Mitchell Starc was breathing fire on the first morning of the Ashes series at the Perth Stadium as he ran through the English line-up bit by bit after the tourists opted to bat having won the toss. In the absence of his bowling partners, Pat Cummins and Josh Hazlewood, Starc was fired up just a little extra and he showed it in the first over itself, dismissing Zak Crawley as England got off to a poor start. Starc made it even worse as he also accounted for the wickets of Ben Duckett and the big one of Joe Root in his marathon first spell of seven overs.
While Duckett showed a bit of resistance and sent the ball across the boundary on four occasions, Crawley and Root, however, didn’t trouble the scorers much and both were caught behind. Crawley failed to get through the first over while Root looked very tentative in his seven-ball stay at the crease. This was Root’s 14th duck in Test cricket, and sixth in the Ashes as England’s greatest continued to struggle in Australia.
This was also Root’s ninth duck in international cricket against Australia. Root equalled the likes of Virat Kohli, Brian Lara, Stephen Fleming, Muttiah Muralitharan, Allan Donald, Alec Stewart and Morne Morkel, among others, who all have been dismissed for a duck on nine occasions against Australia. Courtney Walsh leads the list with 16 ducks against his name against Australia across formats, followed by India’s Ishant Sharma in second place (13).
It was a short of a length delivery from Starc, pitched on middle and off, which shaped away just a bit to square up Root, who could edge it to the third slip, where Marnus Labuschagne took a simple catch and England were reduced to 39/3. Root was also Starc’s 100th scalp in the Ashes.
Ollie Pope and Harry Brook took England’s innings forward before Cameron Green struck before lunch and dismissed the former to leave the visitors four down.
England can take inspiration from how India played in Perth last year when they were dismissed for 150 in the first innings, but still ended up winning the game by close to 300 runs. Can England replicate the same? But for that, they will have to get to anything above 200 at least, while making Australia bat for at least 25-30 overs on the first day.
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