Sitting two-nil down before this third Test and needing three straight wins to regain the Ashes was, said Ben Stokes, the “perfect place” for his England team. A captain with his own tankard and bar stool at the last chance saloon can only get them so far, however, and it will take a good few fellow drinkers to keep Ashes hopes alive.
That England got to within 26 runs of Australia’s first innings 263 all out – a total ballooned by their own butter fingers 24 hours earlier – was down to the latest display of shock and awe from Stokes. His body falling apart, and with teammates regularly kicked out of the back door in a six-wicket performance from Pat Cummins, he cracked 80 runs of pure bloody-minded defiance when all hope seemed lost.
And on a ground with recent form for substantial fourth innings run chases, an attack already shorn of Ollie Robinson and rested for just 52.3 overs just about delivered enough incisions before the close. Australia had reached 116 for four and a lead of 142 runs, the tourists more than happy to shut down proceedings in the final stages of the day as Mark Wood, inevitably down on pace, hurtled in.
Rain is due over the weekend and a draw here would ensure the Ashes are retained by the tourists. But they will want to leave nothing to chance on a surface that is expected to ease and having seen regular holes punched in their hull. Mitch Marsh, the first-innings centurion, will resume on 17, Travis Head on 18, and there is plenty of work to do before England are fully suppressed.
In a carbon copy of the first innings, Stuart Broad made light work of David Warner when an edge again flew to Zak Crawley on one. But it was increasingly clear this would be a grind for England’s creaking attack and Moeen Ali, now finding himself the spinner in a four-man attack, would need to step up for the captain who charmed him out of retirement at the start of last month.
Step up he did, Moeen claiming the wickets of Marnus Labuschagne and Steve Smith in the space of nine balls to hit 200 in his Test career. The former was dropped by Jonny Bairstow moments before in what has become an increasingly desperate showing for the wicketkeeper but was held by a tumbling Harry Brook in the deep for 33. Smith’s was a weirdly timid demise, chipping to midwicket.
With the ever-dependable Chris Woakes eventually finishing off the latest obdurate showing from Usman Khawaja – an edge flying to Bairstow on 43 when he returned at the Kirkstall Lane End – an England team that appeared to be dead and buried until Stokes’s latest herculean intervention were somehow still in the contest.
Things would be markedly different but for the dropped catches on day one that allowed Australia off the hook. To that end, and with blue skies overhead first thing, there was an expectation that at least one of the guilty pair, Joe Root and Bairstow, would be able to prosper. Appearances for Yorkshire may be fleeting these days, the members will no doubt chunter here, but they still know every blade of grass at Headingley.
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Instead, from 68 for three and still 195 runs in arrears, both Tykes were terminated inside the first 30 minutes of play. Root fell second ball, guiding Cummins with an open face to first slip for his overnight 19, while Bairstow fared little better. He plays his best cricket when driving the ball from underneath his nose but when Mitchell Starc sent down a wide delivery, the eyes lit up and an ambitious drive flew high into the cordon.
So began the Brummie engine room, Stokes joined by Moeen and the pair getting their heads down in a stand of 44 that featured a couple of typically succulent fours from the latter. But by lunch England were 142 for seven, the city of a thousand trades delivering a lamentable pull to Smith at square leg from Moeen on 21 – the ball after top-edging one just short – and a skittish 10 from Woakes ended with a feathered pull behind.
Then came the fightback, England somehow trowelling 95 runs on to their pile in 62 balls. It started with Wood cracking a gunslinger’s 24 from just eight – three sixes and one four – only to be dismissed by Cummins for his fifth. But the Headingley crowd was alive and Stokes, struggling with a pulled muscle, that dodgy left knee, and having worn blows to the hand and box, then summoned the inner beast once more.
Here was the Stokes from last Sunday and that 155 at Lord’s, glowing with invincibility and rolling out the hits for his audience. After all, who turns up at a Rolling Stones gig hoping for new material? Sitting 28 from 68 balls at the demise of Wood, the all-rounder took on Starc initially, three fours smeared across this rapid outfield, before turning his attention to Todd Murphy in a baptism of fire for the Ashes newcomer.
Murphy could have had Stokes twice in two balls before the onslaught, Starc failing to hold a tough tumbling effort in the deep and the off-spinner himself powerless to pouch a ball drilled back in his direction. The upshot? Five sixes launched by the increasingly grimacing Stokes, the all-rounder raging against the dying of the innings.
But in the end, with Broad bounced out to hand Cummins his sixth, Murphy got his man, Stokes picking out long-on. Smith was the catcher here, this his fifth of the innings to claim the record for an Australia outfielder. The ball seemed to follow Smith on another day of goading from the crowd but those hands remain so adhesive – something which is proving a major difference between these two teams.
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