Ashes 2019: Australia’s magnificent bowling attack grinds away at England’s hopes of a miracle

England (67 & 156-3) need 203 more runs to beat Australia (179 & 246)

Josh Hazlewood reacts after going close once more (PA)

At some point on Sunday, Australia will probably retain the Ashes, and if they do so it will be down to the magnificent discipline of their pace bowling. Not since the great West Indies teams of the 1980s has a side arrived on these shores with as deep and potent a well of fast bowlers as the Australians this summer. And on day four, it is they who will be tasked with snuffing out a surprising England rearguard that has offered their supporters genuine, if faint, hope of another Headingley miracle.

A miracle it would certainly be, given the target of 359, a score successfully chased by only nine sides in Test history, none of whom were England, and more pertinently none of whom were this England, a team low on confidence and high on brittleness. But as Joe Root and Ben Stokes saw out the last overs of the day in glorious sunshine with few alarms, it was possible to appreciate the quiet resilience of a team who, just 24 hours after capitulating to 67 all out, seemed desperate to prove they were not quite as bad as everyone was saying.

Perhaps it is a measure of our dampened expectations that even this moderate display of resolve feels agreeably anomalous, that a scratchy 50 by Joe Denly was sufficient to draw the Headingley crowd to its feet. And perhaps it is a measure of how far Root has let his own stratospheric standards slip that merely ending the day unbeaten on 75 feels like decisive progress for a player who averages just 34 in the last 18 months.

If England are to pull this off – and yes, let’s indulge this escapist fantasy for a moment – then you feel Root will need to convert that 75 into a big century, that he and Stokes will have to see out the first hour at least, during which Australia will be due the second new ball. And yet whichever way you parse this, it’s hard to see a realistic path to 359 unless Australia’s immaculate attack let their own standards slip, and as we passed the midway point of the series, they showed precious few signs of doing so.

Indeed, after a slightly ragged hour or two in the field, they regathered themselves and charged in with spellbinding vigour. Together, the three fast bowlers went at less than two runs an over, and with Nathan Lyon looking increasingly dangerous on a wearing pitch, England were forced to graft, to squeeze out their runs like kidney stones, and at times merely to be thankful for surviving.

Jason Roy is bowled by Pat Cummins (Reuters)

What a bowler Josh Hazlewood is: hitting a hard, frugal length, and returning for a wonderfully aggressive spell in the final hour, during which he treated Root to plenty of lip. Pat Cummins pounded in percussively, probing the edge of the bat when the ball was new, peppering the head and the body when it softened. James Pattinson surgically extracted what movement was available on a hot, sunny day. They are a magnificent trio, and with Peter Siddle waiting in the wings and Mitchell Starc remarkably not even required to this point, it’s not outlandish to describe this as the best-stocked pace attack to visit England in a generation.

Equally, the fact is that Root and Denly have given England a sniff of hope in a match where they were assumed to have none. This was doubly true after England’s openers were again extracted cheaply, Rory Burns edging a ball he could have left on length, and Jason Roy clean bowled by Cummins. Root, coming off two consecutive ducks, was millimetres away from a third when he almost edged his second ball. The die appeared to have been cast, the only real point of contention whether a hapless England could extend the match into a fourth day.

But with a little good fortune, and initially scoring almost exclusively off thick edges, Root survived. He won an early duel with Nathan Lyon, and by the time tea came and went was seeing the ball a little bigger, content to play it a fraction later.

Denly, meanwhile, had clearly bathed in holy water before his knock. Truly, you never saw a more hazardous Test fifty: off the mark with a fortuitous deflection for four that he knew nothing about, smacked on the helmet by Cummins, gloving the ball over the slips, numerous slashes and misses, numerous tight LBW appeals, numerous uncontrolled fends that looped just out of the reach of fielders. Occasionally, he would work the ball pleasantly square of the wicket. One clout back over Nathan Lyon’s head felt particularly cathartic.

As the crowd began to find their voice, and the odd misfield began to creep in, Tim Paine opted for enforcement. Cummins returned to give Denly some chin music, but he survived that too, reaching his half-century and earning a standing ovation from a crowd who, as Headingley Saturday crowds are wont to do, had been drinking since roughly sunrise. In a way, you felt for them: now they would have to go home and tell their loved ones that they saw Joe Denly score an Ashes fifty, and nobody would believe them.

But then he got stuck. More than half an hour and several more close shaves passed before he finally gloved one behind off Hazlewood. But over almost four hours, he had played his longest Test innings, shared a partnership of 126 with Root, and given England a fingernail in the game.

Stumps approached. The odd ball was beginning to keep low, the odd one flying through. Lyon managed to find some turn. But with fierce concentration and a watchful eye on their off-stumps, Root and Stokes saw out the danger. “New ball in the morning,” Paine reminded his troops as the day wound to a close. Outside the ground, meanwhile, the Australian fans were prepared to be even more bullish. One of them was asked by a local if he was beginning to get a bit worried. “Nah, f--- that,” he replied.