Starc and Boland Crush England’s Second Test Hopes

Mitchell Starc and Scott Boland starred with both bat and ball to put Australia in a completely dominant position on day three of the third Ashes Test at the Gabba in Brisbane.

Starc claimed 2 – 48 and Boland 2 – 33 as Australia reduced England to 134 – 6 in reply to the hosts’ 511, after compiling 77 and 21* respectively in their first innings.

England made a positive start to their second innings through Zak Crawley (44) and Ben Duckett (15), despite commencing 177 runs behind.

However, after a Boland delivery kept low and snuck through the defences of Duckett and Ollie Pope (26) tamely chipped a caught and bowled back to Michael Neser (2 – 27) to leave the score 90 – 2, the tourists fell apart once again.

Crawley succumbed to Neser in almost identical fashion, before Joe Root (15), Harry Brook (15) and Jamie Smith (4) all edged through to Alex Carey behind the stumps as England slumped to 128 – 6.

After Australia resumed on day three with a 44 run lead and four wickets remaining, England started well, with captain Ben Stokes and Gus Atkinson removing Neser (16) and Carey (63) respectively.

A 75 run partnership for the ninth wicket between Starc and Boland frustrated England though, further tiring their bowlers and bringing into vision the prospect of facing the pink ball under the lights.

Starc received the rub of the green, but also cut and drove nicely, reaching his second highest Test score, prior to being caught by Stokes off the bowling of Brydon Carse (4 – 152).

Boland and Brendan Doggett (13) eked out further useful runs as Australia finished on 511, putting them in an outstanding position that England never really threatened.

Stokes (4*) and Will Jacks (4*) will resume tomorrow morning and are England’s last hope of avoiding surrendering a 2 – 0 deficit, as they are still 43 runs in arrears with four wickets remaining.

England may require Stokes to produce an innings of the ilk of his 135* at Headingley six years ago, if they are to have any chance of getting back into this game.

You can follow all of the day four action via our ball-by-ball commentary on the Guerilla Cricket YouTube channel.