Ashes 2023: England within 224 runs of keeping Ashes alive after engrossing action at Headingley

It was a golden Sunday at Headingley four years ago that went down in Ashes history and those lucky enough to have tickets this Sunday are in for another memorable occasion.

England require a further 224 runs to win the third Ashes Test and stay in the series. Australia need 10 wickets to retain the urn and win their first series in England since 2001. Turn on the television, turn up the radio and log on to the live blog. Everything is on the line and it’s sure to be a showstopper.

Those who stayed at Headingley on Saturday after hours of driving rain were rewarded with 25.1 engrossing overs. Australia lifted their score from 116 for four to 224 all out in 20.1 overs of high-grade entertainment before England’s two openers confidently started the chase, England closing on 27 without loss, and walking off with their chests puffed out. The WinViz calculator gave them a 75 per cent chance of victory.

Australia are still in the Test because Travis Head played a brilliant hand with the tail to give his side a defendable total, adding 54 for the last two wickets. He was 34 off 83 balls when Cummins fell, and scored another 43 from 29 deliveries before he was caught in the deep for 77.

Gifted perfect bowling conditions for swing and seam, England persisted with the short ball assault against Head rather than looking to nick him off like they did successfully to batsmen at the other end.

A bit of variable bounce when the bowling was from the Football Ground End was fully exploited by Chris Woakes, who bowled a nine-over spell running up the hill for two for 40, surprising batsmen with extra bounce — Mitchell Marsh caught behind trying to leave and Alex Carey played on off his glove.

�� WICKET ��

Marsh was looking to leave it, but the bounce takes it off his bat and Bairstow scoops it up ❌

A BIG wicket for England! �� pic.twitter.com/R1UsIs9JFy

— Sky Sports Cricket (@SkyCricket) July 8, 2023

Once Woakes had broken through, Stokes summoned Mark Wood to fly in and blow away the tail like he did in the first innings. It worked at first, Pat Cummins not fancying the pace and nicking off for one. Then Mitchell Starc was caught athletically by Harry Brook running around from short leg to dive forward and pluck a skier that should have been the keeper’s catch but Jonny Bairstow, down on confidence, hesitated and left for his team-mate.

Now Australia had nothing to lose and Head was transformed into an Australian Ben Stokes, taking on the short ball and bisecting the fielders with clear-eyed precision while Todd Murphy offered decent support. Head struck Wood for two sixes and three fours, and launched Woakes into the Western Terrace.

Wood bowled a seven-over spell, giving everything knowing he has a week off between Tests but Broad could have been more of a threat, his movement through the air and nip off the pitch was more suited to these conditions, especially as Wood lacked the slower-ball variation that could have worked against batsmen swinging for their lives.

When Broad came back he broke through straight away, with his fifth ball trapping Murphy on the crease leg before. Wood stayed on for one more over and was twice swung into the leg side for six by Head, valuable runs, before holing out to deep midwicket off the first ball of Broad’s next over.

It gave England 20 minutes to bat in the evening sunshine, as Headingley basked in the best weather of the day. A confident start was vital and Zak Crawley picked Cummins off his pads for four as England took eight off the opening over.

Australia chewed up a review in the second over when Ben Duckett wafted down the leg side. Lost reviews cost Australia the Headingley Test four years ago, will it have a bearing again? Duckett was lucky, edges dropped short of slip or over the cordon and he took a painful blow on the hand from Cummins but somehow survived.

This team loves chasing a total. It suits their mindset because so many have been brought up in white-ball cricket and they can play their shots with freedom knowing they have the backing of the management. Of course, they have Stokes too.

Last year they chased down four scores in a row of more than 250 but never under such pressure. The Ashes is a different beast to Test series against every other nation and get this one wrong and they have lost the series. Stokes needs some help from his friends. He cannot don the Superman cape every day.

Sunday will shape the immediate futures of a couple of players. Brook could do with some runs and a convincing performance at no 3 and Bairstow owes his team a performance.

One who deserves another match is Woakes. He slipped out of contention before the Ireland Test when England had a late change of heart and blooded Josh Tongue instead.

As it turns out, the extended break has done him some good. He returned for this game looking fitter and fresher than he did at the start of the season for Warwickshire and he was also lucky to have missed the pitches for the first two Tests that rendered James Anderson impotent and would have done the same to Woakes.

He has done enough to keep his place for Old Trafford with six wickets at Headingley, his best match performance against Australia. He went past 100 Test wickets in England too at a bargain bucket price of just 22 runs each, better than Anderson, although from a smaller sample size.

It could well be a choice between the two in Manchester next week with Tongue almost certain to replace Ollie Robinson who did not bowl again after leaving the field during Australia’s first innings. Anderson is no longer a certainty to play on his home ground.

England gambled on their attack but Chris Woakes has proved his value

By Scyld Berry, at Headingley 

Before this Ashes series Ben Stokes declared that he wanted eight pace bowlers on tap. It has been the fifth and sixth such bowlers used by England, Mark Wood and Chris Woakes, who have given them a chance of winning this third Test in taking 13 wickets between them.

Wood has taken all the headlines, and deservedly, for putting the wind up Australia’s batsmen. If his seven-over spell on the third evening, after the rain, was not quite so vivid as his first burst of the match when he touched 95 mph, it was still hair-raising stuff — hair-raising and glove-hitting, as even Travis Head found when he tried to be Australia’s answer to Ben Stokes.

Overall, in this game, Wood has been as fast as anyone this correspondent has seen, alongside Jofra Archer in 2019, Wood himself in the St Lucia Test earlier that same year, and Brett Lee at the WACA in Perth. Of bowlers in the period before speed-guns, and resilient helmets, Patrick Patterson on his Test debut in his native Jamaica, on a broken pitch in 1986, might or might not have been so quick but was more of a threat to limb and life, namely England’s.

Wood, however, is not the only pace bowler who has returned to the sunlight of active Test service after a long lay-off. Woakes too has excelled on his recall, bowling some archetypal English swing-and-seam, coupled with plenty of short balls when his captain demanded — all on the back of only two championship matches this season and some T20 Blast games for Warwickshire with a maximum of four overs.

It was due reward for Woakes to register his 100th Test wicket in England when dismissing Alex Carey to widespread approval: 100 Test wickets, at 22 runs each, striking once every 44 balls on average. This is the stuff — or at least the figures — of which some of England’s finest pace bowlers, Truemans and Stathams, Goughs and Frasers, would have been proud.

What we never see are all the hours on the treadmill and couch which injured quick bowlers have to endure. The hours, days, weeks and months of tedium with only a physio and earphones for company: they sap desire. Yet Woakes went through it all over again and emerged on the other side, aged 34, and not past it, but ready to resume his England red-ball career.

Woakes kept England going from the Football Stand end until Stuart Broad returned and mopped up the last two Australian wickets. It might have been wiser if Woakes had pitched the ball up to Head in conditions designed for his outswing and seam, but the team strategy, starting at Lord’s, has been to bounce Head on every occasion; and we will soon see whether it was right or whether Ben Stokes should have begun the third day with Plan A and bowled normally to Head, before resorting to Plan B for bouncer.

In addition to his six wickets, Woakes still has his second innings, and it is unlikely that England’s run-chase will be the calm and seamless procession to 251 which would spare our nerves. This is what distinguishes Woakes from the bulk of fast-medium bowlers who have represented England: the capacity to score 27 on average in a Test, and as much as 34 in England.

The ball is going to be flying past England’s ears on day four, on a pitch which may become increasingly uneven. It will be time for the stoutest hearts. With bat as well as ball Woakes may prove to be made of English oaks.