Day 3: England trail by 158, just 3 wickets left

Jonny Bairstow and Ben Stokes rescued their side from a big collapse but the Australian team is still in a commanding position.

England has lost 7 wickets for 258 runs before stumps on day 3 and they are still 158 runs behind Australia’s first innings total.

Australia      1st innings      416-8

Khawaja 137                Broad 5-101                                                                                                                                 Smith 67                       Root 1-36                                                                                                                                 Harris 38                      Anderson 1-54

England       1st innings      258-7  

Bairstow 103*               Boland 2-25                                                                                                                                               Stokes 66                       Cummins 2-68                                                                                                                                       Wood 39                         Green 1-24

England is still trailing by 158 runs in the first innings with only 3 wickets in hand and once again Australia is looking good to win the Test match.

The England openers survived the last session yesterday but today they once again failed to provide a good start to their side.

England lost 4 early wickets but Bairstow and Stokes saved them from a big embarrassment by putting up a superb partnership of 128 runs.

Bairstow scored a brilliant unbeaten hundred while Stokes scored an important knock of 66 runs.

Boland and Cummins picked up 2 wickets each. 

The Australian bowlers were too good early on in the day as they picked up 4 wickets within the first hour.

England started the day with their overnight score of 13-0 but the Australian bowlers didn’t waste much time to get the first breakthrough of the day as Mitchell Starc clean bowled Haseeb Hameed in the 10th over of the innings.

Haseeb Hameed failed in the whole series and got out after scoring only 6 runs off 26 balls. 

The star of the previous match Scott Boland also bowled a magnificent spell today.

He clean bowled Crawley on a brilliant nip-breaker that was pitched outside off but came into the stumps and the batter got bowled out while trying to drive it.

Scott Boland didn’t stop here and after the gap of 3 overs, he got the most important wicket of Joe Root to leave England 3 down on 36.

Joe Root’s bad form continues

2021 proved to be a great year for Joe Root but he started 2022 badly as he departed on a duck. 

Pat Cummins then bring Cameron Green into the attack and Green announced himself by dismissing David Malan who scored only 3 runs.

England lost 4 wickets on only 36 runs and they were in the danger of getting follow-on but Bairstow and Stokes saved them By putting up a brilliant stand of 128 runs for the 5th wicket.

Stokes came back into form and scored a brilliant half-century.

Stokes got LBW out by Nathan Lyon after scoring 67 runs.

Jos Buttler failed once again and got caught behind on a duck in the bowling of Pat Cummins. 

England was 6 down on 173 runs but Bairstow continued his superb innings and shared another good partnership with Mark Wood.

Bairstow and Wood added 72 runs for the 7th wicket but when only less than 5 overs were remaining before stumps, Cummins dismissed Wood to break his stand with Bairstow.

Wood played a superb knock of 39 runs off just 41 balls. He smashed 2 fours and 3 brilliant sixes in his knock. 

Bairstow’s magnificent hundred

Bairstow played one of the best knocks of his Test career today.

He smashed a superb hundred when his team needed it the most.

England was struggling on 36-4 but he dragged his side of trouble with his excellent ton.

Bairstow scored a match-saving hundred and he is still unbeaten on 103 runs (141 balls).

Bairstow smoked 8 fours and 3 huge sixes in his knock.

He will be looking to score as many runs as possible tomorrow with the tail-enders.