The Ashes Daily: England "staring down the barrel" after Head hundred puts Aussies in command

0:00Nas:Oh, what a start, that is from Crawley. Chris Wokes nails it for four. The Ashes alive and Test cricket alive.

0:08Ath:Ice in his veins. Pat Cummins has led his team to a famous victory. Yeah, go! Down, he gets his goal. It's a landing. England's captain, Ben Stokes, while he is there, England have hope.

0:21Nas:Put the beer away, put the champagne on ice. 24 years of pain in Australia. Finally they're beaten at home by England.

0:31Ath:Build them a statue, they'll cry. Just over our left shoulder, you know. Build me? Who are we building a statue? Not a statue of you, but just over our left shoulder, the entrance to this ground, there's a statue of Clem Hill, who is a great South Australian left-hander of many, many years ago. Well, another South Australian left-hander has just made his fourth hundred in consecutive tests on his home ground. What a day for Travis Head. What a game it's been for South Australians with Alex Carey's 100 in the first innings. Another masterclass from Travis Head.

1:04Nas:It was, and two South Australians walking off at the end. I thought they were absolutely ruthless there because they lost those two wickets after T. And if England had got one or two more, then the hope, but they extinguished that hope. Travis Head, quite brilliant. When England had been searching for the tempo of how to bat out here, have we been too positive? Have we been too in our shell? Travis said twice in the second innings now, Perth and here, have given them the absolute sort of blueprint of how to go about putting bowlers back under pressure. You sometimes bowl your best ball and he whacks it for four square.

1:38Nas:You go fuller and he hits you down the ground. He doesn't let spinners settle. It was an absolute masterclass. He looked absolutely exhausted at the end there. Carey had to keep him going. But every one of these members and Australians and South Australians walking out here would have loved what they've seen today and the last couple of days.

1:56Ath:You mentioned Perth. He obviously, well, he was a thorn in England's side in this Ashes series four years ago because he got 200s then. But shoved to the top of the order at Perth. A brilliant, scintillating 100 there. This was a very different 100. But there was an analogy to Perth in a way because if you remember, England were 99 for one at lunch on the second day at Perth and had a chance to shut Australia out of the game, which they didn't do. They lost that game amazingly in two sessions. And here today, Australia were 102 for one at lunch, and they were ruthless. They did exactly what they needed to do.

2:32Nas:I did, and at any time I was concerned for them was either side of the 100 moment. Later, actually, they were ruthless then, but later he got a bit nervous on 99. Harrybrook dropped him. And then after that, I was listening to some commentary, and they were saying, oh, now's the time for some fun. I would go the other way. When you are ahead in an Ashes, remember in the last few Ashes in England, Australia have had that chance to absolutely get England down 2-0 up or Headingley in 2019, whenever you want to talk. They've had the chance and they've not been ruthless. They have been in Australia, by the way, obviously, but he was ruthless.

3:07Nas:He didn't go in his shell, though. Like I say, he showed England that you don't have to go in your shell and we're going to not...

3:12Ath:He just took what was on offer and there was plenty on offer at times.

3:15Nas:And he knew at the other end England didn't have a lion. They didn't have someone who could give them control. He knew England didn't have Stokes. Stokes struggling with his body, maybe a bit of a tweak in his groin, whatever it might be. So he knew that there were going to be freebies on offer. England would tie it again because their batting again have got their bowlers out in the field. He knows this is a quick scoring ground. He knows it's a short boundary square. Where does he love to get his runs? It was quite brilliant. But I think Kerry also just played that role where, calm down, if we're here at the end tonight, that's pretty close to sealing the deal.

3:49Ath:Yeah, some Australians have had outstanding series so far. Mitchell Stark, Alex Carey, Travis Head. But let's go back to the start of the day. We've been there, haven't we, where you wake up as England captain after a difficult previous day and you're staring down the barrel, really. And I was kind of thinking of Stokes this morning and what he might have been feeling. And actually, therefore, for the first hour and a half, there was a lot of promise the way that England played. An excellent partnership between Ben Stokes and Joffre Archer. I think it's a record, not a record for the ninth, but I think it's highest for the ninth wicket for England in Australia for over 100 years.

4:25Ath:They both played excellently.

4:26Nas:They showed a lot of character and a lot of fight. And what did the captain Stokes talk about before the test? I want us to show that. Australia is not a place for weak men, and he definitely wasn't weak. He struggled yesterday with his body. He was a bit better today. The fact that he could get the reverse sweep out tends to suggest the cramp had gone.

4:44Ath:He landed a few blows today, which he didn't manage to do yesterday.

4:47Nas:Yeah, and he had a bit more trust in Joffre. That he could, Joffre would take the right option. I thought Joffre played beautifully. Took the right option most of the time. Those two seem to have kissed and made up after their incident. They played perfectly.

5:00Ath:Unlike you, they don't bear grudges.

5:02Nas:No, a bowler, I'd never made up with anyone and vice versa. But the only thing I'd say watching that partnership, yes, I was loving it. Showed how flat the pitch was. Yeah, I've watched for three days now. And I've thought, how did England get, explain to me, how did England get 168 for eight on that pitch? I mean, Australia bowl well, but I've watched for three days and I'm stood up there this evening thinking, how are we 168 for eight on here? If England go on to lose this game, that is where the game was lost because Stokes and Archer just showed them what a feather bed it is and still is.

5:34Ath:So that lead 85, which is significant, but not as significant as it might have been. But how much did it take out of Stokes and Archer then? because obviously Stokes didn't bowl at all today. Archer bowled a five-over burst with the new ball but looked less effective than in the first innings and that meant he only bowled two overs between lunch and tea when England were kind of just clinging on a bit.

5:59Nas:I saw him chase one, long boundaries straight here and head push one down the ground and Joffre looked very stiff at that stage. Just remember also these two are bowlers that are coming back from a lot of injuries, Archer and Stokes. So they're not two that you risk. Even with the Ashes on the line, you can't risk Stokes in that situation. And if Afture is a bit sore and a bit tight, you have to make sure he gets himself ready for the next spell. And again, I would be those batters. I'd be looking and going, our two bowlers there, why are they so sore? Why are they so stiff? Because we're 168 for eight and they're doing the batting and they're doing the bowling.

6:39Nas:And what have we done? We've done a bit of fielding and that's it. So I think it's a reflection on England's top order that Stokes and Archer are so exhausted.

6:47Ath:I thought Carr spalled his best spell with the new ball since the first innings in Perth. It seemed a definite intention to me to pitch the ball fuller. I mean, we've talked about England getting cut to ribbons in this game and previously. And I thought he definitely bowled a fuller length. He found some movement and deserved that wicket of Jake Wetherold, albeit that he should have called the DRS.

7:13Nas:It was the only mistake Travis Head made because Travis Head was quite wide. He should have been a bit tighter, but also the length.

7:21Ath:Surely Jake Wetherold's got to know that. And I just wondered, he's so crouched and low, whether he can't quite pick up the line. But the length of the ball said to me, it's got to have a chance of pitching outside. the line of legs. Anyway, he didn't review it. More fool him. And actually, I thought England at the start of the innings were much better with the ball than they had been.

7:48Nas:But again, England fans will say, why has it taken to the second innings of the third test to work out? Have you not been watching their bowlers? Why has it taken that long? Unless we've never bowled a ball in anger at that pace. You're not bowling machines and you do get it wrong. but finally, and then I thought Tong actually bowled a nice spell at Labashain. Tong's angle, I think Labashain struggles, as sometimes Steve Smith has done against Josh Tong, because he leans past the perpendicular. He does square, I know he'd square me up every single time, he does square quite a few, and he was all over Labashain, and at that stage, Brook took a couple of good catches, so England at that stage, I thought, were just about keeping themselves in the game.

8:29Ath:But we're almost inevitably going to run out of steam, given that Archer didn't bowl in the afternoon session after that two overs after lunch. Stokes didn't bowl. Jax couldn't hold any pressure at all. You know, Lyon yesterday, he got two wickets in his opening over, but didn't pick up any more, but only went for two and a half runs and over. And we mentioned yesterday in 40 degree heat, how important he was just in allowing the seamers to operate in shorter bursts, two and a half and over. Jax, in particular to left-handers, and I don't know why this is, seems to struggle with his line more, got picked off both sides, got cut a lot.

9:08Ath:He conceded more than 100 in the end at more than five and a half runs and over, and that's a massive difference.

9:14Nas:It's control of length. I didn't see it, the host broadcaster, how much they did of pitch maps, and it's an unfair comparison. You're talking about one of the greatest offspinners, if not the greatest offspinner, to play the game against someone who's a part-timer. It's an unfair comparison, but when you get to day four, day three, day four at Adelaide, it is a comparison that is important, and his control of length was all over the place. I mean, the wicket of Kawaja was a real long off. And, I mean, you said before the game, if they are bowling the same, Bashir and Jax, then you have to go Jax because of the batting and the fielding.

9:48Nas:I'd say Bashir is in a bad place if he's bowling worse than Jax at the moment.

9:53Ath:And it meant that Stokes had to eventually go to root. And we got to that beautiful bit of drama around Travis Head on 99. He spent eight very nervy balls, didn't he, on 99, which showed you what the 100 meant to him. Because he played just beautifully up to that point and hadn't looked in any trouble at all. And, you know, I got two 99s in test cricket.

10:17Nas:You wouldn't want to get 99 in an Ashes test. You wouldn't want to be run out, swimming in, trying to get in at Lord's at the home of cricket and not get your name on the honours board in an ashes test. You would not want to do that, Michael.

10:28Ath:He tried to steal one single that was never there. Then he got dropped by Brook. Quite a tough chance in the gully. And after fretting for eight balls, he thought, enough of this. And he just ran down and belted Joe Root over the top. And it was a great moment, actually. He knelt down, kissed the turf, arms raised, pointing to the pavilion where his family were sitting. it clearly meant a lot to him.

10:53Nas:It did. My first thought went to some of the bars in town, actually. He walked past every bar and there's like a billboard of Travis Head. I think it was the moment he got the big 100 in the World Cup final and he sat in the dressing room, the tash, and in his Aussie kit. He looks like a fun character. He looks like the sort of character, as a personality you want in your team. Cricket, at times, can be tough. And you need good characters in your dressing room. I think he's got that. He's obviously got a huge amount of talent, but he's also a tough cricketer. 100 in a World Cup final, hundreds in ashes, 400s on the bounce on his home game, and he puts opposition bowlers under pressure.

11:31Ath:Yeah, pretty uncomplicated character, the type of guy that you don't mind doing well, even if he's an Aussie. So, 3.56, two days left. How do you see it? The lead, 3.56. We've got still to get six wickets. I mean, they're going to try and grind England into the dust tomorrow. Yeah, they do.

11:49Nas:And they bat a long way down as well. You know, they've got a lot of batting still to come, all-rounders. They're not going to be in a rush. They're 2-0 up. Even a draw here, Ash is retained. They want their bowlers, one of whom's coming back from a few months out with an injury. They want a big lead. They want Nathan Lyon to have a pitch that's just going to turn and wear and tear a little bit more. So they're in no rush at all. they'll look to get the lead past 450 and I know England I spoke to you yesterday you know one of the things this England side under this regime has done well is chase well on the fourth innings 370, 370, 330, 320 etc but this is different this is with the ashes on the line and it looks like it's going to be 450 plus don't you reckon yeah odds then slim I said England need a miracle I still think, I mean I always believe in a game of cricket go back to Headingley 2019 whatever, it's not over till it's over especially in Ashes series you fight till that very last delivery but England staring down the barrel

12:56Ath:England won a test match once famously when the odds were 500 to 1 and on Thursday in England, the longest priced winner ever won at 300 to 1 so miracles do happen but rarely. Do you know what that name of that horse was by the way? I don't do horses. There's a cricket connection, it's called blowers. 300 to 1, my dear old things.

13:17Nas:We're doing impressions now on the pod.