Australia had a day two to forget at Old Trafford as Pat Cummins shelled chances, Mitch Starc injured his shoulder and Zak Crawley scored a magnificent century.
Daily wrap: Read the wrap of the day’s play and the live blogScorecard: Check out the stats and full card from the fourth Test
Here are the five things you missed overnight from the Ashes in Manchester.
1. England’s (almost) perfect start
After Australia’s batters left plenty of runs on the table on day one, Marnus Labuschagne said “anything with a three in front of it” was a good score. And heading into day two on 8-299, it seemed a 300-plus score was all but guaranteed.
Then the first ball of the day happened.
Australia captain Pat Cummins chipped Jimmy Anderson straight to Ben Stokes for a simple catch at cover.
A Mitchell Starc single got Australia to the magic mark in the next over but it appeared they’d go no further when Josh Hazlewood nicked off to Chris Woakes a few balls later.
But both batters and the English team were called back as the third umpire had found a no ball, with Woakes ruled to have over-stepped by millimetres. Although not everyone agreed that he had.
“Both me and Glenn McGrath agree that there was enough of the boot behind the line on point of impact and that’s what we have to look at,” former England seamer Isa Guha said on the BBC.
2. England fires and Australia fumbles
The morning session was another more or less equal one, with Australia dismissed for a respectable 317 before getting the dangerous Ben Duckett early, but Zak Crawley and Moeen Ali bedded in to reach lunch at 1-61.
After lunch though, England changed gear, and left Australia floundering.
Both Moeen and Crawley reached their half-centuries by plundering some slightly wayward bowling, while capitalising on some unfamiliar errors from Australia in the field.
Alex Carey grassed a tough chance off Crawley’s inside edge, then Cummins failed to pick up a Moeen miscue at mid-on when he was on 49.
He then dropped a simple chance of Moeen when he was on 53, and while Ali only added one more run before falling, Joe Root picked up the attack with a powerful boundary off his first ball.
Crawley reached his century at better than a run a ball and went to tea alongside Root with England 2-239, having clattered 178 runs off 150 balls (7.12 runs per over) in the session.
That got them within 78 runs of Australia’s first-innings total as the game, and series, completely shifted in the space of two hours.
3. Khawaja bails out his skipper
After Cummins’s double stuff-up and a slew of other half-chances going against Australia, it looked like the cricket gods wanted it to be England’s day.
Enter Usman Khawaja.
Moeen Ali absolutely crushed the next ball he faced after Cummins dropped him.
But, unlike so many others in the lead-up, this one found a safe pair of hands, with Khawaja taking a brilliant diving chance at wide mid-on.
It was the only highlight of the afternoon session for Australia.
4. Zak Crawley cuts loose
Coming into this, his 38th Test match, there were some questions over Zak Crawley as an opener for England.
The 25-year-old Kent opener averaged 28.65 with three Test centuries, but only two half-centuries since the Rawalpindi Test in December 2022, 16 innings ago.
And despite plenty of starts this Ashes, he hadn’t got a big score yet.
Fortunately, he didn’t have to wait long on day two, reaching his fourth Test ton off just 93 balls.
“Zak Crawley has found his Ferrari, he’s in gear six and he’s off,” Michael Vaughan said on ABC radio commentary.
“Crawley is going now and he might as well keep going.”
It was the second-fastest hundred at Old Trafford behind Ian Botham’s 86-ball effort in 1981 — the last time England beat Australia in Manchester in a Test match.
His 189 also took him comfortably to the top of the run-scoring tally for this series.
5. Mitch Starc leaves the field
It was a tough day for all of Australia’s bowlers, but Mitch Starc in particular was left struggling most, physically.
After appearing to damage his leg just before tea, struggling when bowling, then fielding on the rope, and then bowling again, Starc kept on plugging away, limping back to his mark and then turning around and bowling some more.
But he was forced to leave the field half an hour before the close when diving to stop a ball at mid-on.
Starc jarred his shoulder as he fell and lay on the ground in clear pain, before walking off the field.
He briefly returned but was unable to throw the ball in from the boundary so went back off.
Australia did pick five seamers for this Test, but if he has injured himself, that will be a big blow for Australia’s chances both in this Test and in the fifth game at The Oval next week.
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