{"id":34507,"date":"2026-01-04T15:07:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-04T15:07:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=34507"},"modified":"2026-01-04T15:07:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-04T15:07:08","slug":"root-brook-tame-australia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=34507","title":{"rendered":"Root, Brook tame Australia"},"content":{"rendered":"
Joe Root and Harry Brook tamed Australia’s all-pace attack with an unbroken 154-run stand on Sunday to rescue England and give them the upper hand after a rain-hit day one of the fifth and final Ashes Test.<\/p>\n

Batting after skipper Ben Stokes won the toss at a sold-out Sydney Cricket Ground, they steered the tourists to 211-3 when bad light forced the players from the field just before tea.<\/p>\n

Subsequent rain and the risk of lightning made no further play possible, with stumps called an hour early.<\/p>\n

Root was not out 72 and Brook on 78 after coming together with England tottering at 57-3 following the wickets of Ben Duckett (27), Zak Crawley (16) and Jacob Bethell (10) before lunch.<\/p>\n

The world’s top two-ranked batsmen set about counter-attacking on a decent batting pitch providing little movement for the bowlers.<\/p>\n

Both brought up hard-fought half-centuries and, with dark storm clouds looming, kept the scoreboard ticking over at a fast clip.<\/p>\n

“We’re in very good position, obviously three down at the end of the end of play,” said Brook.<\/p>\n

“Hopefully we can make the most of that going into tomorrow.<\/p>\n

“It was good pitch,” he added.<\/p>\n

“When I first went in it felt like the bounce was fairly steep. But then it it started to get a little bit lower and slower and just generally feels like a good wicket.”<\/p>\n

England came into the game buoyed by a four-wicket win inside two days in the previous Test in Melbourne, desperate to keep the momentum going.<\/p>\n

That victory snapped a 15-year winless streak in Australia but came too late to save the series, with the hosts retaining the urn by winning in Perth, Brisbane and Adelaide.<\/p>\n

Australia sprang a surprise by including all-rounder Beau Webster in place of quick Jhye Richardson, with off-spinner Todd Murphy overlooked.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘Hate doing it’<\/p>\n

It is the first time in almost 140 years that the hosts have not played a front-line spinner during a Sydney Test.<\/p>\n

“Hate doing it,” said Australia skipper Steve Smith.<\/p>\n

“But if we keep producing wickets that we don’t think are going to spin and seam is going to play a big part and cracks are going to play a big part, you kind of get pushed into a corner.”<\/p>\n

England brought in seamer Matthew Potts for the injured Gus Atkinson in their only change, with their frontline slow bowler Shoaib Bashir missing out for a fifth straight Test.<\/p>\n

The day began with a tribute to first responders at the Bondi mass shooting last month that killed 15 people, with huge cheers when hero Ahmed Al Ahmed, who tackled one of the gunmen, appeared.<\/p>\n

Duckett was lively when play started, crunching five boundaries from Mitchell Starc in a quickfire 27 off 24 balls.<\/p>\n

But England’s tormentor-in-chief Mitchell Starc had the last laugh, enticing an outside edge from an angled ball to wicketkeeper Alex Carey at full stretch.<\/p>\n

It was the fifth time Starc has bagged Duckett this series.<\/p>\n

Crawley was next to go, trapped lbw by Michael Neser, with both openers back in the sheds by the first drinks break and the tourists in trouble on 51-2.<\/p>\n

A cautious Bethell took 15 balls to get off the mark and never looked confident.<\/p>\n

He departed after prodding at a moving delivery from Scott Boland that took a faint edge to Carey as England fell to 57-3.<\/p>\n

Root joined Brook at the crease and they began to rebuild.<\/p>\n

They rotated the strike well and punished any loose balls with Root bringing up his 67th half-century, and the 100-partnership, with a single off Webster.<\/p>\n

Only Indian great Sachin Tendulkar, with 68, has scored more Test fifties.<\/p>\n

Brook was fortunate to survive on 45 when he slogged Starc and the ball dropped between three chasing fielders.<\/p>\n

But he kept his composure to reach a 15th half-century four balls after Root, cracking Webster through the covers for a boundary.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Joe Root and Harry Brook tamed Australia’s all-pace attack with an unbroken 154-run stand on Sunday to rescue England and give them the upper hand after a rain-hit day one of the fifth and final Ashes Test. Batting after skipper Ben Stokes won the toss at a sold-out Sydney Cricket Ground, they steered the tourists […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34507","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34507","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=34507"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34507\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=34507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=34507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=34507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}