arrived on these shores with as deep and potent a well of fast bowlers as the Australians this summer. And
on day four, it is they who will be tasked with snuffing out a surprising England rearguard that has offered
their supporters genuine, if faint, hope of another Headingley miracle.
A miracle it would certainly be, given the target of 359, a score successfully chased by only nine sides in
Test history, none of whom were England, and more pertinently none of whom were this England, a team
low on confidence and high on brittleness. But as Joe Root and Ben Stokes saw out the last overs of the day
in glorious sunshine with few alarms, it was possible to appreciate the quiet resilience of a team who, just 24
hours after capitulating to 67 all out, seemed desperate to prove they were not quite as bad as everyone was
saying.
Perhaps it is a measure of our dampened expectations that even this moderate display of resolve feels
agreeably anomalous, that a scratchy 50 by Joe Denly was sufficient to draw the Headingley crowd to its
feet. And perhaps it is a measure of how far Root has let his own stratospheric standards slip that merely
ending the day unbeaten on 75 feels like decisive progress for a player who averages just 34 in the last 18
months.
If England are to pull this off – and yes, let’s indulge this escapist fantasy for a moment – then you feel Root
will need to convert that 75 into a big century, that he and Stokes will have to see out the first hour at least,
during which Australia will be due the second new ball. And yet whichever way you parse this, it’s hard to
see a realistic path to 359 unless Australia’s immaculate attack let their own standards slip, and as we passed
the midway point of the series, they showed precious few signs of doing so.
Indeed, after a slightly ragged hour or two in the field, they regathered themselves and charged in with
spellbinding vigour. Together, the three fast bowlers went at less than two runs an over, and with Nathan
Lyon looking increasingly dangerous on a wearing pitch, England were forced to graft, to squeeze out their
runs like kidney stones, and at times merely to be thankful for surviving.
Jason Roy is bowled by Pat Cummins (Reuters)What a bowler Josh Hazlewood is: hitting a hard, frugal length, and returning for a wonderfully aggressive
spell in the final hour, during which he treated Root to plenty of lip. Pat Cummins pounded in percussively,
probing the edge of the bat when the ball was new, peppering the head and the body when it softened.
James Pattinson surgically extracted what movement was available on a hot, sunny day. They are a
magnificent trio, and with Peter Siddle waiting in the wings and Mitchell Starc remarkably not even
required to this point, it’s not outlandish to describe this as the best-stocked pace attack to visit England in
a generation.
Equally, the fact is that Root and Denly have given England a sniff of hope in a match where they were
assumed to have none. This was doubly true after England’s openers were again extracted cheaply, Rory