Mitchell Starc became the most successful left-arm fast bowler in history
\nBRISBANE
\nJoe Root finally scored his maiden Test century in Australia on his fourth Ashes tour to guide England from a precarious 5-2 to 325-9 at stumps after a pulsating first day of the second Ashes Test in Brisbane on Thursday.
\nMitchell Starc became the most successful left-arm fast bowler in history as he claimed 6-71, but the opening sessions of the day-night contest were dominated by Root, who scored a masterful 135 not out.
\nNumber 11 Jofra Archer thrilled the travelling army of fans as he smashed a career-best unbeaten 32 off 26 balls with two sixes to provide some late fireworks.
\nHis unbroken 10th-wicket partnership of 61 with Root was a record for England at the Gabba.
\nThe world\u2019s top-ranked batter, Root, had failed to reach triple figures on three previous Ashes tours.
\nBut the man who is second on the all-time run-scoring list behind only Sachin Tendulkar silenced the critics who said he couldn\u2019t be considered a true batting great until he had made a century in Australia.
\nComing to the crease in the third over at 5-2 with Starc swinging the new pink ball, he embarked on an epic knock, bringing up his century with a leg glance to the fine leg boundary off Scott Boland.
\nStarc\u2019s six wickets moved him to 418 in Tests, surpassing Pakistan great Wasim Akram\u2019s 414 as the most prolific left-arm paceman in Test history.
\n\u201cWasim\u2019s still the pinnacle, I think he\u2019s still better than me,\u201d said Starc.
\nStarc again was the destroyer at the top of the order, removing Ben Duckett in his first over and Ollie Pope in his second to reduce a shell-shocked England to 5-2.
\nBut unlike in the first Test defeat in Perth, England showed some grit with the partnership between Root and Crawley moving the score onto 122.
\nAustralia, who won the opening Test inside two days, went into this match without regular skipper Pat Cummins.
\nHe had been rumoured to be making an early return from a back injury, but instead the hosts sprung a major surprise by leaving out off-spinner Nathan Lyon for seamer Michael Neser.
\nIt was the first time in almost 14 years that Australia played a Test at home without a frontline spinner.
\nDuckett was first to go on the last ball of Starc\u2019s first over, nicking a full ball to Marnus Labuschagne at first slip for a golden duck.
\nPope then chopped on a wide delivery he could have left alone to leave England wobbling.
\nCrawley and Root survived an examination from the Australian attack and began to take advantage as the wicket flattened.
\nRoot shared important partnerships with Harry Brook (31), Ben Stokes (19) and Will Jacks (19) as England played more conservatively than they had in the first Test.
\nRoot brought up his half-century off 83 balls, shortly after England had reached 150.
\nStarc was the only Australian bowler who looked threatening, but Boland did produce the ball of the day \u2014 bowling Jamie Smith for a duck with a beautiful delivery which cut back from outside off stump.
\nEngland had slipped from 210-4 to 211-6 before off-spinner Jacks justified his inclusion to bolster the batting with some positive stroke play before an expansive drive to Starc brought his downfall.
\nEngland were 251-7, which quickly became 264-9 as Gus Atkinson and Brydon Carse came and went to a rampant Starc under the lights.
\nJust when it looked like England would fold, Archer and Root went on the attack.
\nPace bowler Archer hit two towering sixes, and Root joined the fun with a reverse scoop off Boland that cleared the ropes at third man.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Mitchell Starc became the most successful left-arm fast bowler in history BRISBANE Joe Root finally scored his maiden Test century in Australia on his fourth Ashes tour to guide England from a precarious 5-2 to 325-9 at stumps after a pulsating first day of the second Ashes Test in Brisbane on Thursday. Mitchell Starc became …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":90598,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-90601","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90601","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90601"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90601\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":90612,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90601\/revisions\/90612"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/90598"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}