into their shells in the last half hour of the session, which was followed by the inevitable – Carberry throwing it all away in a moment of madness where his execution deserted him for once.
The post-lunch carnage is well-chronicled. Johnson ran through his adversaries like a hot knife through butter, with the last six batsmen scoring only 10 runs between them.
There were ducks for Matt Prior, Stuart Broad and James Anderson and Johnson ended with figures of seven for 40.
Australia did have the option to enforce the follow-on but with the third Test coming up immediately after this one, captain Michael Clarke decided to afford his bowlers a little more rest.
And while England looked to get back into the series with a couple of early wickets of Chris Rogers and Shane Watson, the pair of David Warner and Michael Clarke pulled the hosts through to a 500-plus lead.
Day four could bring more agony for England if they don’t show dramatic improvements with the bat once they get their chance.
A target of around 600 will be in line and they could be staring at around 160 overs to survive – but most vitally, how they go about fighting could hold the key to their future in this series.
England need not look too far for inspiration. A Darren Bravo double-century lifted West Indies from a position of sure-shot defeat at the end of the third day to a drawn result against New Zealand – with a bit of luck in form of the weather helping them out as well.
However, that’s the point that England need to focus on, with a fighting spirit and a fire in the belly, you can make your own luck – something West Indies did well.
England will probably go on to lose the game but if they can turn things around with their performance on the fourth and the fifth days of the game, it could bode well for them going into the WACA Test.
Join us for the fourth day on Sunday and you can follow the live score of this second Ashes between Australia and England from 1.00am AEDT and post your comments below.
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