JOY FOR JOFRA
England star Archer rattles Australia with six of the best
JOFRA ARCHER picked up the second six-wicket haul of his fledging Test career, as England gave themselves hope of squaring the Ashes on the latest dramatic day in this series.
Archer’s six for 62 helped dismiss Australia for 225, with Surrey left-armer Sam Curran taking three wickets on his return to the Test side, as England took a first-innings lead of 69 which Rory Burns and Joe Denly extended to 78 before stumps.
England even dismissed Steve Smith for 80, his lowest score of the series — though Smith, who was lbw to Chris Woakes, said he had been feeling unwell with a spot of flu. ‘He didn’t look as nailed on as he usually is,’ said Archer.
But that didn’t stop England’s strike bowler sounding frustrated as he described the experience of bowling to a player who has now racked up 751 runs in six innings at an average of 125.
‘It’s weird,’ added Archer. ‘Every time he bats, he literally cannot get out. If he plays a bad shot, the ball just lands in no-man’s land. He’s a good batter and he’s got a good temperament, but the ball just never goes to hand.’
Smith said: ‘I felt pretty good at the crease, but I’ve been struggling a bit with the flu, and was loading up on the meds and tried to stay as focused as I could be.
‘I couldn’t bat with the tail as long as I would have liked. Teams have won from this margin before.’
Smith’s dismissal capped an excellent day for England. Denly, who had returned to Kent for the overnight birth of his daughter, rode his luck when he was badly dropped by Marcus Harris in that final over. But England can move into a position where they can push for a series-levelling victory as long as they show anything like the patience and application that has been lacking for so much of their Test cricket.
Woakes’ success was a rare positive moment for a bowler who looked to be suffering from a World Cup hangover when England left him out of the Old Trafford Test and has appeared out of sorts here.
Instead it was Archer, finishing his first season of international cricket, and Curran on his Ashes debut who combined to take the other nine wickets.
The Ashes may have gone but this is anything but a dead rubber for an England side looking to preserve an unbeaten home record against the old enemy that began with the greatest series of them all in 2005.
How much better it will be for captain Joe Root and whoever succeeds Trevor Bayliss as coach if they begin England’s new Test cycle this winter on the back of a 2-2 draw rather than a 3-1 defeat.
That they now have a golden opportunity to achieve just that is largely down to the bowler who announced himself as a special talent in the World Cup and has gone on to have an outstanding first Test series.
Archer took the first three Australia wickets after England had seen their first innings come to a rapid conclusion, and returned to claim another three.
This was an even better performance than his six for 45 at Headingley because there was nothing in this surface to assist the skill, aggression and sheer pace of Archer, who was back touching 90mph.
That skill was perfectly demonstrated when Archer bowled Nathan Lyon with one of the knuckle balls that has been a feature of his bowling this summer to complete his five-wicket haul and his day was complete when Burns pulled off a diving slip catch to dismiss Peter Siddle.
The only England bowler who did gain the kind of swing that was seen after tea on the first day when Australia bowled was Curran, who is now making a belated Ashes bow.
England have wanted Surrey’s younger Curran brother in their Test team all summer but were unable to find a way until Ben Stokes’ shoulder injury required another all-rounder and led to the omission of Jason Roy here.
Curran was on a hat-trick, too, after he had sent back Tim Paine and Pat Cummins but Siddle squirted his first ball for four and then added 37 with Lyon in an eighthwicket show of Australian defiance.
Smith had not really been at his best on a ground where he scored Ashes centuries on his last two visits and Root dropped what would have been a one-handed slip catch when he tried to upper-cut Curran on 66.
But the reprieve did not prove anywhere near as costly as the no-ball dismissal by Jack Leach at Old Trafford as Smith became the seventh Australian to fall playing all round an innocuous delivery at the start of a spell from Woakes.
The man is human after all.