Australia set England 398 to win Ashes opener
BIRMINGHAM: Australia set England an imposing target of 398 to win the first Ashes Test afterthe visitors declared their second innings on 487-7 late on the fourth day at Edgbaston on Sunday. Steve Smith made 142, his second hundred of the match, in his first Test since he completed a 12-month ban for his role in last year’s ball-tampering scandal in South Africa. Matthew Wade scored 110 as Australia piled on the runs against an England attack missing James Anderson, unable to bowl after breaking down with a calf injury earlier in the match. England will need to set a new national record if they are to achieve an unlikely victory. The most they have ever made in the fourth innings to win a Test is 332-7 against Australia at Melbourne, back in 1928/29. Earlier, Australia’s Steve Smith scored his second hundred of his comeback Test when he reached three figures against England in the Ashes opener at Edgbaston on Sunday. Smith, 98 not out at lunch on the fourth day, cover-drove fast bowler Stuart Broad for a boundary early in the second session to complete a 147-ball century with his 10th four. That followed his 144 in the first innings of what is the former Australia captain’s first Test since the end of a 12- month ban for his role in last year’s ball-tampering scandal in South Africa. Smith is now just the fifth Australia batsman to have made hundreds in both innings of an Ashes Test, following Warren Bardsley (1909), Arthur Morris (1946/47), Steve Waugh (1997) and Matthew Hayden (2002/03). He celebrated by removing his batting helmet and waving his bat joyously towards the Australia changing room. And while there was applause from a packed crowd, there were also renewed chants of “Crying on the telly, we saw you crying on the telly” in a reference to the emotional press conference Smith gave in Sydney after he was sent home from South Africa. It was the first time Smith had scored hundreds in both
innings of a Test match, with the 30-yearold only the second player to achieve the feat in a Test at Birmingham’s Edgbaston ground after England’s Marcus Trescothick (105 and 107 against the West Indies in 2004). Smith, since the Oval in 2015, has scored more than 1,000 runs in 10 Ashes innings. The match at Edgbaston has also seen the return to Test cricket of Australia’s David Warner and Cameron Bancroft who, like Smith, both received lengthy bans for their parts in the ball-tampering incident that took place during a Test against South Africa in Cape Town. When Smith, long one of the world’s leading batsmen, completed his latest century — his 25th in 65 Tests — Australia were 236-4 in their second innings. Brief Scores: Australia 284 & 487/7 dec (Steve Smith 142, Matthew Wade 110; Ben Stokes 3-85), England 374 (Rory Burns 133, Joe Root 57, Ben Stokes 50; Pat Cummins 3-84, Nathan Lyon 3-112). —Agencies
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