CRICKET
Day 5: England snatch a thrilling draw
The England tail-enders resisted the final overs to draw the match.
Australia remained just 1 wicket short of victory and their dream to whitewash England in this Ashes also vanished as the English team was finally able to save a Test match in this series after losing the first 3 games.
Australia 1st innings 416-8 Dec
Khawaja 137 Broad 5-101 Smith 67 Root 1-36
England 1st innings 294 all-out
Bairstow 113 Boland 4-36 Stokes 66 Cummins 2-68
Australia 2nd innings 265-6 Dec
Khawaja 101* Leach 4-84 Green 74 Wood 2-65
England 2nd innings 270-9
Crawley 77 Boland 3-30 Stokes 60 Lyon 2-28
It was a brilliant game of Test match cricket where two teams played 5 days of cricket to win the match, 1 team played much better than the other one but still, the other team survived on the last day to draw the match.
Australia almost won their 4th consecutive match in this Ashes but Leach, Broad, and Anderson survived more than 10 overs to save the match for England.
England lost 9 wickets but the most experienced no 10 and 11 batters of the world, Broad and Anderson resisted the last couple of overs to end this epic Test match as a draw.
Cummins grabbed 2 wickets in 3 balls to change the momentum of the game while Steve Smith almost became the hero of the match by picking up his first Test wicket since 2016.
He dismissed the solid-looking Jack Leach at a crucial stage of the match to put Australia just 1 step away from victory.
England openers give decent start
England openers finally gave a better start to England by scoring 46 runs for the first wicket.
The poor run of Haseeb Hameed in this series continued, he went back to the pavilion after scoring only 9 runs off 58 balls.
He was also given a chance by the wicketkeeper Alex Carey who dropped him on Cummins bowling but he failed to take any advantage from that drop chance.
Haseeb nicked the ball again into the hands of Carey who didn’t drop him this time to help Boland get his first wicket of the innings.
Zak Crawley batted much better today, he smoked a magnificent half-century today.
He scored a brilliant knock of 77 runs off just 100 balls before getting LBW out in Cameron Green’s over.
David Malan was bowled out by Nathan Lyon after scoring only 4 runs.
After losing 3 wickets on 96 runs, Stokes had a 60 runs partnership with the skipper Root.
Scott Boland dismissed Joe Root (24 runs) for the second time in this Test match.
Ben Stokes then made a small partnership with Bairstow.
Stokes completed his second half-century of this Test match but he was again dismissed by Nathan Lyon in this match.
Stokes was caught by Smith at the first slip after scoring 60 runs.
Cummins picked 2 wickets in 3 balls
At one stage England needed to survive less than 20 overs with still 5 wickets in hand to draw the match.
When the victory was slipping away from Australia, Cummins struck with 2 wickets in 3 balls to bring his side back into the game.
He first dismissed Jos Buttler who was playing with a finger injury and then got Wood LBW out with a toe-crushing yorker.
The century maker from the last innings Jonny Bairstow scored another important knock under pressure.
He scored 41 runs but he lost his wicket at a very crucial stage leaving the match in hands of the England tail-enders.
Leach and Broad’s resilience
Leach and Broad played more than 60 deliveries together and showed a huge amount of courage and resistance to save the game.
Smith dismissed Leach (26 runs off 34 balls) to add more drama in the last overs.
The most experienced number 11 batter in the world right now“James Anderson“ was at the crease to survive the last over of the day and he did exactly that to draw this thrilling Test match.
Boland was again the star with the ball for Australia as he picked up 3 wickets for 30 runs while both Lyon and Cummins picked up 2 wickets each.