The Ashes, first Test, day two live: England seek last wicket of shell-shocked Australians

Here we go … paceman Mark Wood is ready to take the ball to start day two. Brendan Doggett (0 not out) is on strike. Nathan Lyon is also unbeaten (three not out), with Australia 9-123.

This was shaping as Joe Root’s best chance for a breakthrough Test century on Australian soil. He left with all duck and no dinner.

Root arrived at the crease at 10.59am, much sooner than he would have hoped when Ben Stokes won the toss just over an hour earlier. Ten minutes later, he was trudging back to the dressing room with world cricket’s most famous hoodoo alive and well. Seven balls, two hits, zero runs.

Joe Root scored a seven-ball duck.Credit: AP

This knock was so brief Root could comfortably give a ball-by-ball description without referring to notes, though it would be one he’d like to forget in a hurry.

Rarely will the planets be as aligned for success on these shores. Root’s two chief tormentors Pat Cummins and Josh Hazlewood, who have dismissed him 11 and 10 times respectively at the cost of 26.45 and 31.9, were absent. A century on the first day of an Ashes series would have been some statement.

Enter Mitchell Starc. All seven deliveries Root faced were from Australia’s man with the golden left arm.

Read the full story here.

England batter Joe Root appears to have tweaked his left ankle playing soccer during the team’s warm-ups this morning. Root fell to the ground in pain after his left foot appeared to get stuck in the turf.

“Was he looking for a penalty?” Fox Cricket commentator Mark Waugh joked.

He appears OK now, but we’ll keep a close eye on this.

Tom Decent has provided an update on Root as play starts:

“England are saying he’s all fine. Kept playing soccer after the said footage. Root is out there on the field as Brendan Doggett and Nathan Lyon face up. That would have been something if the former skipper was hurt. Glenn McGrath 2005 Ashes all over.”

Ashes villain Stuart Broad says his former skipper Ben Stokes would be “delighted with the situation” the tourists find themselves in.

“He has picked his five seamers with the mindset that they can be relentless. Every single spell, they can come in, give everything, hit the pitch hard,” Broad told Seven.

“I think we’ve seen from this surface, the taller bowlers, the harder you hit the surface, a bit of variable bounce. Batters have been hit on the back elbow, worn a few on the body. Usman Khawaja got a cracker of a delivery that hit the top edge of the bat. Feels like the sort of surface if you’re new into a spell, and you’re energetic, and you hit that surface hard, you get a bit more out of it.”

Brendon McCullum’s Bazballers can smell the fear in Australia’s dressing room after their five-prong pace cartel inflicted physical and psychological trauma on the hosts on a frenetic first day of the Ashes.

Twelve years after Mitchell Johnson terrorised an ageing England team, Australia’s band of veterans are facing a similarly frightful ordeal against one of the fastest pace battalions the old enemy has sent to these shores in decades.

Former England captain Michael Vaughan even called for Australia to send Mitchell Marsh an Ashes SOS after the home side crumbled under a fierce onslaught.

Ben Stokes bagged five wickets, capitalising on the brutality of Jofra Archer, who, along with Mark Wood, broke through the 150 km/h barrier. England’s average speed of 141 km/h is the highest they have managed in a Test since records began in 2006, according to data analysts CricViz. It is a speed rarely sighted among Sheffield Shield ranks.

England’s Brydon Carse celebrates a key wicket with skipper Ben Stokes.Credit: AP

Steve Smith’s men went from a position of control midway during the day, to being left shell-shocked and on their knees after a scarcely believable 19 wickets fell on a spicy Optus Stadium deck. Not since 1909 in Manchester has there been this many wickets tumble on the first day of an Ashes Test.

Loading

Brydon Carse, on Ashes debut, can sense the unease among the Australians.

“I thought we were quite relentless as a group of seamers,” Carse said. “I think we bounce off each other. I think when you have Mark Wood and Jofra in your line-up, that’s always nice bowlers to have. There was pace and bounce throughout the wicket and the day.

“I don’t think we really even realised it. It obviously was probably more unsettling for the Aussies.”

Read more here.

If it is possible to underrate a tall left-arm fast bowler who can hurl the ball down at 145km/h, swing it late on his day, and has also learnt to wobble it off the seam as is now the popular custom, then Australians have underrated Mitchell Starc.

Loading

He isn’t Captain Fantastic, Pat Cummins. He isn’t “the Bendemeer bullet”, Josh Hazlewood. He isn’t Glenn McGrath, Dennis Lillee, Jeff Thomson, Jason Gillespie or even Bruce Reid, another left-armer, whose injuries made him one of Australian cricket’s greatest maybes.

But with startling figures of 7-58, the best of his career, on day one of this Ashes series to round up England for just 172, Starc ensured that there will never again be questions asked of where he rates in the pace bowling pantheon.

This was the performance of a leading man, taking charge of a series with all the poise of a Lillee, a McGrath or a Cummins.

Read Dan Brettig’s full analysis here.

Hello, and welcome to coverage of day two of the first Ashes Test in Perth.

I am Jon Pierik, and I will guiding you through the day. We’ve also got Tom Decent, Daniel Brettig and Andrew Wu on the ground. The first ball is at approximately 1.20pm AEDT.

What a day: What can Steve Smith and Ben Stokes conjure on day two? We’ll soon find out.Credit: Getty Images

Well, what more can be said about an exhilarating day one, with 19 wickets falling. Bang!

Australia will hope to scramble a few runs from their tail, before having another shot at England with the ball.

This shapes as a three-day Test, or could it last only two days … surely not!

We will soon find out.