A 64-run eighth-wicket partnership between Peter Nevill (59) and Mitchell Starc (58) ensured Australia set a defendable target of 121 for England to win the third Ashes Test at Edgbaston.
A 64-run eighth-wicket partnership between Peter Nevill (59) and Mitchell Starc (58) ensured Australia set a defendable target of 121 for England to win the third Ashes Test at Edgbaston.
The day started with breaking news coming from the England dressing room that James Anderson has been ruled out of the fourth Test with a side strain. If that hadn't dampened the moods in the hosts' camp a tad bit, the Australian overnight batsmen Nevill and Starc would have surely made some Englishmen around Edgbaston twitchy.
The duo effectively teed off on Friday morning with Australia at 23-7, but needed only six more overs to boost that lead to 62, including 19 off the first 12 balls. Starc, with a highest score of 99 in Tests, swung and flashed at everything in his range, and somehow managed to avoid any hands in a packed slip cordon.
Nevill was the more tasteful of the two batsmen and ensured that one end was held down firmly. The pair brought up their 50-partnership in 86 deliveries and taunted an Anderson-less English attack for 45 minutes, before Nevill was adjudged caught-behind down the leg to give Steven Finn his best bowling figures in Tests (6-79).
The score was 217-8 at that point, effectively 72-8. It was still nowhere near a defendable total, even though England were bowled out for exactly that score by Pakistan in Abu Dhabi three years ago, chasing 145.
Starc, however, was quite rightly not satisfied, and added 48 more runs with the last two wickets on his way to a courageous half-century. He was the last Australian wicket to fall with the score on 265, the lead 120.
England are a man-down but should not really need their No 11 to chase down so modest a target. Stranger things have happened in cricket, but with two-and-a-half days to go and a fantastic pitch to bat on, the hosts are likely to go to Trent Bridge with a 2-1 series lead.
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