Australia paceman Josh Hazlewood took three big wickets in the final hour of play to reduce England to 200-5 on day three of the fourth Ashes Test, setting up his team for another great chance for a victory to retain the urn. Replying to Australia’s 497-8, England was 166-2 — with Rory Burns and Joe Root on a partnership of 141 — when Hazlewood’s burst of wickets arrived at Old Trafford. Burns edged to Steve Smith at second slip for 81, Root was trapped lbw in Hazlewood’s next over for 71, and Jason Roy missed with a weak defensive prod and saw his middle stump uprooted on 22. Ben Stokes (7), England’s hero from its memorable win at Headingley in the third test, and Jonny Bairstow (2) were in the middle when bad light brought an end to play about 30 minutes before the scheduled finish. Two-and-a-half hours were lost to rain at the start of the day. England trailed by 297 runs, and needed 98 more runs to avoid potentially being asked to follow-on. The teams are at 1-1 with one more Test to play, at the Oval next week. The Australians will retain the urn with a win in Manchester. In the Ashes Daily, Australian journalists Geoff Lemon and Adam Collins are following the action all around England and Wales. Their long weekly podcast The Final Word has been going for five years. Every day, The Final Word will team up with Firstpost to bring you a new episode from wherever Geoff and Adam are on the road. On trains and buses, in pubs, on the street, in parks, on barges floating down rivers, and anywhere else that they might end up. They are also watching an awful lot of cricket, and can summarise all the matches that you didn’t have time to see, or can bring you into the discussion about the ones you did watch. So tune in to enjoy the coverage of one of the oldest rivalries in the history of cricket. With inputs from AP
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