England v Australia recap: Day five of the second Ashes Test at Lord's

Catch up on the ball-by-ball commentary and all match stats for the second Ashes Test here.

It has been another match full of great skill, controversy and heroics. So how did the final day pan out?

Resuming day five on 114-4 trailing by 257 England were red hot favourites to go 2-0 down in the five-match series.

The first hour of the match saw Ben Duckett and Ben Stokes add 63 runs with their wickets still intact. However, it was here straight after the drinks break that the Australians started their demolition of the England batters.

Duckett (83) top-edged one of many bouncers delivered at him to fine-leg off the bowling of Josh Hazlewood but not before he had made his second match fifty (177-5).

Stokes was joined by Jonny Bairstow and there was hope in the air for the England faithful as he Stokes started to play some positive shots.

Having taken the score to 193-5 Jonny Bairstow (10) was controversially stumped by Alex Carey after leaving his crease at the end of an over thinking the ball was a ‘dead ball’ but was adjudged stumped so had to go. 

That really angered and riled the English crowd up and also their captain Stokes.

Stokes took umbrage and in his anger set about the Aussie attack. He smashed fours and sixes aplenty to the legside and went to lunch having made a superb unbeaten century (108*), helping his side to 243-6 and trailing by 128 runs with four wickets to play with.

Such is the passion of an Ashes Test that during the lunch break there was some argy-bargy between the Aussie players and some of the Lord’s members in the Long Room over the Bairstow incident in which it was necessary for the Stewards to intervene.

After Lunch Stokes (155-9x4-9x6) continued to farm the bowling and added 58 quick runs along with Broad before he was finally dismissed when miscuing another pull shot high to the point where Carey ran around to take an easy pouch (301-7). 

Stokes left the field to a standing ovation with every English fan on their feet as a mark of respect to a man who played another sublime innings for his country in the face of adversity.

That left the three tail-enders and Broad to make the 70 runs still needed to level the series. They mustered 26 to come in 43 runs short.

The Aussie attack’s persistence finally paid off. It was a seam-only effort and other than Duckett, Bairstow and Stokes, they had all the other England batters struggling to cope witheir barrage of short deliveries.

There was little by way of lateral movement for them, so it was accuracy that was order of the day and that they provided in spades. There was three wickets apiece for the three quicks Cummins (3-69) Starc (3-79) and Hazlewood (3-80). Cam Green nabbed the other coming in with 1-73 off his 13 overs of medium pace.

Catch up on the ball-by-ball commentary and all match stats for the second Ashes Test here.

Flash stats: 

- It’s 127 years since Australia last lost batting first at Lords.

- England have never come back from 0-2 down to win a Test series.

- Australia are the only team to come back from 2-0 down in the Ashes back in 1936/1937.

England v Australia XI

Australia XI: David Warner, Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne, Steve Smith, Travis Head, Cameron Green, Alex Carey (wk), Pat Cummins (c), Mitchell Starc, Nathan Lyon, Josh Hazlewood

IN: Mitchell Starc

OUT: Scott Boland (omitted)

England XI: Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett, Ollie Pope, Joe Root, Harry Brook, Ben Stokes (c), Jonny Bairstow (wk), Stuart Broad, Ollie Robinson, Josh Tongue, James Anderson

IN: Josh Tongue

OUT: Moeen Ali (injured)

Team news (Australia):

Pat Cummins confirmed that Australia would be going with the same 12 as Edgbaston (the playing XI plus Mitchell Starc), and the media whittled that down to a Starc v Boland battle. In the end it was Starc who got the nod ahead of Boland.

Team news (England): 

England perhaps dropped a hint about the state of this pitch when they named their team in advance as usual. Moeen Ali succumbed to that finger injury that troubled him at Edgbaston, and despite the excitement surrounding the drafting of young leggie Rehan Ahmed into the squad, they went with an all-seam bowling attack - three fast bowlers plus Ollie Robinson.

Ollie Pope picked up a shoulder injury on day one so is unable to bowl but will still be available to bat at number three.