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2nd over: England 2-1 (Duckett 1, Pope 0) Good start from Boland. Smacks Duckett on the gloves, then takes his edge, on the bounce to slip. A handy sub fielder, by the way: Beau Webster at third slip, all six-foot-fifteen of him, a good swap for the old stager Nathan Lyon. Khawaja is out there, no sign of back problems today. Duckett nudges a single, Pope adds a leg bye.
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1st over: England 0-1 (Duckett 0, Pope 0) Again, Ollie Pope in early. Survives the first ball against Starc despite an lbw appeal.
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WICKET! Crawley c & b Starc, England 0-1
Standing up tall, high backlift, Crawley waits for Mitchell Starc and… leaves the ball! Scandal. Drama. Nobody expected that. Thankfully he smokes the next one, but straight at mid off. Leaves the third ball. Almost offers a leading edge as he defends the fourth.
The fifth, though… the fifth. What an unbelievable catch! Mitchell Starc, you absolute star! Crawley pushes defensively, the bat twists in his hand, and the ball skews back towards the bowler. Not close to the bowler, though. He’s bowling over the wicket, left-arm, and the ball has gone towards the off side of the pitch for the right-hander.
But somehow, in the follow-through, Starc flings himself across space and time, like a flicked elastic, and just gets a hand to it. The ball sticks in that palm. Then as he falls, Starc cocks his wrist upwards, so his little finger stays under the side of the ball, and he keeps it sufficiently off the ground as his arm makes contact. They look at some replays but the catch is, remarkably, clean.
A pair for Crawley, and all three innings so far have had a wicket in the first over without a run on the board. Check the history books, please.
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Updated at 04.14 CET
“Get ready for Crawley Mania. The Summer of Zak,” mutters my colleague Charlie Reynolds in the Perth press box. We’re all set.
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England lead by 40 runs on the first innings
Remarkable to say that, after they were bowled out for 172 yesterday, but Australia’s batting was papier-mache and England’s bowling was the sprinkling of rain required to make it fall apart. What a wild tale.
Mitchell Starc is out there warming up, he’ll need another massive performance in the next two hours if Australia want to stay in the hunt. If England’s aggressive openers get away, this game could become very one-sided very quickly.
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WICKET! Lyon c Duckett b Carse 4, Australia 132-10
A minor victory for the batting pair in having seen off Mark Wood, but the bowling change brings the more important victory for England, as Lyon drives at Brydon Carse and slices to gully. Done and done. England lead!
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45th over: Australia 132-9 (Lyon 4, Doggett 7) Another six balls faced for Doggett, for no profit this time. He leaves a few but heaves at a couple, once across the line, missing and hit on the body by Atkinson, then a big wafty uppercut that does nothing. He’s trying…
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44th over: Australia 132-9 (Lyon 4, Doggett 7) The fact that the last pair are batting reasonably comfortably won’t make Australia feel good about bowling to England imminently. Doggett drives with some confidence at Wood. Mistimes it for a single to cover, but wasn’t afraid to get on the front foot. They’ve cut the deficit to 40.
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43rd over: Australia 131-9 (Lyon 4, Doggett 6) And on it goes for Doggett. Another clunky drive, this time through mid on, gets him back for a second run. Fourth ball of the over he finally gets a reprieve, a single to cover. Atkinson bumps Lyon but the ball sails way over his head.
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42nd over: Australia 128-9 (Lyon 4, Doggett 3) Lyon single first ball puts Doggett back on strike. Ohh, dropped catch! In at short leg, Pope under the mitre, and the ball reaches his fingertips but goes down rather than up. Mark Wood keeps peppering Doggett, who by the end of the over has faced every delivery so far today but two. The sixth ball he decides he’s had enough and aims a big drive, inside edges it, gets a run to fine leg, and keeps the strike.
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41st over: Australia 126-9 (Lyon 3, Doggett 2) Now Doggett is off the mark! Gets a couple of runs through backward point, steering away Atkinson. Happy to come back and keep the strike too, and sees off the rest of the over.
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40th over: Australia 124-9 (Lyon 3, Doggett 0) How’s this for a task first thing in the morning. Brendan Doggett, No11 on debut, facing Mark Wood at a million miles an hour. He does a good job, though! Leaves one, blocks one, ducks the short one, and eventually adds a run to the total via his thigh pad. Not a run for him, though, he’s yet to get off the mark.
ShareGeoff Lemon
Hello again. A very different morning today than it was yesterday. Cool, overcast, but the clouds are high and bright, so don’t worry, no chance of interruptions at least in the short term.
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Updated at 03.46 CET
There are grey skies around Perth Stadium as we close in on the start of day two but play is expected to begin on time in 10 minutes or so. Nathan Lyon and Brendan Doggett will seek to carry Australia closer to England’s first innings total of 172, while the tourists lead by 49 runs and need one wicket to bat again.
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Mitchell Starc didn’t quite play a lone hand for Australia, but the hosts were well short of the five star quicks that England rolled out on day one in Perth. Simon Burnton looks at how Jofra Archer, Gus Atkinson, Mark Wood, Brydon Carse and, of course, captain Ben Stokes hunted as a pack to turn the first Test on its head.
There is a strong argument that Ben Stokes should have made a different choice at the toss and immediately unleashed his barrage of fast bowlers at Australia’s openers, an out-of-sorts Usman Khawaja approaching his 39th birthday and a 31-year-old debutant in Jake Weatherald.
As it turned out, his decision did not delay that moment for long, the tourists bowled out for 172 inside 33 overs. This turn of events may have brought England’s supporters down to earth, but it inspired their players to reach for the stars.
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The Ashes opened with Mitchell Starc putting Australia in a position of strength while sending another reminder that he is more than just a member of a fast and furious trio. Geoff Lemon was at Perth Stadium to witness the left-arm quick’s career-best seven for 58.
Starc did not pick up wickets in a kamikaze burst, but with consistent quality over a dozen overs split into two lengthy spells, the second of which was cut in half by the lunch break.
Without much swing, with decent carry but no obvious weapons for a bowler, he was consistently above 140kmh (87mph), constantly at his opponents with barely a loose delivery. It might well have been his highest-quality performance on a surface good for batting.
ShareMartin Pegan
If you missed the remarkable day one of the first Test, or just want to relive what was the highest of drama, Ali Martin reported on all the action from Perth Stadium.
Not since Old Trafford in 1909, when 20 batters were sent packing, have more wickets fallen on the first day of an Ashes Test. There were 19 here, a fast-bowling festival, and those England supporters back home who woke up midway through could have been forgiven for feeling a bit played.
An initial collapse to 172 all out in 32.5 overs by the tourists must have been like discovering a horse’s head in the bed, reason to once again bemoan the excesses of so-called Bazball. But Ben Stokes (five for 23) and his fellow quicks then delivered a far more instructive message, reducing Australia to 123 for nine by stumps and inflicting a good few bruises to go with it.
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Updated at 02.40 CET
Preamble
Geoff Lemon
Have we all got our breath back? That was an absolutely nonsense, absurd, bizarre opening day: 19 wickets in a Test day in Australia that only contained about 70 overs. Can nobody remember how to bat anymore? Was the pitch too difficult? The answer is no, not really, because some players do still bat for long periods of time elsewhere, and the surface had some pace and bounce but nothing inconsistent or unplayable. It’s just that nobody played it well, against some decent fast bowling.
So we’re almost 50% of the way through the match in scoreboard terms, in 20% of the allotted days and 16.4% of the allotted overs. Holy balance sheet, Robin.
Australia trail by 49 runs! After bowling out England for 172! The last pair will resume, but we’re not imagining that Lyon and Doggett will add a lot with the bat. Then, it will be Shootout No.2.
Don’t look away from the match today, there may not be much left of it by tomorrow.
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