England walked into the Adelaide oval to put what happened at the Gabba behind them. With fresh hopes, the England’s test team captain Joe Root was looking forward to a competitive game to go 1-1 in the Ashes.
England won the toss and elected to field first. They had quite a good start when Chris Woakes direct hit sent Bancroft to the pavilion. But the partnership from David Warner and Usman Khawaja brought some stability to the team.
The English were still managing to get wickets and breaking the partnerships. Captain Steven Smith was bowled by Overton on 40 followed by Handscomb LBW by Stuart Broad. The excellent inning from Shaun Marsh of 126 not out gave the Aussies the needed score on the board.
Wicket keeper Tim Paine gave a fantastic support to Shaun Marsh by playing an inning of 57 before being caught. The Australians declared their first inning on 442 for the loss of 8 wickets.
The first innings of England team looked good when Alastair Cook played some great drives until Smith took his catch. None of the English batsman could stand the terror of Starc and spin of Nathan Lyon. Starc galloped 3 wickets where as Lyon took 4 respectively to make England team all out for 227.
England fought back
England had pretty good grasp in the second innings as they could send whole Australian team back to pavilion with 138 runs on the score board. The highest scorer from Australian team was Khawaja and Starc with 20 runs in their account each.
Steven Smith was out for 6 runs. James Anderson seemed unplayable in the second innings. He took 5 wickets conceding 43 runs in 22.0 overs. Chris Woakes also gave a immense support to Anderson by sending 4 of Aussie batsman to pavilion conceding just 36 runs in 16 overs. Now, England had the target of 354 runs to achieve.
Alastair Cook and Stoneman came in with some positive vibes. They played some good strokes but Cook got out on 16 when he could not read Lyons ball and was given LBW. Soon, Stoneman too followed him with Vince walking just after that.
Captain Joe Root and Woakes watched the ball and played carefully for rest of the fourth day. The next morning England still had hope to save the game as Root was still hanging on the crease.
This hope was soon taken away by Hazlewood when he got the better of Root. The day began with England requiring 178 runs with six wickets in hand but could add only 57 runs to their overnight total.
Although, England fought back and brought the game to the final day, they were left needing their all time highest run chase to enjoy the victory. Now, the teams will fly to Perth. Here, England will try to end its losing streak whereas Australia will try to win the 3rd test and regain the Ashes Series.