England batting collapse leaves Ashes hanging by a thread in Adelaide

England’s batting imploded once again as their hopes of keeping the Ashes alive suffered a body blow on the second day in Adelaide.

After defeats in Perth and Brisbane, England moved closer to an irretrievable 3-0 deficit as the top-order wilted in all too familiar fashion.

Jofra Archer finished off Australia for 371 in the morning session as he wrapped up figures of five for 53, a modest score the tourists should have been looking to go past on a benign surface.

With the temperatures topping 40 degrees, the conditions were set for an under-performing batting group to make hay. Instead, they staggered to 132 for five at tea, unwilling or unable to last the course.

Zak Crawley, Ollie Pope and Ben Duckett fell in the space of 15 balls before lunch, before Joe Root and Harry Brook followed in the afternoon session. Pope’s innings was easily the worst, flicking limply to midwicket to end an awkward 10-ball stay and, potentially, his time as England’s number three.

Brook made 45 as he shared a half-century stand with Ben Stokes, with the captain deep in his trench on 19 not out from 76 deliveries.

Australia relied on two returning stars to do the damage, captain Pat Cummins and spinner Nathan Lyon taking two wickets each, while all-rounder Cameron Green was the man to end Brook’s fightback with a fine ball just before the interval.

The hosts started the day by adding another 45 runs for their last two wickets against indisciplined bowling, but Archer eventually picked off Mitchell Starc and Lyon to close the innings and register a first Test five-for since 2019.

There was a brief glimpse of the kind of day England could have had as Ben Duckett picked up some cheap boundaries against the new ball, but old frailties were quickly exposed.

Crawley was first to fall for nine, caught behind trying to defend a fine delivery from Cummins, and Pope was all over the place before gifting his wicket with a horribly tame chip to midwicket for three.

He now averages 17.66 in 15 innings against Australia and looks a long way from improving that damning record.

That brought Lyon level with the career tally of Australian great Glenn McGrath on 563 and he needed to three balls to go past him, and into sixth on the all-time list. Duckett was the victim this time, bowled by a classic off-break that snaked past the outside edge.

Things almost got even worse for England when their number one batter Joe Root offered a caught behind chance off Scott Boland with just one to his name, only to be spared by a DRS review that could have gone either way.

TV umpire Chris Gaffaney would have been feeling the heat after the Snickometer controversy on day one, which resulted in batter Alex Carey, the system operators and the match referee Jeff Crowe all accepting an outside edge had been wrongly missed. Ultimately, he settled a tight call in Root’s favour.

It felt like an important moment, but England’s record run-scorer could not make it count, nicking Cummins through to Carey more definitively for 19 in the third over after lunch.

Stokes blocked out the rest of the session from one end, trying to lead an apparently futile resistance, with Brook scoring more busily before edging a neat seamer Green.