With the Ashes on the line and weekend rain on the horizon, England were in desperate need of a fast start at Headingley in this must-win Third Test. Just as well, then, that Mark Wood was back in the mix.
The (very) quick, playing a belated first Test of the series, was simply sensational, blasting through Australia at top and tail, with only a quite brilliant counter-attacking 118 from Mitchell Marsh and some horrific catching (he was dropped on 12) in between helping Pat Cummins’ side to 263 all-out. The all-rounder, playing his first Test since 2019 at the Oval, was in the wickets, too, removing Zak Crawley for 33 as England slipped to 68 to three in reply.
Wood topped 96mph in the midst of a four-over opening spell that was among the fastest ever recorded, one that brought the wicket of Australia’s most stubborn batter thus far in the series in Usman Khawaja as the tourists were left reeling on 85 for four. Later, the Durham man blew the back end of the order apart, taking a further four wickets as Australia’s last six fell in a heap to finish with five-for-34, his best figures in a Test on home soil.
Most pleasing to what for much of the day was a more subdued than billed Western Terrace, were Wood’s dismissals of Alex Carey and Pat Cummins. These were the two men cast as the villains of Lord’s having stumped and then declined to recall Jonny Bairstow during Sunday’s high-controversy, the fallout to which had dominated the build-up to its sequel.
The wicketkeeper was serenaded with chants of stand up, and then shoes off, if you hate Carey, while Cummins was booed on and then booed off two balls later, having had his front pad bulldozed by England’s pacer. Carey’s resistance was a little more prolonged, but after being nailed on the back of the helmet by a Wood bouncer, he was not about to hang around and holed out next ball. The pair did, though, combine for Australia’s evening breakthrough, Carey’s wonderful series with the gloves continuing with a terrific catch to remove Ben Duckett, before Cummins picked up his second to bring a swift end to Harry Brook’s first crack at No3.
The Australian skipper had already been jeered at the toss, won for the third match in a row by Stokes and this time with a decision less obviously prescribed by conditions. England’s captain opted to bowl and reaped instant reward, Stuart Broad continuing his hold over David Warner with the scalp of Australia’s opener for the 16th time in Tests.
Stokes’s selections, too, were soon paying off, Wood upending Khawaja’s stumps and then Chris Woakes, popping his Bazball cherry with a first Test outing since last March, striking as Marnus Labuschagne’s unconvincing away record got a little more so. The wicket of Steve Smith, playing his 100th Test and left in disbelief as DRS soured the occasion by detecting a feather off Broad, was a bonus before lunch.
England’s great crime across the first two Tests, however, was in failing to pick their moments to go in for the kill, and to the list of kind circumstances not exploited - a rare no-show from Smith at Edgbaston, Nathan Lyon’s early departure from Lord’s - add this: in neither game did Australia even bother to pick Marsh.
This was the 31-year-old’s third Test hundred, the previous two having also come against England, and after four years in the wilderness, the all-rounder jumped on a rare chance in ruthless fashion here, filling in for the stiff Cameron Green to produce an exhibition of ball-striking without which Australia would have been in disarray. The Headingley outfield looked racy from the outset, but would have been unable to contain some of Marsh’s drives had it been an unkempt forest of harsh golf course rough, so clean, so powerful was his hitting.
Naturally, he was helped along the way by the kind of wastefulness that has punctuated England’s two narrow defeats in the series thus far, dropped by Root at the start of an afternoon session in which he added a brutal 113 runs before falling to Woakes’ last ball before tea.
That was only the most costly of several fielding gaffes. Travis Head, Marsh’s unusually quiet accomplice in a fifth-wicket partnership of 155 in which he contributed only 30, was put down by Bairstow on nine and then again by Root on 39, before being held by the same slip catcher to give Woakes his third wicket the very next ball. Root’s reaction told of England’s frustrations, the batter immediately hurling the ball with angry relief into the turf, perhaps in some small tribute to last week’s short-pitch love-in. Given events at Lord’s, he was fortunate Australia did not claim the catch had been grassed.
By close, Root and Bairstow, guilty in the field but still adored as this team’s Yorkshire core by the crowd, were paired at the crease, to resume tomorrow with the Test in the balance.
