England v Australia: Ashes fifth Test, day three – live | Ashes 2023

16th over: England 79-0 (Crawley 33, Duckett 42) Three runs off Marsh’s latest. Some stat this:

15th over: England 76-0 (Crawley 31, Duckett 41) Crawley steers Cummins away wide of gully to pick up four runs. A full ball is then whipped through mid-wicket for a two more.

“It’s getting better all the time” notes Mark Taylor on commentary. For England that is.

14th over: England 68-0 (Crawley 24, Duckett 40) Marsh continues after the break. He really is a hulking great thing. His top half is particularly gargantuan – looks like he’s swallowed a chest-freezer. Anyway, he’s bowling to just one slip which must be a bit dispiriting. Cummins has gone to his Brownian Motion field for the umpteenth time this series. A single each to Crawley and Duckett.

“Filthy hangover. Oh, Tricky Crimson King cider why do you do this to me?” Croaks ShowbizGuru.

Resolve!

“Third cup of tea barely denting the damage. 66-0 at the first drinks interval is perking me up though. Time for a livener soon.”

13th over: England 66-0 (Crawley 23, Duckett 39) A skilful and probing over from Pat Cummins takes us to DRINKS. He beat both Crawley and Duckett’s outside edge with deliveries in the high 80mph mark.

Another fascinating hour in this series. Don’t go anywhere.

12th over: England 64-0 (Crawley 22, Duckett 38) England take six off the over with a minimum of fuss. The field is set back and there are plenty of runs on offer. At this stage on the first day they gave it away a little, it’ll be interesting to see if Duckett and Crawley are willing to forego the boundaries a little bit and tick over.

11th over: England 55-0 (Crawley 20, Duckett 35) Things have calmed a little with the introduction of Cummins. A lesser spotted leave from Zak Crawley and three singles picked off with relative ease. Clouds have rolled over a bit here at the Oval. They are high and unthreatening though, and there’s enough blue sky to make a sailor a pair of kecks.

Used to hate the sun because it shone on everything I’d done.
Made me feel that all that I had done was overfill the ashtray of my life.
All my achievements in days of yore range from pathetic to piss-poor, but all that’s gonna change.

10th over: England 55-0 (Crawley 18, Duckett 34) Here comes the Bison. Mitch Marsh into the attack and he tries a bit of short stuff, something we haven’t seen much of this morning. Crawley splices a cut shot away off the last ball to pick up three runs.

“Ah the good old days. Blur Vs Oasis” says Colin Young.

“If that’s the theme of today’s OBO, may I suggest Stokes drops, no pun intended, a bit of the ego thing? Nobody wants to hear him bleat ‘I don’t believe that anybody fields the way I do…’ right?

As for Cummins surely he can just smile at his critics and sing “This is a Low pressure area, get used to the rain ya whingeing Poms.”

9th over: England 52-0 (Crawley 15, Duckett 34) Cummins to Duckett. Short ball. Pull shot. Top edge. Four runs.

England bring the fifty up inside nine overs. “It’s the tortoise and the hare” notes Mike Atherton on the sky comms – “And the tortoise is winning 2-1… at the moment.”

8th over: England 48-0 (Crawley 15, Duckett 30) The field is now set back with men stationed on the boundary on both sides of the wicket. England take three singles off the over. They drop and run with skill to rotate the strike. Something Australia’s top order – particularly Khawaja and Labuschagne – were poor at yesterday.

7th over: England 45-0 (Crawley 14, Duckett 28) Crawley drives handsomely for two and picks up another brace off Cummins with a flick to fine-leg. Beaten! Cummins sends down a beauty that moves and lifts just past the outside edge.

6th over: England 41-0 (Crawley 10, Duckett 28) A tighter over from Hazlewood, just a single to Crawley off it.

“Loving Ricky Ponting’s commentary” writes Pat. “The granular detail of each small fielding change twinned to the line and length of each ball. He’s not terribly happy with Cummins but it’s fascinating to hear.”

Yep – Punter has been so insightful and good craic all summer. He’s a great analyst.

5th over: England 40-0 (Crawley 9, Duckett 28) “C’mon Starc-ers get your act together!” implores Jim Maxwell on TMS. Maxwell’s gloopingly rich antipodean tones have more than a hint of frustration. Cummins replaces Starc who went for 22 off his two overs. Big Pat goes full on the pads and Duckett clips him away for four. A single through point and a scampered leg-bye. Shot! Duckett glides Cummins away for another boundary. England ticking. Ten runs off the over.

4th over: England 30-0 (Crawley 9, Duckett 19) A gift from Josh Hazlewood, leg stump half-volley flicked to the boundary with disdain by Duckett. The big seamer looks a bit off it here, he spears a ball down leg and loses his length. It must be so hard to keep a cool head with two batters so brazenly coming at you every single ball.

“Hello from Zambia – thank goodness for live streams, I may be in central Africa far from leg byes, silly mid offs and cover drives but today I’m at the Oval. All day.”

Lovely to have you with us Ben Carter.

3rd over: England 25-0 (Crawley 9, Duckett 14) Duckett clips in the air for four, it wasn’t a mile away from Todd Murphy at mid-wicket but whistles to the fence. Starc goes full and straight, Duckett would have been a goner but for a meaty inside edge. A single brings Crawley on strike… he throws the kitchen sink, kettle, cutlery draw and fridge at a wide-ish delivery and the ball flies over point for four. It’s heady stuff.

Here’s yer TMS overseas link:

2nd over: England 16-0 (Crawley 5, Duckett 9) A quieter over from Hazlewood who is more accurate than Starc. On a good length for the duration, just a nurdled quick single. That first over was quite something. The crowd here are louder and more burbling than they’ve been all Test.

“If Pat Cummins is Damon Alban I guess the immortal banger hit gets renamed Song 2-1? C’mon Aussie!” Good stuff, Rowan Sweeney.

1st over: England 13-0 (Crawley 5, Duckett 8) BOSH. A rank wide and full ball by Starc is pulverised through the covers by Crawley for four! He’s becoming an expert at this. A quick single brings Duckett on strike. Shot! A straight drive through mid-on gets him going. And another! A clip through mid-wicket brings another boundary and the crowd are well into this. England have a lead of one run!

Here come the players, a roar goes around the ground as Crawley and Duckett stride to the crease. Mitchell Starc will have the ball first up. Play!

Oh, and apparently Root and Stokes are both padded up…

This is well worth a watch in the five minutes we have before play.

The strings were fantastic, Scott (and Emma!)

On this, Stokes would be Liam and Cummins Damon? I can’t see any other configuration.

There is a real buzz around the ground this morning, the sun is out and the crowd are expecting to see something special from one or both sides today.

“Pulp references applicable to the last couple of days?” chirps Nick Smith “Help the aged (for obvious Jimmy reasons) …”

I reckon he was getting back in the groove yesterday Nick, he beat the bat loads and had the ball moving about again.

Who will bat three for England? Will Moeen come out for a hobbly slog or is there something else afoot…

As ever it’d be lovely to hear from you. Thoughts, theories and anything else in between most welcome. You can drop me an Email or tweet @Jimbo_Cricket.

It is sunny and bright here at the Oval after some early morning rain. Play should start bang on time.

I’m off to track down some caffeine – between us – I went to see Pulp last night and am a wee bit dusty. It was magnificent. Corduroy and angular dance moves aplenty.

Back soon, meet me at the fountain down the road? right here in a few.

Preamble