At Edgbaston on Sunday, Australia’s bowlers struck twice in rapid succession during a devastating period against England before heavy rain wiped out the latter sessions on the third day of the series-opening Ashes test match. Australia is now leading the series 1-0.
Play was called off at 17:15 GMT with just 32.4 overs played after a lengthy stoppage caused by rain. At the time of the abandonment, England had a lead of 35 runs and were batting at 28-2. Earlier in the day, Australia had been bowled out for 386 in response to the hosts’ first-innings total of 393.
After lunch, play was initially paused with England comfortably leading with a score of 26 without loss and seemed to be well on their way to establishing a large advantage.
However, those preparations were sidetracked when they lost openers Zak Crawley and Ben Duckett in the span of just three overs as Australia took advantage of favorable conditions in a quick restart. The fast bowlers for the tourists were able to get the ball to move dangerously, which caused Australia to take advantage of the favorable circumstances.
After Cameron Green made a magnificent diving catch in the slips, Pat Cummins ran out Duckett for the score of 19 and then dismissed Duckett.
Three balls later, Crawley (7) followed him off the field after edging a delivery from Scott Boland to wicketkeeper Alex Carey. This left Joe Root and Ollie Pope on strike, both of whom had not yet scored a run in this innings.
Bowler Ollie Robinson gave the BBC an interview in which he stated that “it was sort of the first time the pitch came out a little bit in three days.”
If we had continued to bat, we could have had a slightly different strategy, but it would have been a positive one… Tomorrow, I really hope that we can start the ball rolling and bat for the whole day. I believe that if we score more than 300 points, we are right back in the game.”
The forecast for Monday is looking brighter, with the Met Office in Britain forecasting that there would be little to no rain during the day.
Usman Khawaja’s monumental effort came to an end before midday when Robinson bowled him for 141. This brought the total for Australia’s first innings to 392 runs, which was seven runs shy of England’s score of 393.
After resuming their innings at 311 for five, the visitors quickly lost both of their established hitters, Khawaja and Carey, before losing three more wickets in rapid succession.
Khawaja played with excellent control for the majority of his innings; but, when England captain Ben Stokes heaped on the pressure with a bold field placement, the 36-year-old took the bait and hit Stokes’s ball over the fielder’s head.
In an effort to hit a shot over the’reverse umbrella’ field, he came rushing down the wicket; however, Robinson’s inch-perfect yorker uprooted his off-stump.
“I was trying to get him to play shots he’s not comfortable with,” Robinson said. “(I was) trying to push him outside of his comfort zone.” “I’ve been playing a little Twenty20 cricket recently, and when I went for the yorker, the ball hit the stumps.”
The previous day, on Sunday, James Anderson was denied Carey’s wicket in the day’s first over thanks to a slip by Jonny Bairstow. However, an angled delivery from the experienced bowler snared the Australian for 66 two overs later, bringing an end to his 118-run stand with Khawaja.
After scoring 38 runs and hitting Moeen Ali for two sixes in one over, Captain Cummins ended the innings by holing out to deep square leg, which ended the innings. He had contributed 38 runs.