Cook makes century as England fight back
Alastair Cook rebounded from his recent form slump in spectacular fashion to score an unbeaten century after Stuart Broad produced his best effort with the ball as England enjoyed one of its best days of the Ashes series yesterday.
England ripped through Australia’s batting lineup then made a powerful start to its first-innings reply on the second day of the fourth test.
Cook, 104 not out, brought up his hundred in the last over of the day when he smashed Australian captain Steve Smith for four, reaching the milestone off 166 balls after four hours at the crease.
Having already surrendered the Ashes after losing the first three tests in the five-match series, England turned the pressure back on Australia with both bat and ball on a baking hot day at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.
Australia lost its last seven wickets for just 67 runs to be all out for 327 just after lunch before England made it to stumps on
192-2, still 135 behind. Australia’s bowlers struggled in the absence of injured paceman Mitchell Starc and an out-of-sorts Pat Cummins, who was restricted to just 11 overs because of a stomach bug.
Spinner Nathan Lyon took a diving one-handed catch off his own bowling to remove Mark Stoneman for 15 and Josh Hazlewood trapped Vince James lbw for 17 but was unable to remove Cook or Joe Root, who made 49 not out.
Cook had not made more than
37 in the series and was given a second life on 66 when Smith dropped him at slip, but showed why he is England’s leading run scorer as he posted the 32nd century of his long test career. Root proved a reliable partner, sharing an unbroken partnership of 112 to and giving Cook the strike in the last over to allow him to get to triple figures.
England’s fast bowlers earlier tore through the Australian middle and lower order batting lineup with Broad (4-51), James Anderson (3-61), Chris Woakes
(2-72) and debutant Tom Curran
(1-65) all taking wickets. Smith and Shaun Marsh both made half-centuries for Australia after David Warner made a hundred on day one, but no one else made at least 30 and four batsmen were dismissed in single figures.