Joe Root, 86 not out from 158 balls and Dawid Malan, 80 not out from 177 balls, batted beautifully to help England towards a total of 220 for two wickets at the close of day three, leaving them 58 runs behind Australia.
Root broke another record, becoming England’s record run scorer in a calendar year with 1,482 runs in 13 matches with an average of 64.43 and six hundreds, one fifty.
Root and Malan took spinner Nathan Lyon on and batted with great intent to put the pressure back on the home side; Lyon finished the day with figures of 69 runs for no wickets from 24 overs.
Australia finished their first innings with a brilliant score of 425, adding 82 runs overnight; this put them in an extremely dominant lead with a first innings lead of 278 runs.
Travis Head reached 152 before he was clean bowled by Mark Wood. Mitchell Starc was caught in the deep by Rory Burns off Chris Woakes’ bowling for 35 and Nathan Lyon was caught by Ollie Robinson off Mark Wood’s bowling for 15.
England suffered another early setback when they lost Burns early in the innings with the left hander only reaching 13 runs after a first ball duck in the first innings. The opener was caught behind by Alex Carey off captain Pat Cummins bowling.
Haseeb Hameed batted defiantly but was caught behind by Carey off Mitchell Starc for 27, leaving England 61 for two.
However, Root and Malan produced a brilliant partnership of 159 not out and both will be hoping to reach their hundred’s tomorrow and then kick on to build a healthy lead for England going into day five.
