DASHING DENLY DEFIES LOW BLOW TO SHINE

England back in the driving seat — and tourists are spitting mad

JOE ROOT’S pre- match plea to send coach Trevor Bayliss into the sunset with a spring in his step looks like being answered.

On a glorious mid- September afternoon in south London, England took control of the fifth and final Ashes Test, Joe Denly cementing his place on the tour of New Zealand with a career-best 94 and Ben Stokes rounding off the season of his life with 67.

The Australians, it’s fair to say, were not best pleased.

Some tetchy sledging was led by the inevitable Matthew Wade, who at one point lectured umpire Kumar Dharmasena on the nuances of the lbw law.

Steve Smith dropped Stokes at slip on seven, and two reviews that would have produced wickets were spurned: Tim Paine’s relationship with the Decision Review System remains resolutely unconsummated.

It all meant that at stumps on the third day England were 313 for eight, an overall lead of 382.

Only a reverse-Headingley and the Smith factor can prevent them from securing the first drawn Ashes since 1972 — and maintaining Bayliss’s unbeaten record in home Test series during his fouryear reign.

The urn may be irretrievable, but England are determined to round off t hei r World Cup- winning summer by denying the Aussies a first series win in this country in 18 years, and collect some handy Test championship points in the process. They are one competent bowling display away from achieving both objectives.

As much as the resolve his side have showed here, Root will draw particular pleasure from the performance of Denly, who at 33 has been easy to write off as a temporary plug in a leaky line-up.

Instead, he has responded with three successive second-innings half centuries, two of them after being handed the dubious honour of opening the batting to make good the struggles of Jason Roy.

An early assault on Nathan Lyon was especially bold and included Denly’s first Test six, a clean straight blow towards the pavilion. And he had moved to within six of a maiden Test hundred when Peter Siddle found his outside edge.

Having become a father for the second time on Thursday night, Denly had seemed set for a double celebration, though one thought may have crossed his mind as he trudged off: come the first Test at Mount Maunganui on November 21 he will be opening the batting with Rory Burns rather than changing nappies.

In advance, Root had described this game as the start of a new era, which he hopes will culminate with victory in Australia in 2021- 22, ideally under his captaincy.

That masterplan is too distant to regard as anything other than wishful thinking, but he also knows England have moved closer towards a feasible line-up for the winter trips to New Zealand, South Africa and Sri Lanka.

They had resumed on nine without loss, a lead of 78, but Burns made it only as far as 20 before edging a cut off Lyon. Yet his fiveTest haul of 390 runs is the most in a series by an England opener other than Alastair Cook for a decade.

And if questions remain about his technique against the short ball, t here can be no doubting his temperament.

A stand of 54 with Denly — the highest on either side for the first wicket in this new- ball- friendly series — for once meant Root was not walking out amid a crisis.

But after moving smoothly to 21 he played for turn and edged Lyon to slip. The catcher was Smith, as if to remind a player who once counted as a close rival in the ‘who is better’ argument of the gap that now exists between them.

While Root has scored 703 runs across the last two Ashes at an average of 39, Smith has more than doubled that, with 1,438 runs at 130 — and an innings to come.

If he has inched closer to Don Bradman, Root has slipped back towards the pack.

Still, at that point England led by 156 and Australia might have had a sniff if Smith had clung on to a tough chance at slip as Stokes miscued a cut off Lyon.

To c o mpound the tourists’ frustration, Paine failed to review a good- l ooking l bw s hout f r om Mitchell Marsh when Denly had 54.

When he repeated the error after tea, with Jos Buttler missing an off-break against Lyon 19 runs into his eventual 47, Australia’s coach Justin Langer held his head in his hands. It has been an error-strewn series. Throw in the wasted review against Jack Leach in the dying moments of the Headingley Test and the Australians’ misuse of the technology may be the costliest

error of the lot. Wickets came and went in the evening session, three to the second new ball, and the only black mark on England’s card was another failure for Jonny Bairstow.

His prod to slip off Marsh for 14 meant he finished the series with 214 runs at 23.

If Root is serious about a new era, it is hard to see how he can overlook the claims of Ben Foakes, whose obvious class on both sides of the stumps in Sri Lanka last year should trump a mediocre summer with the bat for Surrey.

First, though, there is a series to be drawn and respect to be salvaged. Only once in their history, at Headingley in 1948, have Australia successfully chased more in the fourth innings than their deficit here.

Then, they had Bradman. Now, they have Smith. But England don’t look in the mood for another miracle.