Pat Cummins has produced a captain’s knock for the ages to guide Australia to an exhilarating two-wicket win over England in an epic Ashes collection opener at Edgbaston.
Chasing 281 for victory, Australia seemed out of the Test once they slumped to 8-227 early within the ultimate hour on Tuesday after the wickets of Usman Khawaja and Alex Carey seemed to have ruined their possibilities.
But Cummins then took cost, placing on a 55-run stand with Nathan Lyon to take Australia to victory with 4.3 overs left within the match.
Cummins completed unbeaten on 44, sealing victory when he guided an Ollie Robinson ball all the way down to the third-man boundary and Harry Brook spilled it over the rope.
Lyon additionally completed not out on 16, in undoubtedly crucial innings of his profession.
After rain delayed the beginning of play by greater than three hours on Tuesday, Australia’s successful run got here at 7:21pm within the night in Birmingham.
England had been left to rue a number of missed possibilities, after Joe Root put down a troublesome likelihood off his personal bowling with Cummins on six and Ben Stokes spilled an outfield catch when Lyon was on one.
The match went some solution to avenge Australia’s ache on the two-run loss to England on the identical floor in 2005, in addition to being on the top of Stokes’ miracle at Headingley in 2019.
It additionally went in opposition to Australia’s poor document in shut video games, with their final profitable fourth-innings chase of past 250 coming in 2011 when Cummins hit Australia to victory on debut in opposition to South Africa.
And whereas the captain completed the job once more on Tuesday, it was Khawaja’s 66 that broke the again of the chase for Australia regardless of the perfect efforts of Stuart Broad (3-64).
While nightwatchman Scott Boland (20), Travis Head (16) and Cameron Green (28) contributed and fell on the different finish on day 5, Khawaja remained resolute.
The opener’s century within the first innings held Australia’s response to England’s 8(dec)-393 collectively, and ensured the vacationers would virtually attain parity of their 386.
Then after England had been all out for 273 of their second innings, Khawaja was a decided determine to see Australia to the shut.
He barely supplied an opportunity once more, and made his innings by accumulating singles with out taking dangers.
The 36-year-old confronted 518 balls for the match, essentially the most of any Australian in a Test this century, earlier than he chopped on to a sluggish and large ball from Ben Stokes.
Khawaja’s strategy got here in stark distinction to that of England.
They modified the sector virtually by the minute on Tuesday in a bid to unsettle Australia, after delivering on their promise to play with fearlessness with the bat.
But, in the end, England’s aggressive nature got here again to chunk them, declaring their first-innings after 78 overs and whereas eight wickets down on day one, making a gift of runs that may have been essential on day 5.
Source: www.perthnow.com.au
