Ashes 2017-18: Australia v England second Test, day five – live!

67th over: England 182-6 (Moeen 2, Bairstow 4) Agnew is claiming that Bairstow had a bad net this morning. “That’s a good sign!” exclaims Tufnell. “That’s a great sign. Sometimes if you have a shocker of a net, you can come out and make 120. I’ve seen it happen.” I thought Jonny looked alright, for the four balls I watched on the way here. Maiden from Hazlewood to Moeen, playing a lot of shots straight to the field.

Doing our best. As for Jim, keep hoping.

66th over: England 182-6 (Moeen 2, Bairstow 4) “I hope some people stay with us,” says Agnew sadly on TMS. “Not much fun if we’re here on our own.” Well, Jonny’s here to brighten things up, driving lavishly through cover off Starc after Moeen squeezed a single.

To be clear, I’m not on the side of England here, I’m just barracking for a good close finish. Let’s see a couple of half-centuries from this pair and take it from there. Bairstow chops into the gully. Perhaps the best thing for these two is to play a few strokes and see if they can get the game running their way.

Or, you could look at it this way.

65th over: England 177-6 (Moeen 1, Bairstow 0) Well, that rather ruined the festive nature of this post I was preparing, given that Moeen has previously scored the single that took England halfway to the target.

England fans, it is my solemn duty to announce the following. All the build-up, all the speculation, has been punctured in one swift stroke. Hazlewood bowled outside off, Root pressed forward to it, and that ball kept a little low. In the end I think it has edged the toe of the bat, the underside of the toe, through to Paine behind the stumps. The key wicket goes down, Root without adding to his overnight score, and now the task is mammoth for those who remain.

64th over: England 176-5 (Root 67, Moeen 0) Right then. Root versus Starc. This is the real business. Root defends the first couple, then squirts one a bit edgily away to midwicket. Starc is coming around the wicket, angling the ball in. Looking for that LBW, or to sneak one through onto the stumps. He is so effective with this line of bowling, though more commonly employs it to the lower order. Wants to make the most of Root’s shaky early moments. Doesn’t.

63rd over: England 176-5 (Root 67, Moeen 0) Goodness me. The dreaded wicket does go down in the first over, but it’s the nightwatchman rather than the captain. To some extent Woakes has done his job, getting England safely through last night, but they would also have hoped he could hang in for half an hour this morning and contribute another 20 runs. He’s a bit too good a lower-order bat to be done for 5. Moeen faces out the rest of the over without undue alarm.

Aleem Dar has done the slow-death move he used earlier. Australia have no reviews left, England have two, and I wonder if that influenced Umpire Dar’s decision, given he knew Woakes could review it if he thought he’d missed. Woakes does review. The replay looks like he played around it. The Hot Spot shows nothing. But the Snicko shows the tiniest spike as ball passes bat. Good Lord, that ball has taken a few microns of timber as it passed by the back corner of the edge. No way the umpire could have known, that was a punt, but he’s got it right.

Thanks so much for the emails, keep them coming – sorry if I miss some, there are many excited people out there around the world. One more from our old friend Robert Wilson before we begin. The teams are taking the field.

“Having recently given up a life-long smoking habit of award-winning heaviness, I have spent the last month undergoing regular bouts of full-on hallucination. While walking along the Rhône on a recent sparklingly sunny day, I saw a large and very beautiful brown rabbit – I swear that it was only when it waved to me merrily that I realised that it wasn’t actually there. I’ve seen city-centre sheep, non-existent eagles and even an improbably large and close Saturn-like plant (rings and all!). It’s an odd sensation to be rational and amused while still bending down to stroke dogs that are not there and ducking under all the sudden pterodactyls. It’s not without its uses too. For, believe you me, if England actually win this thing, I am going to take it absolutely in my stride.”

Chris is an Australian in Japan, “following the Guardian as there is no coverage here. Geoff, your lot are not the only ones suffering. This was in the bag. Oh why, oh why, didn’t we force the follow on. Now I’m as nervous as a cat in a room full of rocking chairs. First 3 overs will set the tone. We should get the business done, but if not this will weigh on the team. Makes Root’s decision seem strategically sound now.”

My lot! Chris, I’m as Australian as a dead sheep-thief in a pond. I just hold a general love for all of cricket’s humanity in my heart, which helps avoid coming down too hard on one side or the other. West Indies v Zimbabwe? I’m there.

Here’s an even more complicated mix from Jonathan Siu. “I’m another Englishman who currently finds himself in Australia, but have some mixed emotions today. If England win, ordinarily I would be over the moon. But my 8 year old son is a true-blue Aussie, and I’m not sure he is ready yet for his first crushing defeat. My own satisfaction vs his hopes and dreams – what to do?”

Reader advice starts: now.

“Afternoon all,” writes a cheerful Gervase Green. “Bit early to get all political I know (though this is the publication to handle it, if any).” Well, see below.

“But when I hear Nathan ‘Nathan’ Lyon I fondly recall another time, another arena. Back when the then-Australian foreign minister rather fancied himself to be the next UN Secretary-General, the Parliamentary chamber erupted with taunts of ‘Gareth Gareth-Evans’ – an unsubtle but nonetheless mildly amusing reference to the former SG Boutros Boutros-Ghali.”

“Of course, while Gareth Gareth had solving the Middle East, bringing in world peace, and other tasks on a crowded To-Do list, Nathan Nathan has murderous intent upon his mind.”

I haven’t seen many murderous off-spinners, I have to say, but still. What quality content. Boutrous Boutrous, Gareth Gareth, and Nathan Nathan all in one place. The only time this has happened previously is when me and Adam Collins do The Final Word podcast, where I have to admit all three have cropped up.

“Looking forward to the day but as an Englishman living in Australia fearing the worst,” says Paul Hardy. “I’m also reminded of Norman Tebbit and his cricket test from my youth. He seemed to expect every India, Pakistan or Windies fan living in England to support England rather than the team of their heritage.”

“Even though I’m married to an Australian and have citizenship absolutely no one here is expecting me to support Australia. An interesting aside on how we treat migrants from different countries and of different heritages.”

Very interesting point. And also, touching on earlier posts, why people who move to Australia or Britain are called migrants, while Australians and Brits overseas are called expats. Just a little institutionalised discrimination at work.

“Nathan ‘Nathan’ Lyon is much funnier than it has any right to be – I’m with you Geoff ‘Liz’ Lemon. Regards, Matt ‘Ryan’ Harris.”

I tell you what, I am still mad at Tina Fey. I carried this name around on my own for thirty years – THIRTY YEARS – and then she comes along and just takes it, and everyone goes, “Oh, like Liz Lemon!” No, Liz is like me. That’s a dealbreaker.

“The beauty of being an expat” is the header of Rajeev Ladva’s email, and indeed that does seem to suit a lot of you. “Writing in from Bangkok, Thailand. When I was teaching in the UK I distinctly remember trudging into school after very little sleep, waking up to watch the boys beat Australia in 2011. Fortunately the time zones are now in my favour – and hoping that the score is too! Great chase on today, and the reason that test cricket is still (for me anyway) one of the most exciting formats of the game.”

Further south in Thailand is Chris Brereton, occasionally of this parish. “I’m writing this from island paradise Koh Pha-ngan where I will eschew the sun and beach to sit in an Irish pub sipping overpriced Tiger beers, rocking gently and praying audibly. I fully expect to be back in the surf, England smashed, before lunch. It’s the only way I can sell this madness to myself.”

Meanwhile, “Morning, Geoff,” writes Patrick Scott very truthfully for him, as it’s “0440 here in the Aegean Sea, east of Greece. I sit patiently with my devices in front of me and my Wi-Fi dongle hanging in the porthole of my cabin as 50mph winds have us rolling around, getting the best 4G signal I can. I’ve been doing 8 hour shifts, finishing at 5am local time then sitting down with plenty of caffeine, for the last 4 days. One more to go, I hope it’s a special one. Come on!”

Oh, the nerves are busy. As are the work worries, even in Hiroshima. “I’m sitting here in my staff room in Japan, failing utterly to concentrate on grading English papers as I’ve done for the last 3 days in a row. Maybe Cricket Australia and the EWCB can set up some kind of compensation scheme for lost productivity? If Australia don’t wrap this up by lunch, my wife will throttle me. Odds on it being over by then?”

Props to Ryan Baker for not forgetting Wales in the acronym game. I wonder if the relationship between Marylebone and Cardiff ever gets… acronymonious?

“What a mouth-watering afternoon to look forward to,” writes Cameron Fink on email. “The stage is set for a glorious nail-biting finish, promising to rival the tension of that magnificent last-wicket stand at Trent Bridge in 2013. But for some reason I still can’t help but think that England are going to completely implode within the first hour, well adrift of the target. At least I might have a more productive afternoon that way. The name Nathan ‘Nathan’ Lyon is far funnier than it has any right to be.”

Two things to come to there. One, yes, this is exactly what I love so much about this scenario. All of this build-up and expectation and hope could be punctured when Root nicks off the fourth ball of the day, and the procession comes through. Or, something else. Our view of time is linear, and there’s nothing we can do about that.

And yes, to explain Nathan ‘Nathan’ Lyon: this starts with the nicknaming convention of taking the first name of a more famous person with the same last name, like Brett ‘Bing’ Lee, or Nathan ‘Garry’ Lyon. I find this such an original method of nicknaming, especially employed in Australia’s pantheon of nickname production, that I posited an even cleverer method would be to just use the person’s own name as their nickname as well.

And then, as footy cards have taught us, all nicknames have to be awkwardly placed in inverted commas so as to give the sense that they are entirely made up and never actually used. Hello to all the ‘Robbo’ Robertsons out there.

Finally, I would now posit that Nathan Lyon is far more famous than Garry Lyon, who is a former AFL footballer, and so if this nicknaming convention is used then Nathan ‘Nathan’ should take his own name.

Everyone with me?

Hahahaha, this is grand.

That’s the nervous spirit.

Talk to me. Yes, you can. Get involved. I know it’s late, and many of you on the northern side of the planet will be asleep. But to go back to Agincourt, those “in England now a-bed / Shall think themselves accurs’d they were not here,” if indeed the miracle takes place. So send me a Twitter thing at @GeoffLemonSport, or send me an old-fashioned stagecoach email to [email protected].

Hot gossip. Here’s a slice for you, from patrolling the Adelaide nets. Side by side at practice, Peter Handscomb and Jonny Bairstow. Both practising resolute forward defences. What does that tell me? The English camp is bullish about winning this game. They want it and they intend to have it. Bairstow was evidence of an attacking player honing the ability to do his part in occupying the crease. Handscomb is evidence of a player acknowledging that he has some issues with his game and needs to work them out. He’ll be out here fielding later, but why not try to get the footwork sorted ahead of Perth. Some people are dropping him already, but that seems a bit rich after three dodgy innings. He’s a good player.

Assemble the roll call of great English victories

Waterloo – routing Napoleon’s superior might

Agincourt – using the longbow for strategic supremacy

Canberra – Danni Wyatt smacks a double-time hundred to chase 178

In a couple of hours, could we add Adelaide to the list?

Ok, probably not, because really the Australians just need a wicket to get the landslide rolling. But still. We have a Test match beeeeautifully set up. But here we are, trembling with anticipation, for a game in which anything might happen. Even longbows. The Adelaide Oval, Day 5, and both teams still in the game.

The equation: England need 178 more runs to win, they have six wickets in hand, and at the crease will be the captain Joseph Edward ‘Technicolour Dreamcoat’ Root, unbeaten on 67, and the doughty nightwatchman-turned-daywatchman, Christopher Roger ‘Rabbit’ Woakes, who survived last night with 5 to his name.

To come in the batting order, those who might add any degree of confidence are Moeen Ali, Jonny Bairstow, and Crazy Craig Overton, who batted determinedly on debut for an admirable 41 not out. Those who might add less confidence are Test centurion Stuart Broad and Test lots-of-wicketsy-guy James Anderson.

As for the Aussies, they’ll be pretty fresh, with each of their seamers having bowled 14 overs yesterday, and Nathan ‘Nathan’ Lyon having bowled 20 sets of off-breaks. All four have bowled well in this Test, so that’s where the advantage lies. Surely the inherent quality of this attack will find the couple of good balls they need to cut deeper into England’s line-up. And once they do, things will fall away quickly.

In fact, you’d think if Root goes with the target still over about 80, all is lost. A lot of pressure on him. He hasn’t made a lot of important hundreds away from home, but he has the chance for an all-time effort here.

An hour to go. Cannae wait.

Geoff will be here shortly. First though, here’s Vic Marks on what was an extraordinary day four of Test cricket at Adelaide Oval: