What did England expect? Australia expose Ashes gulf in Adelaide

Charles Reynolds in Adelaide: Well, really, what did you expect? For the third time in three Tests, England have endured a horrific Day Two and now find themselves even more rapidly free-falling towards the hard embrace of series defeat. It will be the shortest number of days in which any side has ever surrendered the Ashes.

Barring something almost beyond the miraculous, England will slip to defeat here in Adelaide, and as many predicted, it has been Australia’s bowlers who have been the deciding factor.

England’s Ashes hopes fade fast as Aussies bowlers dominate

To their credit – at least as much as can be assigned to a team 213/8 and still trailing by 158 – England largely managed to restrain their penchant for daft dismissals; they were simply outplayed by a bowling attack very much their superior.

The exception, of course, was Ollie Pope, who even for a man famed for his jittery starts to his innings, produced just about as bad a ten-ball stint at the crease as is imaginable. Ungainly plays and misses as the bat swishes across his body, short-pitched balls worn in the torso; it was the knock of a man desperately short on form and confidence. When the end came, it was as ugly as anything that had preceded it – a horribly loose flick to just Nathan Lyon’s third ball of the day hit straight into the hands of a grateful midwicket.

Unless he can produce something extraordinary and unlikely in the second innings, you would imagine his time in this side has, for now, come to an end.

Where England’s bowlers had been inconsistent and profligate, Australia’s were miserly and relentlessly accurate – all five parts of their bowling attack refusing to give the opposition the slightest glimpse of an opportunity, even in the gaudy 40° temperature.

It is always nice as a team when you can freshen up your lineup with a man who averages 22.10 with the ball in Test cricket and another who has 564 wickets. Australia’s attack was bolstered as much as possible by the return of Pat Cummins and the reselection of Nathan Lyon.

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The pair accounted for all four of the first English wickets to fall, all but Pope’s wicket winkled out with excellent pieces of bowling. Cummins took the edge of Zak Crawley’s bat with one that straightened off the seam, Lyon bowled Duckett with the off spinner’s dream dismissal to a left-hander, turning past the outside edge of the bat and clattering into the top of off stump.

The coup de grace came ten minutes after the lunch break, Joe Root nicking through to the keeper with one he had to play at just outside his off stump.

It summed up England’s day that the most fluent anyone looked with bat in hand was when they were bowling, their need to wrap up the final two Australian wickets soon thwarted by Mitchell Starc.

Starc needed just 10 more balls on strike to advance his overnight score of 33 to a second half century of the series – to go with his 18 wickets – as Australia quickly added 45 to their Day 1 score.

Those runs were the same amount that Ben Stokes managed to grind out across 151 balls as England’s captain refused to go down without at least showing a bit of fight. With just two English wickets remaining, he will need something a good deal more dramatic than that tomorrow if his team is to attempt any sort of comeback.