The Ashes: Defiant Stokes, but England face mammoth task

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BBC Radio 5 live.

Cummins runs in Bulls.

Oh, he's caught behind.

Joe Root is out. Oh, look at his face, his expression as he walk off pushing at that. I wonder if he needed to have played it.

It's the end of the Ashes for.

Me that I guess that's done.

It's dusted.

Australia give him the earn. Right, so the second day of the third Test match sees England with a deficit of 158 with just two wickets left in hand. Is this the day that finally their Ashes hopes died? We will be discussing that. Trying to go through the weeds of what has been a very, very irksome day for England fans, but a brilliant day for Australia whose bowlers have dominated today. They've given absolutely nothing away. They've been superb for England. Some precious few shining lights. Ben Stokes the captain, leading the way, still there, unbeaten at the close of play. A very lengthy vigil. 151 balls, he's faced with 45 with him Joffre Archer in an unbroken ninth wicket stand of 45, which you have to say has probably been the brightest spot of the day. And of course a fairly pugnacious knock from Harry Brook, but also one in which he batted within himself. Before we go to Dawood Milan, who is with us and Gleb McGrath AG is your sort of helicopter view of a day that's just felt flat For England, but brilliant for Australia.

Yeah, started badly. I thought England with the ball this morning were poor. They let Australia score 45 runs in those last two wickets which will start cutting and scything his way to another half century. England really should have come out hard. It took them a while to crank up again. I wish that Joffre Archer, Brydon Cars would look at Mitchell Stark and he's out there, he's warming up, he bowls properly for at least an over. I mean full tilt as a warm up. And so therefore he comes in to bowl his first over, but actually it's his second. He's warmed up but he comes roaring and he pulls at 90 miles an hour. First ball. You don't see that from, from, from England. And Archer's first ball today was 83. It's just, you know, it's just getting out there and really getting stuck in from the word go. So that, that was disappointing from England's perspective. If they gone bang, bang, knocked them over and gone out there, you just feel slightly different about the day, the day that's ahead. So that was a poor start. I think when you're looking at the way that England batted, you have to acknowledge that they have tried, they've really tried to bat in the way that people have been asking them to play. Whether that's been a good thing because of them, what it's done to them, their mental state and they're being tentative perhaps, but they've largely fallen to good bowling. And I think Australia's bowling today was outstanding. Crawley got a good ball for nine. Ducket turned Ollie Pope. I, I feel really sad about that dismissal because I was talking at the end just now, he can bat, he can play. I've seen him score some wonderful hundreds. Why is, is he been reduced to that sort of shot play? Something's gone wrong somewhere with his development, with his coaching, with the environment. Whatever it is, he's. He's a better player than flicking Nathan L. Just back in the side, straight to Midwicket for three and walking off. And then it just opens the doors, doesn't it? Because Ducket got one in the same over that turned a bit. You can't do that at number three. You can't. And I. Unless he scores something remarkable in second innings, I think that will be it certainly for, for the wild Rolly Pope. They'll have to make a change. And I don't know how good Jacob Bethel is. No one does really, because he's hardly played any cricket. But he's here as a replacement. And others think that if England lose here they'd have to make a change. And that's, that's. That's a real shame. Route a good ball. I really like the way that Harry Brook batted again. You touched on it there. But he played much more in a way that people have been asking him to play. Yes, he played a wonderful stroke over extra cover for six off one of the quicker bowlers. But it wasn't the flailing, mad swiping sort of a shot that we've seen him play up to now. This is a beautiful controlled shot because he's a great player and he can bat. You know, he plays a shot like that that was. It was virtually chanceless the way that he played it. But incredibly skillful. More of that please Harry. Going forwards because you're giving yourself much more of a chance. 45 from 63 balls. That's a perfectly decent scoring rate. There'll be talk about Snicko of course, but I think that's largely, largely irrelevant. I think today's main story is that Australia's bowling was outstanding and England have just. Just not being able to live up to that constant probing. And I said before yesterday, I have no idea how many times I use the word cut. And again this morning when England were bowling. I don't think I've said it once. When Australia were bowling. That's the difference in the length that the two teams have bowled.

Well, just to tidy up that Australia added 45 runs their overnight 326 and they did it with nine or ten fours. It was horrible to watch really. Archer's first over was pretty slow. Full and then cars started. Instead of Josh Tongue which none of us could understand Archer it was who took the two wickets. So to end with five. 53. And he did bowl splendidly throughout really apart from that first over today. Five for 53 of 20.2 overs. The standout bowler. But the damage had really been done yesterday when Australia were allowed to get away. And those would have felt like bonus runs perhaps for Australia. But when Igna went out to bat there's a real sense as that opening partnership got off to a good start. 37 in next to no time that the pitch was flat. The day was boiling hot. Darwin Milan is with us. And it felt like a beautiful day to bat. But it. It didn't turn out that way for England. What was it? Still a beautiful day to bat and a beautiful pitch. But just. Australia were too good.

I think it was. I think if you've batting on Day two at Adelaide. It tends to be a little bit of turn at at Adelaide, but generally later in the game you have everything in your favor. Hot day. Pat Cumins just coming back from a long injury layoff. So you have a lot going in your favor. And I think England would be extremely disappointed to have finished the day as they did.

I mean, England found, I say England, they found a pretty good tempo up front but then they lost those three wickets for five runs. And you'd have to say it's, it's not the driving on the up anymore. It's not the cross batted swish that Zach Crawley got out to when he was in the 70s at Brisbane. It was really good bowling from Pat Cummins who's come back into the side. He's not had any preparation, he's not had any warm up games, but he hit his straps immediately, got one to nibble, took Zach Crawley's outside edge. But Ollie Pope, got to ask you, Darren Agus has just alluded it to, alluded to it there. Is this the day the Pope died? Is that it?

Well, I think he's got an uphill battle in front of him. Ollie Pope, he's, he's had a lot of chances. He's been backed for a hell of a long time and he has in that time played some exceptional innings. He has scored some phenomenal hundreds for England that everyone has looked at and gone there is the player that you are. Unfortunately he's not done it consistently enough in between. And I think if you look at the shot today, he'd be the most disappointed with that. It's a good wicket, as we said earlier, good day to bat and he's just gifted. Nathan Lyon, just the simplest of dismissals. And when you're playing Test cricket, you know you're going to be facing the best bowlers. You're going to be under pressure and scrutiny and you're going to be getting good balls in your career. And the last thing you want to do is just to be gifting an offspin as such a simple wicket as that, and especially in a crucial time in the game, you've just lost a wicket before and then suddenly you're giving momentum back to Australians and as you said, Ben Duckett loses his wicket and that's over as well. And suddenly you go from a really strong position to three down and you're facing the hardest battle you can.

I mean, what was so sad about it, it seemed to me, was that you could see his struggles. It wasn't just that ball in Isolation. He played a very confused shot of a ball from Pat Cummins where the bat was just in no way. It wasn't in the right place to play the ball, but bottom hand had sort of scrunched his bat round at a weird angle. A bit like how he got out to start when he dragged on at Brisbane. And after the first innings he played at Perth, when everything looked fine, he was still. His leaves were proper and controlled. He then got out lbw and he seems to do this thing Dawid, where he fixates over the dismissal that he's had and then sort of tries to play the. If you like the. The battle before thinking too much about how he got out before. I mean, how did you read it? It was a skittish back to the skittish Pope rather than the calm Pope.

It was.

And.

And there's been a lot of criticism over his. The way he starts in the past and. And it's justifiably so. When you watch how he goes about it, it almost looks to me as if he's so desperate to score runs and he's trying so hard to get himself a start that he's just hanging his battered everything and he's too frantic in the way he wants to go about scoring. Batting is about fighting, finding your tempo. So not a temper that you. Anyone else thinks you should be batting at, but you should find the tempo that works for you, how your feet move, how you want to score, where you want to look to score, what your game plan is. And to me, it looks like he goes out every innings and it's just I want to try and feel bad on ball and I'm trying to get off to a good start. I'm gonna try and get to 10 or 15 or 20, whatever he's. His number is, and then sort of settle into my innings. But as you said at Perth, he seemed composed. He left well since he's been. Since he chopped on at Brisbane, he doesn't look like he's left well at all. It looks like he's trying to score off every ball, which is fine. The intent to score has to be there. You have to always look to score. But in Australia, if you leave really well, you have more chance of scoring runs.

The other part of this is, and I'm slightly baffled about the way England then batted afterwards, I say baffled. I want to ask you how easy it would be for the players to change their approach. Because Stokes made it very clear, didn't he, in that second innings at Brisbane that he wanted People to dig in. He and Jax just put up some fight and he did it again today, almost by setting by example. And Harry Brook, I thought, found that right tempo, didn't he? He got it just as Agar said, you know, 40, 45 or 63, it's. That's absolutely fine. But at the same time, he was rating himself in a touch. He wasn't scoring boundaries in the way he normally would. Do you think that it's quite difficult for a side to take, take a different approach from the one that they've been really, you know, harking on about for the last three years and then put it into practice in a pressure situation when the Ola, the Ashes is on the line.

I think it's incredibly tricky. I think this whole team has been built around being positive, being taking the game on, being pushing the limits. I think we've been fed that by them. I think we've all been sucked in by it. We've all enjoyed watching it. That's why we've been so positive about them coming here, that they're going to come and play a different brand of cricket than they've been playing in the previous England teams. They've got pace, their batters are going to take the game on, they're going to put Australia under pressure as they did in. On in the last Ashes series in England, where they managed to get two wins at the end and put Australia under a hell of a lot of pressure towards the end. So I think the disappointing thing from that point of view is that they changed the way they wanted to go about it, which I, I agree to some extent that you have to look to play the conditions, you have to look to, to, to learn from your mistakes. But if you've practiced something for three years to suddenly turn around and say, actually, you know what, let's just chuckle that away, let's just chuck the players that we've picked to play that way and ask them to play a different way. I think that becomes incredibly hard. So that should have been a discussion that they've had before they came to Australia, that they wanted to play a tougher brand of cricket, that they were going to probably knuckle down a little bit more, that they were going to leave better, they were going to make Australia bowl more overs, which in turn in Australia makes it batting a lot easier the later you bat. So to answer your question, yes, I, I think it makes incredibly difficult to change the way you're doing in a game, especially with the. The type of play that they've picked.

And is it hard David, to do that without actually playing a game to change it? I mean, do you think that, that the batsman should be batting more in games of cricket, not just test cricket but in actual games to talk. You talk about a game plan there. Hard to develop a game plan in the nets, isn't it?

Yeah, it is but it's a tricky one as well as, as a modern player to, to find the time to keep playing warm up games and practice games as well as all the tours that you have and all the franchise tournaments. So it is incredibly difficult to find that. I would question and, and there's been a lot of talk, I'd question why a lot of the players went to New Zealand for the white ball series. I would have said they probably should have come out to Australia and sort of parked that white ball series to some extent and given that as a second string English England team, because there's so, there's so much depth in white ball cricket in England that they could have taken a team out there and, and brought all those white ball players to Australia and given them more time and probably had more time to prepare against the proper opposition if they were able to get that. And I know that's been the argument as well is this Sheffield Chill games and, and, and Australia A and, and what have you, who they're actually going to play against. So if, if they can get that scheduling right in future, I think it's going to be, be worth it. But you know, the modern player does find it hard to play, what is it, 15 test matches a year plus ODIs, plus T20s plus franchise cricket plus your domestic stuff when you have to play. I think they play the hundred majority of them as well now. So to then add another two warm up games makes that schedule incredibly hard and means that you're away for longer periods of time and you're probably under a lot more pressure mentally to perform leading up to that.

We appreciate we've got to let you go. Thank you so much for joining us on today's podcast and we just have to hope for some kind of a miracle tomorrow. It is D. Right, so let's go back to the way way England batted. And look, I, I felt that they kind of got the tempo sort of right up to a point. But then Australia Glenn bowled so much better than England. So we were thinking that this was a pitch that was a good one and that was run soaked and yesterday was a bit of a false dawn for England because Australia gifted quite a lot of Wickets. England didn't gift many wickets. We've talked about Ollie Pope. He did. We will talk about Jamie Smith. He did. But for the most part, there was diligence in England's approach, but there was brilliance from Australia's bowlers.

Yeah, you're right there, Dan. And the way England bowled yesterday, you look at the pinch maps, there was. It wasn't consistent bowling, making Australia play good deliveries. Ball after ball after ball. Ball. Some of the shots that Australia played, you look at that one from Manus Lane, first ball after lunch, that changed, you know, the whole tempo of their innings as well.

So.

Yeah, you know, and then the way Australia bow today, that they just don't give you anything. You know, Mitchell Stark's been. He didn't pick up any wickets here today, but from first ball, ready to go, just bowl such great areas. You know, Pat Cummins, we weren't sure how he was going to go, but just come back in the. In the zone. And then Scotty Boland, if there's anything in the pitch, he just finds it and. Yeah, so you're always facing good deliveries and you've got to work out ways of how to score and get off strike and ticking the scoreboard over. And you can. You can be positive by getting, you know, three, four, five singles each over. So you've got to know your scoring areas and, you know, nowhere. Okay, they're trying to get me out here. This is the danger point. But, you know, occasionally I can come down and, you know, like, Brooke didn't hit one over the top. That's his game.

Yeah.

When you've got someone like Cary coming up to the stumps, then you've got to be a little bit smarter. So, yeah, I think England, they're in that zone where they're not 100% sure what to do. You know, the. The plan they had when they came here to be ultra aggressive hasn't worked on the pitches they've played on, and then they've been crucified in the media because of it. This pitch here doesn't have the same demons that.

Yeah.

So I think their approach probably would have worked better on this pitch than Perth and, And. And Brisbane. But you've got to give credit to Australian bowlers. They know the conditions, they know where to bowl and. Yeah. So unfortunately for England, they've. It's been another bad day for.

But there are different ways of putting pressure on bowlers as simply smacking them for four up there. I mean, you've got Cummins back after a huge long Layoff. Lyon still back and angry having been dropped and obviously you know he's two away from your, your record and all that sort of stuff. So you don't give them wickets. You keep and come in's case. You keep running in mate, you haven't bow, you haven't played since July. Have a few hours out there, see how you get on. Nathan Ly I'm not going to chip a catch to mid wicket. You're going to be searching for these wickets put some pressure on you that way. It's not all about smacking them for fours and sixes. It's getting into those bowlers heads as well.

But that is how Pope got out. But actually you know the way Crawley got out was a. He got a good bally bit of ball the way Brook got out. It's a lovely bit of bowling. So how is it that an Australian can come into the side three months after playing his last game and look as if he has been well prepared because he's four or five games he's a good bowler. Well, this is my point because he's a world class. Australia might just, dare we say it, just be better. I mean you look at the number of wickets that are out there.

But this is the point about the first two tests, you know, without, without coming to that. Hazelwood is also a world class bowler. Lyon at Brisbane, you know, these are the opportunities that are being missed. Mitch is a world class bowler and he's been head and shoulders above everybody up until actually this. But actually Cummins I thought out bowled him despite having not played for a while. But Cummins is special. So you know there's, that's why we go back to the missed opportunities of those first two tests.

And then the other thing on top of that, the way Nathan Lyon bowled, he, he bowled it tight. He knows this, this ground really, really well. He bowled good areas and he, he held up one end and allowed the, the fast bowlers from the other end to bowl in short sharp burst. They're ready to go from ball one. So that was Australia's game plan and unfortunately for England again they couldn't get.

Them away from that.

They didn't really take lion on to hit him out of the attack to make the, you know, the fast bowlers bow more from this end. So yeah, it's just about adapting, being match aware and yeah, just different things like that.

I mean it's also having fabulous skills all round, isn't it? Because let's face it, the wicket of Will Jacks, it's almost blameless on Will Jacks. He's done very little wrong to that ball. He's got a seam bowler, has come in and bowled a bowler's jagged back. He's got a big inside edge. It can be lpw. It's bounced off his inner thigh. But unbelievably, Alex Carey is standing up to the medium fast bowler and with brilliant reflexes and game awareness, he dives forward and takes a catch. That 99 times out of 100, Will Jax has actually got enough battle at least to save himself.

You could bet your life there's probably only one other wicketkeeper in the world who could have been standing up at that stage and that's yeah, Ben, folks. Yes, it's Smith's senior partner as it were, because they wouldn't be standing up. No one else would be standing up. Carey's brilliant. Just the gameplay of that. And to have Bowland nagging away and the keeper standing up behind it, chuntering away, that's all part of the game. But no, I think Jax can consider himself very unlucky. He really didn't do a lot wrong. It was just the brilliance of Kerry that got him out.

I mean, not many of them did do a lot wrong. And I'm afraid this is the moment when we're going to have to go into Snicko world because Snicker reared its ugly head again. I don't want to talk too much about it because we did it yesterday. The top line is Snico is a mess. One of the Australian players said that it needed to be sacked. It was the worst technology ever. This was Australians being upset right when there was a thoroughly confusing passenger play. When Jamie Smith punched the ball it seemed. But it was decided that it actually hit his helmet because Snicko got it all wrong all the time was when Guaja hadn't taken a clean catch anyway, so it was totally unnecessary for us to go through it. So that was a farce. Yeah. And then he, he plays. Look, it's a poor shot, one of the few really poor shots played today. Jamie Smith having it a six and a four over deep midwicket, gets a short one, does a bit of a Crawley at Brisbane, swishes across a waist high ball. He thinks he's missed it. Snico shows the. The edge sometime different from where we see the ball in the bat.

At least we thought it was. We think it shows an edge. I mean the big difference, Dan, is that is that the ones that we're used to at home and in ICC Cricket, which is supplied by. By Hawkeye, have give you a proper Jag. Bang, bang. There is no doubt that that is an edge. Part of the problem here is you get a sort of a smudge sometimes. Other times you get a Jag, the one that Cummins got two into his thigh pad. Nice big Jag. Thanks very much indeed. So therefore, if it's a Jag for that time, why isn't a big jaggedy one for the other times instead of a mush? There's something wrong with it. My own thought is that the ICC makes absolute fortune out of all sorts of aspects of the game. It should be supplying the best quality drs. It insists on drs because the problem is, like here and like everywhere, it's the host television company that provide the system. Now, the host television company's probably paid millions and millions of dollars anyway just for the rights to broadcast it. They go look for to cut a few corners somewhere. They're going to, maybe not. You know, you get two quotes to supply the Drs and you think, well, they're charging so much, but they're charging 20% more. Well, we'll probably go for the cheaper system, save some money. And that's. That's. I'm not saying that is what has happened here, but they've ended up with an inferior product, which is a domestic product and therefore probably cheaper than the one that come in internationally.

Probably, but you never know.

No, you don't know.

They might have spent more on inferior product. You just don't know. Let's get some reaction though, from the England camp. Assistant coach Marcus Driscollik. He's been speaking. Well done. He's been speaking to Henry Moran.

What do you make of what we've seen today?

Yeah, another tough day, obviously in the heat here. Obviously some of the guys fought really well. Obviously Ben Dinning's sort of re digging in and sort of blasting out the day and sort survive as long as he could. Obviously struggling a little bit with crap because of the heat, but again, we're behind the game a little bit. Obviously Australia bod well and put us under pressure and we've got a bit of work to do tomorrow to try and find a way to get into a total that we're happy with or feel like we can then compete in the second innings and then work out the game from there.

There are many that say, how's this happen?

This is an Engman team that were.

Expected to come to Australia and really compete. And despite the different methods, different plans, the different Ways of trying to get into matches, the same failings time and again. Yeah, I know we've talked about it before is the fact that we haven't been good enough for long enough, potentially in certain games, in certain periods. I thought Australia's bowling on that pitch today was pretty good. And I thought the way they went about it, obviously Nathan Lyon was into the game early and got a couple of early wickets. And we just. We're working at it hard and we're trying to do and find solutions and work at ways of doing it. We've just got to be better for longer and keep sustaining our approach and our attitude to what we're trying to do. And what is that approach and attitude? Well, I think you can see in different ways we've tried to adjust and read situations. We're always trying to be positive. We're always trying to apply pressure back into the game and get ahead of games and put ourselves in the front seat. And sometimes you have to adapt. And you can see the way that Ben has played today, and obviously he's decided to play in that fashion and dug in and tried to sort of scrap through. Other times we're aggressive. We try and put our position on the back foot. Ollie Pope's dismissal looked like a man devoid of confidence.

Where's his game at at the moment?

Yeah, I don't think it's quite at that point where he's devoid of confidence. I think, you know, he's obviously really disappointed, didn't get the runs he wanted to get and find it tough. But it kind of goes like that. If you get a couple of low scores, obviously the pressure sort of comes on and we appreciate that's what it's like. But, you know, he'll still work hard overnight or come back tomorrow, come with a game plan of thinking about the second innings and try and put that into place and try and get some runs there. Again, the technology has been a big discussion point. What have you made of it? Well, interesting, of course, I think there's many things that have happened over the couple of days. We're kind of in the position we are where we are with it, and it's not something that we can really dwell on. Of course, it's not been ideal. You're never really quite sure what's going on. But at the end of the day, you've got to put your trust and your faith in what the umpires decide and the match referees decide. And then if that's wrong or if it's different, then we're Unhappy with it, then the powers that be behind the scenes can obviously make that decision. But it's not ideal. The one in the first innings with Alex Carey. It is what it is. These unfortunate things do arise in different series along the way, but we're trying to just remain as focused as we can on the boys, trying to keep them in the right frame of mind with the job that we've got to do and let the rest of it look after itself. Is it good enough for a major series like this? I think you always want consistency with whatever that technology is. You know, there's so many people talk about, well, we should have this type of technology or this technology. We should use this company. I don't think we're really attuned to knowing what's the right way to do it. You know, we're cricket coaches, cricket players, and at the end of the day, like I say, we just want consistency in whatever that is. And if we get that right, then the game is going to be better for it. Many people said this was the defining game of this era of English cricket.

In test matches at the moment, it's not going England's way.

I mean, what's the feeling in that dressing room? Of course, you know, we. We understand that we're behind the game again, you know, and understandably that, you know, you feel disappointed, but, you know, we're still in the game and we're still fighting for as long as we can. And Ben has played well. Joppa's played really nicely there. The ball's soft. Well, they got another 10, 11 overs, I think, with this ball before we get the second new ball. So, you know, we'll keep working. We're still fighting. It's not dead and buried just yet.

Just finally, there's a lot of England.

Fans that have paid a lot of money, made long journey, shown a lot of commitment to this England side for this Ashes series. What's your message to them? Because they'll be some very disappointed fans, I'm sure. And it's never easy, obviously. You know, obviously watching us lose and, you know, we feel it as much as anybody else, but my feeling is still the same. You know, we're really appreciative of the support we get from everybody that come over here and watch it. It's a wonderful place. And the series have been brilliant with all the crowds and everybody sort of spectator. Of course, we're disappointed, as everybody else, that we've not quite hit the mark that we wanted to. Hopefully, we can still do our best and still keep working at that to try and put smiles on their faces.

Marcus, thanks for your time.

Cheers. The TMS podcast from BBC Radio 5 live.

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We're still fighting, we're still in the game. We're not dead and buried aggers.

Well, as you say, I mean it's a horrible situation again, isn't it, where a coach gets wheeled out, you know, to just to try and. Just to satisfy the media really and keep the needles twitching for a while. But it's an impossible, impossible job, isn't it? I mean, he knows, yes, England are still in the game, but they're going to need a Stokes hundred, you'd think, or something near close to that to get the lead down to something remotely manageable, you know, 70 or 80, the double figures generally.

Just gives them a sniff, does it?

Well, yeah, I mean it gives you a sniff if they come out, you know, and really get amongst the wickets. But these bowlers had no rest again. I mean they're bowling today and they're out there again tomorrow. They stoke. This is another failing of the way England have played in recent years that their bowlers have no rest, they have no respite, they can't recharge batteries. Before they know it, they're out there bowling again. I mean, Joffre, I think it worked out. Was he. Had. He was off the field for the, for, for six hours. Was it from walking off, having bowled to when he's batting again and if it, if it had gone bang bang and he'd lost the last two wickets, he'd have been out bowling again tonight. And that's just unacceptable. You know, it is not. It's. It is not sensible. It is, it is. It's just not well thought through, is it? It's bad planning to, to. To give your bowlers that little opportunity to refresh and, and come back and, and yes, save, save the game again. Pull, pull. Pull a rabbit out of the hat.

But the last word on, on England before we move on. Stokes didn't though, did he, Stoke? Stokes obviously sees the benefit, the need of staying out there and 45 off 151 balls, I dare say, before we go off air, Andy's aunts would be able to tell us where that stands in the.

The only thing I'd say about it is that, yes, I understand that, but Stokes does have the luxury of doing it later on. Yeah, they've. They've set this tone, the batsman to come out there and be positive and, you know, smack it about. It is not the first time by a long chalk that that has failed. And Stokes has gone out there and played this very defensive sort of innings. Now, would he do that if he was batting at number three, say. I'm not saying he should bat number three, but I'm just saying that the batsman who go in before it are expected and have been expected to go out there and seize the game by the scuffle, go out and attack the bowling. And when it's gone wrong, then Stokes is played like this. Well, that's, that, that's. That's nice for him to be able to do that. Some of those up ahead of him have not been able to do that. It was a bit of a. It's a bit of a reverse when dear old Jeffrey was playing and block it for hours. And those lower down the order here, both of a girl would have to go out there and smack it about to, to, to, you know, try and get up the run rate and so on. And that's what Ian Botham would Say anyway, so, yeah, I mean, I admire the way that he's played. He's shown a lot of discipline and determination. But is that the message that the other players could have gone out there with at the start of the innings?

And now a landmark was reached today by an Australian cricketer. He became the second leading wicket taker for Australia, Nathan Lyon. And he did it in his first over. He came on, on 562 wickets and man sitting next to me at 563 still has 563. But within seven minutes, Nathan Lyon had leapfrogged you up to 564. Just, just give us a bit of a tribute to Nathan LYON because the 564wickets, he's colossal. That's what, the fifth leading wicket taker of all time.

Yeah. So he's unbelievable. Yeah. So, you know, it's, he deserves to be in that number two posse. He's been an amazing bowler for Australia for a long, long time. He's, he's been out there 100 and was it 141 test matches. Absolutely incredible. And he gets better every year. You know, he knows his, his craft so well. He bowls well in Australian conditions. He's liked the newer ball to get that bounce. He's found way to take ways to take wickets. So yeah, he's had to wait a little while. But when it came, it came in one over and you know, he's now at 564wickets and yeah, very, very deserved. He'll be remembered as one of the greats, you know, easily the greatest offspin bowler Australia's. You know, it's hard to, to go past Warney. He was something pretty special. But Nathan Lyon is pretty special in this team and for him to get that 564th wicket today, I think is, is very special and you know, I'm really happy for him. He deserves it. Great bowler, great cricketer for Australia. Leads the team song. So he's a massive part of this team and we saw when he got left out in Brisbane, he was, he, he wasn't.

He was filthy.

Filthy, wasn't he? He was filthy. So, yeah, to come out and get those wickets early and yeah, it's probably been in the back of his mind now he can just focus on going out there and playing and. Yeah, no, I'm really happy for him.

Well, I'm pretty sure he wasn't filthy when he gave Ishigura his thoughts on the day.

It's been a pretty tough day. Nice and hot out there, but yeah, it's Nice to contribute and finally get into the series.

What was the key for you?

Just bomb my best ball and keeping doing the basics really well. It's no secret behind what I do. So it's just about doing the basics for long periods of time and hopefully carry a bit of pressure. Must have enjoyed that one to Ben Duckett. Yeah, that was a nice one.

Searing hot conditions.

How was it out there for the rest of the boys? Pretty proud about the way the guys have gone about it. Pat's been phenomenal as captain, as always, but the effort from our fast bowlers to get them 8 for 213 off 68 overs, it's a pretty big effort. So rest up, recover and we have another crack in the morning. You're in a great position. You want for ice baths? Oh, I'm going to need to.

All the best.

Thanks, Nathan, and well done once again.

Well, if Nathan needs an ice bath, you'd think the fast bowlers would need them as well, wouldn't you, Glenn? And especially Pat Cummins. So just a quick, quick thought on Cummins before we go to Zoltz, because I said earlier it's all about preparations coming in, not being undercooked. He looked absolutely perfect out of length.

Yeah. So I was curious to see how he, how he'd go, because the first Test against England last year, I thought our bowlers were a little bit underdone and it showed in that first Test and Australia lost that one over in Perth. But Pat Cummins, I think he, to be honest, I think he would have been ready to go in Brisbane. So he's been ready to go for a while. He's been, you know, coming bowling a fair few overs in the nets, but that is never the same as out in the middle. And yeah, he's got good control. He knows the game well. The last thing Australia wanted to do was to be complacent, so he wanted to hit the ground running and, and got the balls in the right area. And I think that early wicket of Crawley was, was not a bad delivery. That just helps you relax and get into your innings. And, and, and he did that today. I thought he bowled well. Yeah, Mitchell Stark still bowled well, but there wasn't as much movement in the air and, and what have you. So. So, yeah, Pat Cummins, yeah, he's a class player and he hit the ground.

Running and he also took the wicket of Joe Root. We're going to let you go, Glenn, because I think Andy Zaltzman, as we do a little stat roundup Cummins Getting root is something that's happened quite a bit, hasn't it?

Yes. That was the 12th time Cummins has dismissed Joe Root in test for a total of 292 runs. So Root averages 24 against Cummins, which is, well, obviously less than half of his overall career average of 51. Ollie Pope out to Nathan Lyon for the fourth time in Tests for just 37 runs. I think some like 3 for 5 against Lyon in Australia. Jamie Pope now 15 innings against Australia, yet to reach 50. Only one other England top order specialist batter has has ever had as many innings at the start of his Ashes career without reaching 50. And that was MJK Smith back in the 1960s. Jamie Smith's form since he reached a thousand runs in just his 21st innings. The joint fastest a wicket keeper had ever reached a thousand test runs. He was averaging 58 at that point. He's got 101 runs in his next nine innings. You mentioned the different style of England batting today. He lost six wickets to defensive shots out of the eight to four over the course of the Basball era. They've lost around one in four wickets. Two defensive shots, so that's well above average. And they lose two to defensive shots tomorrow it will set a basball record for most wickets to defensive shots in innings. They've had a couple of innings where they lost seven. One of them in Vikhapatnam in India, the other against India at Old Trafford last, last summer. So yes, it's not gone particularly well. Ben Stokes is 45 of 151 unbeaten so far. So far England scores in the last 10 years of innings, scores after 150 balls. That's the joint fifth lowest score by an England player in the last 10 years at the 150 ball mark and the joint second lowest in the first innings of a Test. More positive, Ringling, Joffre, Archer 5 for 53. The rest of the bowlers between them 5 for more than 300. It's his third five wicket haul against Australia. Had two in his debut series in 2019. Just his seventh Test against Australia. The last England bowler who had three fifers in the first seven Tests of his Ashes career was Ken farnes in the 1930s. Essex fast bowler. So not a lot of good stats for England. Better for Australia. Let's focus on Nathan Lyon. 564 wickets now past Glenn McGraw in that dramatic first over. Only the seventh time since 1904 in Ashes cricket that a bowler has taken two wickets in his first over of an innings. The difference between him And Will Jacks, we've got Nathan Lyon, as Glenn was saying, one of the all time great exponents of offspin Will Jackson, novice who's taken his 50th first class wicket during the course of this, this series. Jack's about one in six of his balls yesterday was dropped short and what the CricKViz data defines as short for a spinner. Lyon, just under, just under 4, 4%. So it's a 1 in 1 in 1 in 25 of his balls rather than 1 in 6. So that's four times. Yeah, he also bowled, bowled straighter, got quite considerably more drift and a bit more turn as well. But we're not really comparing like with like here. So you have Jax, I think did creditably in the. In, in the circumstances. And Alex Carey, 100 yesterday, five catches today. Only the 10th wicket keeper in Test history to have a century and an innings with five catches in it in the same. In the same game. Only the second in Ashes cricket after Matt Prior at the SCG in the 201011 series.

Absolutely brilliant. Well, there we go. That was a stat attack. Wouldn't it be great if tomorrow we get another stat attack? Highest 9th wicket partnership for England at Adelaide because there is an unbroken ninth wicket partnership, ongoing partnership of 45 between Joffre Archer who's unbeaten on 30 and Ben Stokes who has 45 and has dug in as the captain. England are going to need to find will at least 50 or 60 more runs, absolute minimum tomorrow, you would think. And then they're gonna have to bowl very, very well. And it's due to be hot again tomorrow, but not as hot as today, which may be. These are small crumbs of comfort. Thanks, Andy. You can watch clips of the action on the BBC Sport website and app with our full Highlights show on BBC iPlayer. Every day of the series from 5pm, the TMS Ashes debrief with Alex Hartley is on BBC iPlayer with Michael Vaughan and Glenn McGrath. And we're back on air tonight from 11pm for the third day from here in Adelaide.

This is the TMS podcast from BBC Radio 5 live. Hello, it's Ray Winstone.

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