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“Probably didn’t build pressure the way we wanted to” against Washington Sundar and Shardul Thakur, says Josh Hazlewood

Daniel Brettig17-Jan-2021Last ball of the 100th over of the Indian innings, a rare one from over the wicket by Nathan Lyon to Washington Sundar, the batsman pushed a half-volley back down the pitch and for his troubles had the bowler fire a return back at his head, requiring evasive action.Not long afterwards, Australia’s coach Justin Langer was pictured in the team viewing area spilling a water bottle alongside his laptop – not once but twice – and cursing and then walking away as the team’s amiable strength and conditioning coach, Aaron Kellett, stepped in to clean up. Shades of Headingley 2019 and the bin.When the match-shaping stand of 123 between Sundar and Shardul Thakur was finally ended by Pat Cummins – who else? – the Australians assembled less in celebration than stocktaking. The huddles around the next two strikes were some of the most desultory for Tim Paine’s team in the three years since cricket was the least of their worries at Cape Town and Johannesburg in 2018.Australia were left frustrated as the Washington Sundar-Shardul Thakur partnership grew•Getty ImagesThen, in the final overs of India’s innings, the Nos. 10 and 11, Mohammed Siraj and T Natarajan, received just four balls aimed at the stumps amid a flurry of bouncers. Natarajan entered the match with a first-class average of 2, but now was able to make an unbeaten 1 while Siraj collected an impish 13. The fourth of those balls at the stumps hit them.What all these scenes showed, for Australia’s 100-Test spinner Lyon, their pacemen Josh Hazlewood, Cummins and Mitchell Starc, and also their leadership duo of Paine and Langer, was that mentally, if not physically, the resilience and persistence of India have got thoroughly under the skins of a host side that had expected to win well, and in particularly to blast out the visitors with their “big three” pace bowlers aided by Lyon.Given the match and series scenario, plus the likelihood of heavy rain in Brisbane on the final two days, the Australians really needed to burst through India’s batting with the aid of a bouncy and speedy surface, and then give themselves plenty of time to hurry into a big lead. By the day’s midpoint, in spite of some curious hesitance to stack the slips cordon that allowed Ajinkya Rahane to get away with several eminently catchable edges off Starc’s bowling, they were on the way to doing so.

“I think we missed our mark a little bit, we were a touch full or a touch short and a bit of width here and there, so we just let them off the hook a little bit there and probably didn’t build pressure the way we wanted to”Josh Hazlewood

This was due largely to Hazlewood, who put in a performance that, if not as shattering as his Adelaide spell, was a decent re-enactment of his debut five-for against India at the Gabba in 2014, all tight lines, subtle movement and steep bounce. A score of 186 for 6, with the new ball due inside 14 overs, left the road seemingly open for Australia.Instead, Hazlewood, Cummins, Starc and Lyon found themselves struggling to muster their best stuff for the auxiliary duo of Sundar and Thakur, and very quickly losing their focus in the process. There was no reason, other than mental fatigue, why one of the most vaunted bowling line-ups in Australian history could not find enough balls in the right areas of a helpful enough pitch to ensure this pair did not settle in.That they did, for what proved to be one of the finest lower-order stands in living memory, offered up a marked contrast to how Cummins’ batting has fallen away in particular, and how Australia’s first innings was middling at best. The other major question opened up by it centred on whether, in the bio-secure confines of the 2020-21 summer, the hosts might have considered more resting and rotation of a far deeper bowling squad than has been seen on the field.The emergence of Siraj, Natarajan, Navdeep Saini and Sundar has left the likes of Michael Neser, Sean Abbott and Mitch Swepson wondering what they might have achieved if given the opportunity to perform. Instead, Cummins, Hazlewood, Starc and Lyon have appeared more or less able to pick themselves provided they are physically able to get on to the field, leading perhaps to the lack of sharpness when it was most required on day three in Brisbane or day five in Sydney.Related

• Stand-ins Shardul Thakur and Washington Sundar stand out, add twist to fairy tale

• Australia's performance puts WTC final place in danger

• Reckless Rohit? Not really, Lyon's plan just trumped his method

• As it happened – Australia vs India, Brisbane Test, 3rd day

“There wasn’t too much at all, to be honest,” Hazlewood said when asked how much discussion there had been of the bowlers’ places. “Everyone pulled up well from Sydney, we had a pretty quiet start to the series, to be honest, those two games we didn’t bowl a hell of a lot in Adelaide and Melbourne and we had quite a bit of time off in between.”So everyone’s feeling pretty good and I think [Cameron] Greeny makes a huge difference, there’s that odd spell here and there that he bowls and he’s going to get on a real roll soon and take a few wickets for us and help out. Even the short spells make a huge difference.”We probably just let pressure off at certain times, I think, throughout the day. Everyone’s body is pretty good, to be honest, the heat was there as well. I thought Gazza bowled really well again and everyone else backed us up. We just let a few moments slip, I think, and there were a few half-chances there we could’ve grabbed and made a bit of a difference. But obviously, four Tests in we bowled a fair bit last game, but I think everyone’s in reasonable shape for this time of year.”Contrast this to the 2019 Ashes, when only Cummins played all five Tests among the quicks, and James Pattinson, Peter Siddle and Starc all played specific roles in two or three matches apiece. Hazlewood, having made a comeback from injury, was held out of the first Test in Birmingham to be absolutely right for Lord’s, and demonstrated the need for this freshness when he broke through at critical times throughout the rest of the contest. Undoubtedly, a little more freshness of mind and role was missing at the Gabba.Josh Hazlewood mopped up the tail to finish with a five-for•Getty Images”It’s hard to put a finger on exactly what happened at Adelaide and you probably don’t see that every day and we haven’t seen it again in this series,” Hazlewood said. “The tailenders, these days I think there’s not much differences between Nos. 7 and 8, they put a lot of work into their batting, Nos. 8, 9 and even 10 sometimes are difficult to get out. You’ve just got to treat them like a top-order batter unless they have a real specific weakness, but we’ll probably go back to our normal stuff in the second innings, I think, and see how that goes.”There’s a bit of frustration there, when they’re six down you think you’re well on your way to knocking them over. But, in this day and age, teams bat all the way down, especially a team like England or something. I think we missed our mark a little bit, we were a touch full or a touch short and a bit of width here and there, so we just let them off the hook a little bit there and probably didn’t build pressure the way we wanted to. So, again, credit to them they batted beautifully and we’ll have a look at that for the second dig.”As for the short-pitched attack on India’s final pair, Hazlewood rationalised that full balls were more likely to be hit than short ones. “I think here at the Gabba the bounce is so consistent, even tailenders can hit the ball and score runs if you pitch it up,” he said. “I think the short ball’s probably the best way of getting the tail out, and if not it’s setting it up for the full ball. If you’re just bowling full, the bounce is very consistent and it’s probably one of the wickets where tailenders can score runs in front or behind the wicket. I think bouncers can not only halt the scoreboard but bring about wickets as well.”Much as there was logic to Hazlewood’s words, it was undeniable that frustration had crept into the Australian approach as well. There were too many signs at the Gabba on day three that, in a contest with an India side rotating far more bodies due to injury and thus cycling through some fresher minds, the most settled bowling line-up in recent Australian history has been blunted just enough to make this far closer a contest than anyone on the home side had reasonably expected after Adelaide.

So where does Russell’s exploits with the ball in the match rank in terms of Bowling Impact?

ESPNcricinfo stats team13-Apr-20211:44

Dasgupta: Krunal and Chahar brought MI back into the game

It’s not often that a five-for ends up being the subplot in a T20 game. Andre Russell’s record-equaling five-for in 12 balls was among the quickest five-wicket hauls taken in the IPL, but it was Mumbai Indians’ Rahul Chahar who was adjudged the Man-of-the-Match for throwing Knight Riders’ chase in disarray with a four-wicket haul.ESPNcricinfo LtdESPNcricinfo’s Smart Stats endorses Chahar’s impact on the game. Chahar earned 117 impact points for his bowling efforts (he earned six points for his valuable 8 with the bat). His impact on the game was 31 points clear of the next most impactful performance in the match. Chahar came on to bowl in the ninth over with the Knight Riders firmly in control of the chase. Each of his four overs produced a wicket: the top four of the Knight Riders’ batting order, including the in-form Nitish Rana. According to Smart Stats, Chahar’s four wickets in the game were worth 6.34 smart wickets. Smart Stats gives each wicket an impact value based on the quality of the batsman and the stage of the innings at which he is dismissed.ESPNcricinfo LtdIn contrast, four of Russell’s five victims were lower-order batsmen. Three of those wickets came in the last over of the innings, when the damage the Mumbai tailenders could’ve done was limited. Kieron Pollard’s wicket was the most valuable wicket that Russell took considering the context of the game. There were 17 balls left in the innings when Pollard was dismissed potentially stopping him from playing a match-changing innings. Pollard’s wicket fetched Russell 1.57 smart wicket value. However, his other four wickets contributed just 1.83 smart wicket value. In all, Russell’s five wickets in the match considering the match situation (based on the impact the batsmen dismissed by could’ve had) was worth 3.4 Smart Wickets. In fact, Russell’s exploits with the ball in the match ranked fifth in terms of Bowling Impact. Pat Cummins’ 2 for 24, Krunal Pandya’s 1 for 13 and Trent Boult’s 2 from 27 were considered more impactful than Russell’s given the context of the game.ESPNcricinfo LtdOverall, Suryakumar Yadav’s 36-ball 56 had the second-highest impact on the match with 92.4 points, followed by Krunal Pandya’s efforts with the ball and the bat, which fetched him 79.9 impact points.

The star of England’s last T20I series in India has fallen off their radar, but he doesn’t think he’s out of it just yet

Interview by Matt Roller11-Mar-2021When England last played a T20I series in India, in early 2017, Tymal Mills was a breakout star. While his figures – 3 for 94 in 12 overs across three games – were not immediately eye-catching, he conceded only 46 runs in his six overs within the final five of an innings while hitting speeds in excess of 145kph against a strong batting line-up. It brought attention from several IPL franchises, culminating in a Rs 12 crore (US$ 1.8m or £1.4 million approximately at the time) bid from the Royal Challengers Bangalore in the following month’s IPL auction.But Mills has not played for England since, with regular injuries preventing him from sealing a spot. Four years on, he looks back at his best for Sussex in the T20 Blast, and has his sights set on an international recall.I’m sure you look back on that 2017 series fondly. How do you reflect on that period in your career?

Looking back on it, I wouldn’t have thought at the time that it would have been the last time I’d play for England. That was a real high point in my career – that whole winter, really. It was my first winter on the T20 circuit and everything was going pretty well for me. I was loving it.Related

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And then from the IPL onwards, it’s just unfortunately been a case of injury after injury. I haven’t had too many long stints without one, so I haven’t really been able to push forwards and get back into the England side, which is where I want to be. It is frustrating, and it wouldn’t be how I thought the next four years would have gone at that time.When you made your England debut against Sri Lanka in 2016, you were seen as a poster boy for the T20 circuit, given you’d retired from other forms of cricket aged 22 due to your back condition. Was the prospect of playing against India in India daunting, given the extra scrutiny and the fact you were still only 24?

I didn’t put too much pressure on myself but I did identify it as the biggest test of my career. Up until that point I’d played in the Blast, the BPL, the Super Smash, and a couple of games in the Big Bash. When you’re playing against India in India, that’s pretty much as tough as it gets. It was a test that I really looked forward to: I backed myself to do well.In his only season of the IPL, 2017. “It’s definitely something I want to go back to because they haven’t seen the best of me”•BCCIIt was my first time playing out there, but one thing I’ve always been good at is never really feeling overawed by an occasion. If you ask my team-mates at Sussex, they’ll say I often perform better when the TV cameras are in and there’s a full house – I’m a bit of a show pony like that.Were you happy with how you did?
I just enjoyed it, first and foremost. I was still very young and probably naïve to the situation, but I tried to focus on myself and what I knew I could do well. I was given that role by Morgs [Eoin Morgan] to open the bowling and then bowl two at the death in every game. If you look at the figures, I think I only took one wicket in each game, going for 25 or 30-odd but there were a few high-scoring games in there, and bowling at Virat Kohli, MS Dhoni, Yuvraj Singh, Suresh Raina is as tough as it gets. I was really pleased.Going into that series, a few weeks before an IPL auction, you must have realised that you were 12 good overs away from a contract?

I could never have expected what ended up happening, but you know that recency bias is a very real thing, especially in T20 leagues. Playing a series in India a couple of weeks before the auction was as good a shop window as there could be. You’re not thinking about that when you’re training or in the middle, but it’s definitely a by-product.And then the big bid came in from RCB. You took five wickets in five games and went at 8.57 runs an over – not terrible numbers, but not what they’d have hoped for given the price they’d paid.
I played the first few games and I didn’t do terribly… maybe I’d say I held my own. Then I had a small hamstring tear which knocked me out for a while, and I couldn’t quite get back to full fitness. The rest of the tournament fizzled out and I’ve not been able to get back out there since. Some of that has been deserved because I haven’t been in form, and there have also been times where I’ve felt really good and been bowling well but then not been picked up in the auction or as a replacement player. [The IPL] is definitely something I want to go back to because they haven’t seen the best of me: I still think it’s a level I can perform at and succeed at so I’m working hard to try and get back there.That hamstring injury you mentioned kept you out for a while, and when you did get back to fitness, you struggled in the 2017-18 Big Bash, and England haven’t come calling since.
I had the problem with my hamstring, which started at the IPL and then it lingered into the Blast season in England that summer. I tore it again properly and didn’t play until I went out to play for Hobart in the Big Bash. I hadn’t played leading into that Big Bash for about five months. The hamstring was fine by that point, but I had no rhythm and I definitely didn’t give a good account of myself. I had a really poor tournament.Mills adds another string to his bow, trying his hand at commentary during last year’s England-Australia T20I series•AFPYou’ve been in much better form over the last two years. When did things turn around for you?

It was when I went and played the second half of the PSL for Peshawar Zalmi in 2019 that I felt like I was back to my best. I had played the Blast in 2018 and then the T10 and the Afghan league, and was still kind of getting back to form, but in that tournament with Zalmi, I felt really good. We got to the final, and I had some good feedback from Kieron Pollard and the coaches. I was pretty confident of kicking on from there, and my agent was texting me about my name being in the hat when a couple of seamers got injured in the IPL but those calls just didn’t come.Unfortunately injuries have just kept coming back. It’s been frustrating, but the one thing that has kept me going is that I keep bouncing back: I’m not losing pace and I still feel like I’m performing at the level I want to. Last summer I was happy with how I bowled in the Blast – I was still hitting good speeds in the games we played on TV, so I’m confident that my skills haven’t waned. If I’m fit and on the pitch, I’ll always back myself to do well.Heading into this summer, you’ll have the opportunity to play more games than usual, with the introduction of a second short-format competition in England: the Hundred. It looks like a big season for you.

It’s a huge summer for me in the context of my career. I’ve been working my way back to fitness after an injury at the end of last season, and working on my business, Pace Journal, and I know that it’s a massive season coming up. I really want to perform for Sussex: they’ve invested a lot of time and effort in me – me and the physio are a bit closer than I would like! – so I want to have a good Blast and help pay them back. Then hopefully I can have a really strong Hundred and restore faith in people who think I might not have it anymore. It’s a huge competition, one that I’m really looking forward to: our squad at Southern Brave looks pretty stacked.With some of the names involved, both players and coaches, there will be opportunities to make relationships that help you win contracts in franchise tournaments down the line too. Mahela Jayawardene is your head coach at the Brave, with Shane Bond as his assistant.

You can’t ignore those things. It’s very easy to say, “Oh yeah, I’m just focusing on myself and X, Y and Z will take care of themselves” but those things are very real: stuff like recency bias, and guys seeing you with their own eyes. I know Mahela a little bit from when he was our overseas player at Sussex. He’s head coach at Mumbai Indians with Shane Bond as his No. 2. Bondy is the head coach at Sydney Thunder. So within our own camp you’ve got guys at two of the bigger franchises within world cricket, and then there are similar stories all around the traps as well.Mills shone in his brief stint for Peshwar Zalmi in the PSL in 2019. He regards it as the start of his current upswing•Asif Hassan/AFP/Getty ImagesOne of the main benefits from a player’s point of view is that every game is going to be televised. With the Blast, so many brilliant performances get missed: there are so many games that you can’t play them all in front of the cameras and guys scoring hundreds, taking wickets, taking amazing catches – they’re relegated to stationary cameras on a Twitter feed.You’ve mentioned your skill set, and how you feel you offer something different than most bowlers. Of course you’re a left-arm quick, but you also have quite an unusual method at the death too, in that you rarely try to bowl yorkers. Why is that?
It’s just a case of me playing to my strengths. Commentators, pundits, journalists will all say that you have to bowl yorkers at the death. It the best ball – if you execute it, it is the hardest ball to hit. But it can also go wrong just as easily. You’ll often see a guy have one game where he executes his yorkers really well and he’s suddenly hailed as a brilliant death bowler, but you look at the numbers and the naked facts and he’s not – he’s just had a brilliant game.I go about it in a different way: I use my angle, coming round the wicket [to right-handers] or over to the left-handers, and try to bowl fast and heavy. I try and reduce width, and with the pace that I’ve got, I try to skid it into the box-thigh-pad region. I think that’s the hardest length to hit for six: it’s not full enough to drive or get under the ball, but not quite short enough to hook and to pull. You’re going to get it wrong sometimes, but in my opinion, if you get it right, they’re the hardest balls to hit. The numbers back that up in terms of my economy rate at the death and if you can mix that in with slower balls as well at varying lengths, you’re keeping the batsman guessing.ESPNcricinfo LtdSo do you ever try to bowl yorkers anymore?

I definitely have been working on yorkers, and wide yorkers in particular, because you can’t just rely on one or two tricks, and I’m still looking to evolve. But I’m a big believer in the fact that you need to play to your strengths as much as possible. T20 cricket is all about executing, particularly in high-pressure situations like bowling at the death. There’s no use putting someone under pressure to bowl a yorker if they’re not confident that they’re going to execute it. That’s obviously different to what many others might think, but it’s served me well enough so far.How do you rate your chances of playing for England again?

Rightly or wrongly, I think I’m good enough to be in that conversation. There are a lot of good bowlers around at the moment, but like I said, I feel as though I have skills that aren’t replicated in English cricket. It’s been a long time and I have to prove that I’m reliable enough to perform and stay fit. I’m not really a goal-orientated person when it comes to cricket but I definitely want to play for England again. It’s something that I’ve had a little taste of and I want more of: I want to prove myself against the best in the world.Have you had any conversations with people in the set-up? Do you feel like it’s a realistic prospect?

I was playing in the Ultimate Kricket Challenge in Dubai at the start of the winter and I spoke with Morgs just to see where I am. I haven’t really had much contact with anybody at the ECB with regards to selection because I’ve either not been fit or not quite in good enough form, so it was nice to have a chat with him over a beer at dinner one night. He said I’m still on the radar, I just have to put good performances in. I guess I wanted a little bit of feedback: does my name still come up when talking about selection? He didn’t shut me down, which was positive. I don’t think the door is closed.

All the stats from India’s collapse in the first innings

Sampath Bandarupalli18-Jun-202172.29 – Percentage of contribution of the 167-run partnership between Shafali Verma and Smriti Mandhana in India’s total of 231. Only once a completed innings in women’s Tests had a higher percentage contribution from a partnership – 74.11% by Jodie Fields and Rachael Haynes, sharing 229 runs for the sixth wicket during Australia’s 309 against England in 2009.ESPNcricinfo Ltd64 – Runs by India between the fall of the first and tenth wicket, their second-worst ten-wicket collapse in women’s Tests. India’s worst collapse came against West Indies in 1976 when they were bowled out for 65 after a 28-run opening partnership.20 – Partnership runs for the second to seventh-wicket stands in India’s innings, the fewest by them in a women’s Test innings. It is also the third-lowest in a women’s Test innings for the second to the seventh-wicket stands.Related

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6 – Instances of a team getting bowled out following a century opening stand in women’s Tests, including India’s collapse in Bristol. There have been only 31 century opening stands in women’s Tests. Of those six occasions, India’s 231 is the lowest total. The previous lowest was 285 by England against New Zealand in 2004, following an opening partnership of 163.1 – Number of all-out totals lower than India’s 231 after a 150-plus opening stand in Test cricket (men or women). The lowest is 228 by Zimbabwe’s men’s team after a 164-run opening stand during their second innings against West Indies in 2001.167 – The opening partnership between Verma and Mandhana, the highest in Tests for India Women and the fourth-highest opening stand in women’s Tests. The previous highest for India was 157 between Gargi Banerji and Sandhya Agarwal against Australia in 1984.8 – Runs collectively scored by India’s Nos. 3 to 6 in the first innings, their lowest for those batting positions in a women’s Test innings. The eight runs are also the third-fewest in a women’s Test innings scored together by the Nos. 3, 4, 5 and 6 batters.

Important 93 proves enough to keep Kiwis on course for semi-finals despite tough conditions

Matt Roller03-Nov-20213:13

‘Guptill brilliant, but Scotland bowlers could have done better’

Martin Guptill nearly collapsed with exhaustion during his innings of 93 off 56 balls against Scotland and admitted that he felt “pretty cooked” after battling for 92 minutes in the heat and humidity of Dubai International Stadium.New Zealand’s eventual 16-run win was the first of three afternoon games that they are due to play in the space of five days and Guptill visibly struggled throughout the second half of his innings. His innings was vital in leading New Zealand to a defendable total after they had stuttered to 52 for 3 after 6.1 overs, with a 105-run stand in 12.2 overs with Auckland team-mate Glenn Phillips leading them to 172.”It was warm,” Guptill laughed in his post-match press conference. “It is challenging, especially when Glenn is trying to run two every ball. When you get down to the end of an innings, you’re trying to hit as many runs as you can, swinging hard, and then trying to get back for twos as well.”It takes it out of you: I had to come off halfway through the fielding innings with a bit of cramp. It was tough today. I’ve certainly played in hotter, but in T20 cricket, when you’re running nearly every ball and trying to hit boundaries, it takes it out of you a lot more than it does back home.”

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Phillips struggled for timing throughout his innings of 33 off 37 balls, with a slog-swept six off Michael Leask’s offspin his only boundary, but Guptill said that the pair had recognised the need to rebuild after losing early wickets.”Scotland bowled very well up front and didn’t allow us to get away quickly,” he said. “To lose three wickets in the front six, it’s always tough to come back from that, but I thought the way Glenn came out [was important]. We’ve played a lot of cricket together and it was nice to get a big partnership with him and set the team up for a match-winning total.Martin Guptill raises his bat after scoring a fifty•Alex Davidson/Getty Images”It’s never ideal losing three in the powerplay but it was all about just creating one big partnership to get us to a competitive total. They made it really tough for us to get away to an absolute flier. It was a bit of a – not quite a rescue mission, but Glenn and I had to assess the situation and put a partnership together.”Kane Williamson, New Zealand’s captain, said that Guptill’s first significant contribution – following scores of 17 and 20 – was a boost ahead of games against Namibia and Afghanistan, and said that he hoped his bowlers would learn from a “patchy” performance in Scotland’s chase.”He’s a huge player for us, a real card player at the top of the order and he’s been hitting the ball beautifully,” Williamson said. “We’ve been on a variety of surfaces but it was great that he was able to make a huge contribution tonight – and really needed as well, because we were under pressure at the start of our innings.Related

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“We certainly knew coming into this tournament that it doesn’t matter who you face, there are match-winners out there. We certainly saw that on both sides today, and it ebbed and flowed. It was great we were able to get a pretty competitive first-innings total. We were a little bit patchy with the ball but we’ll move on from this one and look to the next one. It all goes pretty quickly for us in this last half.”Credit to the way Scotland came out and played. They did put us under pressure and certainly fired a number of shots and hit the ball out of the park beautifully. We were tested in a number of ways and for us it’s about trying to learn from that and improve on that.”

Relive ESPNcricinfo’s ball-by-ball commentary as Australia seal a 4-0 series win

ESPNcricinfo staff16-Jan-202216.1, Green to Burns, OUT
Chopped on! Australia have the breakthrough and it’s a familiar type of dismissal for Burns, on the stroke of tea/dinner. Angling in from around the wicket, unsure whether to play or leave. He opts for the latter, but too late to get his bat out of the way, and he only manages to deflect it onto his own stumps! Green strikes, England’s highest opening stand of the series is broken.
20.5, Green to Malan, OUT
Brilliant bowling! This has been outstanding from Green. It’s an inside edge in the end, but Malan has been worked over. Short of a length from round the wicket, Malan is late bringing his bat down and it deflects into the stumps.
Dawid Malan chops onto his own stumps•CA/Cricket Australia/Getty Images22.2, Green to Crawley, OUT
Edged, gone! Magical spell from Green. Full at off stump, lures the drive and Carey dives to his right to grab a neat one.
27.5, Starc to Stokes, OUT
Taken at deep square leg! Superb catch running in from Lyon. Starc dropped in the short ball and Stokes went after it. He didn’t try to keep it down. Lyon makes good ground in off the rope and takes it diving forward.
Stokes departs, Cummins and Starc celebrate•AFP/Getty Images31.4, Boland to Root, OUT
Keeps low, smashes into off stump! Root doesn’t hit a single ball with his new bat after drinks. This is a real grubber, shooting through low and crashing into the bottom of the stump, underneath the toe-end of his bat. Root’s series is over, another without a hundred in Australia. Not much he could have done about that one!
Root loses his off stump to a shooter•AFP/Getty Images

If England are quick they could still make Djokovic’s flight.

— Daniel Cherny (@DanielCherny) January 16, 2022