Head Punishes Disastrous England Drops

“Catches win matches…”

An old, cricketing adage that has so often been proved true over the centuries and hung over England during this series like a dark cloud.

Four catches went down for the tourists, making it 17 for the series, on the third morning of the fifth Ashes Test at the Sydney Cricket Ground, as Australia dominated the first session, moving onto 281 – 3.

Travis Head’s dream series continued, with the Australian opener moving past first 100 and then 150 in dominant style, finishing the session on 162* from 160 deliveries.

Nightwatchman Michael Neser frustrated England with a dogged 24 from 90 balls, before edging Brydon Carse through to Jamie Smith, whilst Steve Smith twitched and ticked through to lunch on 16*.

The morning started in frustrating fashion for England, as Head continued on his merry way and reached his third century of the series with a cover drive off Josh Tongue, and Neser played and missed on repeat.

However, the worst was yet to come, with Head finally offering a chance on 121, mistiming an attempted pull out to Will Jacks on the deep mid wicket boundary.

The Surrey man was unable to hold onto a simple chance though, making a real hash of the attempted catch and taking his eye off the ball, due to the fear that he might come into contact with the boundary sponge.

Further catches went down from Carse, Zak Crawley and Jacks again, although they were much tougher chances than Jacks’ first.

Carse did well to even get to an aerial cut from Head coming in from the deep third boundary, whilst Crawley failed to hang onto a diving catch at leg slip from a Smith edge.

Jacks was in the spotlight once more, with Head hammering the ball straight back at him, but he failed to hang onto a diving effort.

There were all the other typical signs of a morning session in Australia going off the rails, with England wasting their final two reviews on attempting to dislodge the stubborn Michael Neser.

Australia are now just 103 runs behind England and still have seven first innings wickets remaining, meaning that the afternoon session will be extremely important for the visitors to try and bounce back and prevent the hosts from establishing an unassailable lead.

Catch the second session live on the Guerilla Cricket YouTube channel, by following this link: https://www.youtube.com/live/bbKFqC_LpbQ?si=6RTfFfO5SZd9gVgf