Nathan Lyon fought back brilliantly in the face of a concerted attack to put him off his stride to fire Australia to the brink of an unbeatable 3-0 lead in the Ashes.
At stumps on day four England had limped to 6-207, needing another 228 to stay in the series.
Ben Stokes and the England bowling attack did everything possible in the morning session to keep the series alive, taking six Australian wickets for 78 runs and setting up a target of 435.
But their chase began badly when Pat Cummins took a wicket with his second ball to remove Ben Duckett in the tricky 11-minute period before lunch, then dismissed Ollie Pope (17), spectacularly caught by Marnus Labuschagne diving to his left from second slip, to make it 2-31.
Australia’s veteran pace bowlers troubled the England top order, with Cummins regularly beating the outside edge of the bat and Mitchell Starc getting the occasional ball to jag back.
Crawley, who was on 1 off 28 deliveries when he was joined by Root, lifted the tempo as the third-wicket pair settled into a groove.
After 15 dot balls, Crawley crashed a boundary through the covers off the next delivery he faced from Starc in a distinct change in mentality.
Both batters attacked off-spinner Nathan Lyon (3-64) with the intention of hitting him out of the attack rather than allowing him to settle into a good line.
But Lyon, who became Australia’s second highest wicket-taker in the first innings, wasn’t to be denied for long and his final spell yielded 3-15.
The spinner cut a swathe through the Poms’ top order, removing Crawley (85) stumped by Alex Carey, Ben Stokes (5) bowled by a beauty trying to defend and Harry Brook (30) playing an ill-conceived reverse sweep with the ball hitting his stumps.
“We’ll reflect on today and come up with plans for tomorrow. We know these guys are quality players right to the end,” said Carey.
“We want to keep working hard and probably not look too far ahead.”
Carey and Lyon had a conference mid pitch before Lyon ripped one past his blade a Stokes pushed in forward defence.
“I just thought Nathan was bowling really well and just continued to put lots of energy on the ball. He tore it away all day and finally got some reward,” said Carey.
“I just wanted him to bowl as much energy as possible. There’s enough out there. We saw that and finally he got a couple of late wickets.”
Cummins (3-24) matched the three-wicket haul by having Joe Root caught behind for 39.
Australia pushed for a seventh wicket near stumps that would have extended the day by 30 minutes, but Jamie Smith and Will Jacks were hanging onto their wickets for grim life.
The Roarhttps://https://ift.tt/A0TxH8k heart: England in a tailspin as Australia edge towards 3-0 Ashes lead
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