CRICKET
Day 3: Root and Malan keep England alive
England finished day 3 on 220-2 and they are trailing by just 58 runs now with still 8 wickets in hand.
Australia was dismissed on 425 runs in their 1st innings as Travis Head smashed a brilliant 152 runs knock.
England 1st innings 147 all-out
Buttler 39 (58) Cummins 5-38 Pope 35 (79) Starc 2-35 Hameed 25 (75) Hazlewood 2-42
Australia 1st innings 425 all-out
T. Head 152 (148) Robinson 3-58. Warner 94 (176) Wood 1-29 Labuschagne 74 (117) Woakes 2-76
England 2nd innings 220-2
Root 86*(158) Cummins 1-43 Malan 80*(177) Starc 1-60 Hameed 27(58)
Root and Malan smashed a brilliant 159 run stand after the failure of their openers once again.
Australia is still ahead of England but this partnership between Root and Malan has put England back in this match.
Australia continued their innings from their overnight score of 347-7.
Travis Head and Mitchell Starc added 85 runs for the 8 wicket.
Travis Head added 40 more runs in his overnight score of 112.
The 85 run stand ended on 391 runs when Starc was dismissed by Woakes after playing an important knock of 35 runs.
Nathan Lyon resisted for some time but he was soon dismissed by Wood on 15 runs.
Travis continues his good form
Travis Head also played brilliantly on day 3.
Head completed his 150 and helped his side to extend their lead further to 278 runs.
He was clean bowled by Mark Wood after playing a superb knock of 152 runs off just 148 balls.
Australia was all-out on 425 and they managed to get a huge lead of 278 runs.
Rory Burns failed to score again as he was dismissed on just 13 runs by Pat Cummins.
Haseeb Hammed showed some resistance but Starc didn’t allow him to score big runs as he was caught behind on 27 runs.
Australia was again struggling on 61-2 and there were a lot of chances that Australia might win this match by an innings.
But Root and Malan stood tall to get their side back into the match.
Root and Malan partnership
Joe Root and David Malan registered a match-changing partnership to rescue their side from a losing situation.
Both of these two batters played some sensible cricket in the last two sessions of the day.
Malan is the number 2 ranked T20 batsman but today he proved that he is also a very reliable Test batsman.
Malan brilliantly resisted against the dangerous Australian bowling lineup. He scored an unbeaten knock of 80 runs off 177 balls including 10 fours.
On the other hand, the English skipper Joe Root once again proved himself that why he is the number 1 ranked Test batsman.
Root is still not out on 86 run off 158 balls.
Joe Root hasn’t scored a Test Ton in Australia so far in his career but now he is just 14 runs away from first Test hundred in Australia.
Joe Root became the first English while overall the 8th player to pass 1500 Test runs in a single calendar year.
Joe Root and David Malan will continue their brilliant 159 run stand on day 4 and they will try to score as many runs as possible after passing that 278 run lead.
The Australian bowlers will come in much harder tomorrow on England batters and Nathan Lyon will be hoping to get his 400th Test wicket on Day 4.