England skipper and backbone Joe Root fell at the final over of day 4 second Ashes Test at Adelaide Oval to put his side on the knees while chasing the huge target of 468 against Australia on Sunday.
England skipper and the only hope Joe Root fell at the final over of day 4 second Ashes Test at Adelaide Oval to put his side in deep trouble while chasing the huge target of 468 against Australia on Sunday.
England needs a miraculous effort to avoid the second consecutive defeat by 2-0 in the ongoing series.
No team has ever chased such a big score in a fourth innings to win in the history of Test cricket — but the old West Indian team chasing 418 for seven to beat Steve Waugh’s Australia at St John’s in 2003 is still the highest.
The task is even huge at Adelaide Oval where Australia had chased down the highest of 315/6 to defeat England in 1902 remains the best fourth-innings chase till now.
It all started when England’s batting order collapsed and they bowled out on 236 in the first innings in response to Australia’s 473/9 declaration.
They started the fight on day 4 but Root got dismissed in the final over leaving Ben Stokes unbeaten.
England is still 386 runs behind the target to beat the impossible or even draw the Test while batting the whole three sessions of the day with six wickets in hand and the number 1 ranked Test batter sitting in the pavilion.
The hosts resumed their second innings at 45/1 and batted till the second to declare the innings at 230/9, giving their bowlers a great chance to break England’s top-order while the sunset dawned.
They immediately got the breakthrough when Jhye Richardson bowled to Haseeb Hameed and it went flying off his gloves to Alex Hales behind the stumps without scoring a run.
Dawid Malan who scored a brilliant 80 in his first innings got a second life from Steve Smith but he only played three more balls when the debutant Michael Neser got the better off him in an lbw while scoring 20.
The opener Rory Burns looked desperate to score big after escaping a tight spell to score 34 but Richardson broke his resilience with the sheer pace and edged him at slips to Steve Smith.
Earlier Root hurt his abdomen in a warm-up as a result he got late in the first 85 minutes of the game for a scan.
He batted comfortably throughout his innings but later a nasty blow from Starc at the same area took control of him and he was left on the ground with agony.
Root bravely got up, but the blow was enough t tear him down as he got out for 24 in the final over, caught by Carey off Mitchell Starc.
With England losing the first Test by nine wickets in the first Test at Brisbane, their hopes are all but over of going into the Boxing Day Test at Melbourne in a week only 1-0 down.
A 2-0 deficit in the five-match series will mean the Ashes are as good as gone. The only instance of a team coming from 2-0 down to win the urn was by Australia in the 1936-37 series.