Fourth Ashes Test, Melbourne Cricket Ground (day one of five)
Australia 152: Neser 35; Tongue 5-45 & 4-0
England 110: Brook 41; Neser 4-45, Boland 3-30
Australia lead by 46 runs
Scorecard
England’s Ashes tour teetered on another crisis as they were bowled out for 110 by Australia on an almost farcical first day of the fourth Test at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.
The 20 wickets to fall is the most on the opening day of an Ashes Test since 1909 and surpassed the 19 of the first day of the first Test of this series in Perth.
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Steve Smith, standing-in as Australia captain, said the 10mm long grass on the pitch would mean batters had to be “on their game” in the Boxing Day Test.
Smith was right. His side were hustled out for 152, then England were decimated in a single session after tea.
There was still time for Australia to face one over of their second innings before the close, only the third time in Test history the third innings of the match has begun on day one. The hosts are 4-0, leading by 46 runs.
Perth was the first two-day Ashes Test in 104 years. Melbourne could be the second in the space of five weeks.
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The havoc of the evening made England’s improved performance with ball and in the field a distant memory. Pace bowler Josh Tongue was excellent in claiming 5-45.
But England were bowling again before the end of the day as their batting was flattened in 29.5 overs.
England were 8-3 and 16-4. Harry Brook’s dance, swipe and miss at Mitchell Starc from his first ball seemed witless in the moment, yet it was Brook’s audacity that kept England from a complete implosion.
Brook swatted 41, including two sixes. Ben Stokes and Gus Atkinson were the only other men to reach double figures.
Michael Neser claimed four wickets, Scott Boland three, with the silliness of the day summed up by Boland then opening the batting as nightwatchman.
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Christmas chaos at the G
After England’s surrender of the Ashes inside three Tests was followed by reports of excessive drinking on their trip to Noosa, the tourists would have hoped a return to playing cricket would bring some Christmas respite to an awful tour.
For two sessions, England looked like getting their best day of the series, only to be rolled over in an evening of cricketing chaos. This was their lowest total and shortest completed innings since captain Stokes and coach Brendon McCullum took charge more than three years ago.
The notion of a dead rubber did nothing to dampen the spirit of an Australian Christmas tradition. If anything, the promise of more English pain boosted the Boxing Day crowd to 94,199 – a record for a cricket match in Melbourne.
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The atmosphere at the beginning of England’s innings, when it seemed like a wicket could fall every ball, was pulsating.
The pitch was the catalyst for the helter-skelter action. There is the question of whether the conditions were too difficult for batting. Still, it made the action utterly compelling and, as usual, Australia ended with the upper hand.
Australia flatten England again
It takes an innings from both teams to put the conditions of a Test into context. After Australia struggled with the bat, there was the suspicion the tourists would find it difficult. What followed was pandemonium.
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Ben Duckett miscued Starc to mid-on and Zak Crawley edged the same bowler to second slip, either side of Jacob Bethell’s Ashes debut yielding one run before he nicked Neser. England were three down in 26 deliveries.
England could have been facing real humiliation had it not been for Brook. His initial hack at Starc looked ugly, yet his team-mates were being dismissed trying to defend. There was a touch of genius about his loft of Starc over long-off for six and whip of Neser for another maximum.
Brook and Stokes added 50 in as many balls, only for Brook to walk across his stumps to be pinned lbw by Boland. It was the beginning of England losing five wickets for 25 runs.
From 91-9, England were in dire straits but, just as they had with the ball, Atkinson and Tongue combined with the bat.
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Atkinson farmed the strike to edge his way to a precious 28. He was eventually bowled by Cameron Green, then took the new ball in Australia’s second innings.
Boland, who bizarrely batted number 11 and opened on the same day of a Test match, was surrounded by all nine England fielders in catching positions.
His edge of the fifth ball just short of the slip cordon, followed by another edge for four, drew the loudest noise at the end of a crazy day.
Tongue leads forlorn England improvement
This was an indication of the future of England’s pace attack – the first time Tongue, Atkinson and Brydon Carse have played in the same Test. Together they engineered a vastly improved England display to not waste the crucial toss.
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Bar Carse’s wayward spell with the new ball, England collectively found their fullest length of the series. They were backed up by efficient catching and Carse pulling off a direct-hit run out of Green in his follow-through.
Tongue missed the first two Tests but showed promise when he was recalled for the third Test in Adelaide. His length was the fullest of the England attack and, when he bowled Smith with a superb nip-backer, it extended a run of dismissing the Australian great in all of the four first-class innings they have come up against each other.
By that point, Atkinson had forced Travis Head to chop on, Tongue was beneficiary of a leg-side tickle by Jake Weatherald and the same bowler found the edge of Marnus Labuschagne.
Atkinson was miserly and, after lunch, had the leaden-footed Usman Khawaja caught behind on review. Stokes strangely did not use himself before the break, yet the expert placing of Crawley at leg slip held the flick of Alex Carey.
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Neser and Green threatened to take the game away from England in a counter-punching stand of 50, only for Carse’s dead eye to punish Green’s hesitancy in setting off for a single.
It opened the way for Tongue and Carse to mop up the tail. Australia lost their last three wickets for no runs in four balls. It was nothing compared to the carnage that followed.
