England dismissed for 185 after another flaky display with the bat in Melbourne
\n Melbourne
\nPat Cummins\u2019 dramatic start to life as captain looks poised to earn Australia the Ashes inside three Tests after he set up a dominant Boxing Day for the hosts at the MCG.
\nOn return from a COVID-enforced rest in Adelaide, Cummins claimed three wickets in the opening session before the tourists were all out for 185.
\nAustralia then exploded out of the blocks, with an assertive 38 from David Warner helping them to stumps at 1-61 and with the game firmly in their control.
\nNeeding a win in the third Test to stay in the series, England require a miracle to fight their way back into the match and series that has spiralled out of control in the past two-and-a-half weeks.
\nAnd despite missing Adelaide, much of that is owing to both themselves and Australia\u2019s new skipper in Cummins.
\nIn one-and-a-half Tests as captain, Cummins has 10 wickets at 12.5 after being flung into the captaincy after Tim Paine\u2019s shock resignation.
\nAnd after watching last week\u2019s Adelaide Test from his couch after being a close contact of COVID-19, Cummins and his bowlers made a point to bowl full on a green wicket and was rewarded with a haul of 3-36.
\n\u201cWe tried to keep it really full in the first session,\u201d fellow quick and debutant Scott Boland said.
\n\u201cTheir batters were pretty conscious of wanting to leave the ball, so we tried to keep attacking them as much as we could.
\n\u201c(We were) judging ourselves on how much we could make them play.\u201d
\nCummins claimed his first scalp with just his fifth delivery when one nipped away from Haseeb Hameed and drew his edge for a 10-ball duck.
\nCalled in to replace the struggling Rory Burns, Zak Crawley fell to Cummins on 12 when he edged the quick to gully.
\nCummins then broke the back of England right on lunch, breaking a 48-run stand between Joe Root and Dawid Malan when he got the latter edging for 14. From there, the resistance from the tourists was meek.
\nBoth Root and Ben Stokes threw their wickets away, caught to balls they need not have played at outside the off stump in what has been a bugbear for the tourists this summer.
\nRoot\u2019s innings was symbolic of his tour, out for 50 to Mitchell Starc when he was caught behind the wicket for the fifth straight innings.
\nStokes\u2019 dismissal came when he tried to uppercut Cameron Green over the slips on 25, but only aided the Australian allrounder\u2019s reputation as a giant-killer by hitting him to point.
\nJos Buttler also went in careless fashion, caught on the legside boundary when he tried to take on Nathan Lyon (3-36) and found the only man out in the deep. And while Bairstow put up some fight with 35 before a Starc ball followed him and caught him on the gloves, nothing could be done to save England\u2019s day.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s a day we will look back on and probably reassess and next time potentially take a different option,\u201d Bairstow said.
\n\u201cI don\u2019t think you can blame individual\u2019s going out and playing the way in which they foresee the best way.
\n\u201cThe execution of those wasn\u2019t there today.\u201d
\nRoot\u2019s men did have some late joy when Warner was out edging Jimmy Anderson, but Marcus Harris managed through a crucial hour in his career to go to stumps unbeaten on 16.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
England dismissed for 185 after another flaky display with the bat in Melbourne Melbourne Pat Cummins\u2019 dramatic start to life as captain looks poised to earn Australia the Ashes inside three Tests after he set up a dominant Boxing Day for the hosts at the MCG. On return from a COVID-enforced rest in Adelaide, Cummins […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":235262,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[423,2197,2198,2086],"class_list":{"0":"post-235240","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-australia","9":"tag-boxing","10":"tag-pat-cummins","11":"tag-top"},"yoast_head":"\n