Australia v England Third Test, Day Three Report Card

Featuring stinkers, Knives Out mysteries, Oscar Wilde and Poochie

Stinkers
Grade: B+

England began the third day of the third Test by inexplicably not lying down and dying. Weird behaviour.

Instead, Jofra Archer and Ben Stokes put on an effortless century partnership that saw the visitors have their best session since, I dunno, that first day in Perth. (Remember Perth? Remember when England had the most fearsome attack to ever arrive on Australian shores? Remember that? No? Fair enough. It has been somewhat overwhelmed by subsequent events.)

Stokes was marginally more willing to play shots than he had been the evening before, while Archer was batting like some kind of Mitchell Starc, scoring runs freely. The fast bowler eventually reached a fighting half-century, his highest Test score, and the first innings deficit fell into double figures.

Neither batter looked likely to ever get out. Although, having said that, at no point did Australia call on the potent powers of Snicko to dislodge them - poor captaincy from Pat Cummins. Sure, the ball was mostly hitting the middle of the bat. But do you think Snicko cares a tinker’s cuss about that?

Instead, Cummins fell back on the tired old trope of the new ball, with Starc scything one through Stokes and into the stumps to break the partnership. A tremendous delivery that elicited an even more tremendous reaction from the England captain, who went Full Yosemite Sam, hopping up and down in fury at his wicket having fallen.

“What in tarnation?” Stokes could be lip-read shouting as he departed the middle, moustache a-droopin’, ten-gallon hat on his head, and firing angry six-shooters into the ground. “Dagnabbit.”

Starc’s response? “Ain’t I a stinker?”

Knives Out Mysteries
Grade: A

Archer was out soon after, and Australia had an 85-run first innings lead that they stretched to a little over one hundred as they headed into lunch. One wicket had fallen, that of Jake Weatherald, who had wandered off to the dressing room at one point to read up on the LBW law, and never came back.

What this meant was that Australia were now in more or less the same match position England were in at lunch on day two of the first Test. The visitors, therefore, were suddenly odds-on favourites to win the Test by the end of the day and come roaring back into the series. A stunning turnaround.

Marnus Labuschagne came and went, his sole contribution to the innings being to sneakily steal a review out of the England quota. And even then, only just, with Stokes furiously demanding last-second feedback from Jamie Smith about whether he should send the decision upstairs or not. “Jumpin’ Jehoshaphat, boy!” fumed the skipper, glaring hatefully at his terrified keeper. “Make a decision, ya flea-bitten varmint!”