Ashes 2019: England series hopes hanging by a thread after latest batting horror show

Friday dawned bright and clear – a batting day if ever there was one.

Instead, 16 wickets fell, 10 of them English, for 67 pitiful runs that undid all the fine work of the first day. Going into the third day of a match they cannot use, they are 283 behind. And to top it off, Jofra Archer, forger of the position of strength they had so meekly surrendered left the field with cramp in the final session, having been asked to bowl his 70th over in eight days. Little wonder his body is aching. He returned later, thankfully.

So all in all this enters the Hall of Fame for bad days of Test cricket. The most shocking thing about England batting displays like this are that it is no longer a shock.

To Auckland (58), Barbados (77) and Lord’s (85), we must add Leeds as England batting disasters of the last 18 months. They were not bowled out in a session, as they have been four times in three years, but they had a red-hot go.

The central plank in all this is nonsensical selection. Jason Roy as a Test opener seemed a nice idea, but has proved fanciful in reality. He should bat No4 as soon as the second innings, with Joe Denly up top. No4 is not only where Roy would have stood a chance, but it is where the captain, Joe Root, wants to bat. Denly is not good enough to warrant such inconvenience for others and, aged 33 and with Ollie Pope threatening, this could be his last in Tests. Ed Smith’s pet project is surely coming to an end.

Denly actually top scored but, when your score is 12, that is not saying a great deal, given that it's the lowest high score for England in Tests. He was given out on 0, in the same over that Root made his second successive duck, but Josh Hazlewood’s delivery was just slipping over the top. He inside-edged past his stumps twice, was beaten relentlessly, and then had a swish outside off at James Pattinson and was caught behind.

Denly was the fifth batsman to go, and the fourth playing a bad shot. Root was the only one excused on that front, with Hazlewood finding a pearler. He was caught sharply at first slip by David Warner as the driving Roy had been, as the driving Ben Stokes would be, and the pushing Jonny Bairstow would be in the over after Denly. Rory Burns was the odd one out, hooking Pat Cummins – who knows that the short ball is working a treat on England’s First Test centurion.

So England limped to lunch on 53 for six and lost their two remaining batsmen, Chris Woakes and Jos Buttler, tamely to the first ball of the next two overs. The tail inevitably followed: 67 all out, trailing by 112.