This has been an Ashes series of nip and tuck, of ebb and flow, of fine margins and a pendulum that has swung one way and then the other. But on a giddy second day at Old Trafford these themes were burned to the ground by a frankly absurd 189 from Zak Crawley and three sessions of outright English dominance over Australia.
Will it be enough to set up a blockbuster decider at the Oval? The weather gods may yet have their say. But England could scarcely have put themselves in a better position to make it so, their plunderbats having treated Pat Cummins & co with a level of contempt last witnessed from the Fast Show’s competitive dad all those years ago.
