Ashes 2015: England vs Australia report - England lead after Stuart Broad helps dismiss Australia for 60 after sensational first session in Fourth Test
Broad took eight wickets for 15 balls
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Your support makes all the difference.England took a first innings lead against Australia on the first afternoon of the fourth Test. Following the sensational events of the morning when Stuart Broad took 8-15 as the tourists were bowled out for 60 in 18.3 overs, the shortest first innings of a match in Test history, it was almost a formality.
Two wickets fell before England had the advantage and another later, but that was still prosaic stuff compared to what happened earlier. By tea on the opening day of a match which is destined not to run its full course, England were 99 for 3.
Joe Root offered by some distance the best batting of the day and was 33 not out having been joined five minutes earlier by Jonny Bairstow. England had lost Adam Lyth (unfortunately almost inevitable), Ian Bell and Alastair Cook.
Lyth had played compactly until he was lured into driving at a ball from Mitchell Starc which moved away and was caught behind. Bell was the lbw victim of a trademark yorker which replays showed, on his review of the decision, would have just hit leg stump. Cook, having occasionally flirted with danger, went the same way.
The first of these dismissals was slightly reminiscent of the way in which Australia played at the start of the match. They continually played with hard hands at balls they might have left alone and were utterly undone by the superb bowling of Broad who found enough movement off the pitch to disconcert and, consequently, the edge of the bat. It was also true that when Australia played at the ball they invariably edged it, while England had their share of plays and misses.
Broad, leading England’s attack in the absence of the injured Jimmy Anderson, struck twice in his first over, took the fastest five wicket haul in Tests, and with the match in which the Ashes could be decided barely half an hour old had reduced Australia to 29 for six. Perhaps the most hapless of their dismissals in failing to deal with old-fashioned, if potent seam bowling, was that of their captain Michael Clarke, who flailed his bat a wide ball moving away and was caught at slip.
The innings lasted for only 94 minutes and it was Australia’s lowest total against England since 1902 when they were bowled out for 36.
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