Joe Root and Dawid Malan put on a defiant unbeaten partnership of 159 to give England hope of salvaging a draw in the opening Ashes Test at the Gabba on Friday.
A rejuvenated England was 220 for two at close of play, with skipper Root on 86 and Malan 80, only 58 runs behind Australia.
Root’s year!
After England lost both openers in the session before tea, Root and Malan looked increasingly comfortable on the third-day Gabba pitch as they steadily wore down the Australian attack.
Root’s classy 86 not out is one short of his highest score in Australia and took him past 1,500 runs in a calendar year, the most ever by an Englishman, surpassing Michael Vaughan’s 1,481 in 2002.
Leading by example, the skipper barely offered a chance in his innings, stroking 10 boundaries including a sublime reverse-sweep off spinner Nathan Lyon.
The South Africa-born Malan scored his only Test century on the last tour of Australia and although not as comfortable as his captain, he also looked in control.
He did struggle with fatigue towards the close, however, and went down with cramps.
Earlier, Travis Head scored a superb 152 to put Australia in what seemed a commanding position.
Australia was dismissed for 425, 30 minutes before lunch, a handsome lead of 278.
DRS saves Burns
Rory Burns, who was out first ball of the series on Wednesday when clean-bowled by Mitchell Starc, was lucky to survive the dreaded pair when he was adjudged leg-before off Starc’s sixth ball of the first over.
But, replays showed the ball was just missing the top of middle stump, and a relieved Burns survived.
But he didn’t last long after lunch and gloved to wicketkeeper Alex Carey off Australia captain Pat Cummins.
Haseeb Hameed looked in great touch and eased to 27, but he tried to glance a wide ball from Starc, only to get a faint touch to Carey.
Work to be done
Malan knows that plenty more work lies ahead despite England’s improved showing.
“To come here today and do what we did after a day and half of hard fielding is fantastic, but that’s only half the job.” he said.
“We need another 250-300 runs on Saturday to put ourselves in a good position.”
Review plans
Labuschagne said the hosts needed to hold their nerve.
“Test cricket is a grind, it’s meant to be hard otherwise it wouldn’t mean so much,” he said.
“For us it’s a day at the office. We’ll review our plans and how we bowled today, and come up with some ideas and get those last eight wickets.”
