England on cusp of squaring the Ashes series in 4th test , Bairstow , Wood dominates

 

Jonny Bairstow and   Mark Wood showed their firepower as  England may win by an innings in the fourth Test in Manchester under the power of two English cricketers.  At the end of the third day, Australia scored 113-4.  162 runs behind and six wickets in hand.  Marnus Labuschagne (44) and Mitchell Marsh (1) are at the crease.  Before that, England were all out for 592 runs in the first innings.

 Three England batsmen got fifties on Friday.  Ben Stokes scored his first half-century.  He ruled Australia's bowlers.  Harry Brook scored a half century after playing aggressively in the beginning.  But Bairstow played the best innings of the day.  He narrowly missed out on his 13th Test century due to teammate James Anderson's mistake.  He remained unbeaten on 99 runs.  A batsman remained unbeaten on 99 in the Ashes since Steve Warr in Perth in 1995.

 Before the start of the third day's play, England had only one goal, to score as many runs as possible.  Rain can come almost every day in this match and the weather forecast for the final two days is not very good .  In that case England's chances of victory would have decreased but the way England's batsmen, including Jonny Bairstow, played, the chances of victory enhanced  a lot.  Ben Stokes' team can win this test and equalize the series if the English bowlers can bowl well .  Already on Friday, rain interrupted play for a while.  Australia now may look towards rains to save themselves in this test .

England started the third day the way they ended the second day.  Harry Brook and Ben Stokes were at the crease.  There was an aggressive mood in England's game from the start.  Stokes was playing more aggressive in the beginning.  The English skipper returned after scoring his half-century bowled by  Pat Cummins for 51. 

 From then on, Brook (61) continued to increase the pace of scoring.  Australia are a little late to take the second ball.  They would have had a chance to take wickets but stopping England's run-rate then became the main challenge. Australia finally took the new ball in the 91st over.  

After Brook's half-century, the rest of England's batsmen were unable to stand up to Hazlewood.  At one time it seemed that England's runs would not rise above 500.  But Jonny Bairstow had something else in mind.  He has come under criticism for his poor wicketkeeping in the current Ashes.  Apart from that, his dismissal in the Lord's Test has also been criticized.

 Bairstow added 66 runs with Jimmy Anderson for the last wicket.  Australia did not think that they would have to face resistance like this in the last wicket.  Anderson didn't have to do anything, though.  Bairstow was playing almost every ball and smacking the bowling into the stands repeatedly .  He had only one goal, to increase the run as much as possible.  

 Bairstow reached close to his 100 but  Anderson was lbw to Green . He took DRS to no avail and thus Bairstow was left stranded at 99 .  Hazlewood took 5 wickets for Australia .

Australia started steadily  in pursuit of wiping off the huge 275 run lead that they conceded . However Mark Wood after coming in to bowl immediately had the stubborn Khawaja (18) caught behind.  Later Warner (28) after another struggling knock was bowled by Woakes . Smith (17) played a pull to be caught behind off Wood and Head (1) got a rapid short ball from Wood which he fended to  gully to the absolute glee of England fielders .

Labuschagne (44 batting ) batted with solid technique and played some impressive shots to fight another day with Marsh (1) who also looked secured in his technique as Australia ended 3rd day at a disappointing 113/4 as England need 6 wickets to win .