Watch: A scorching spell of swing bowling from Pat Cummins pushed Australia close to their fourth win of the Ashes on day five of the Sydney Test, dismissing Jos Buttler and Mark Wood in the space of three balls in the final session.
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Armed with a new ball that was taken just four overs before, Cummins tore into England’s lower middle-order, negating a hard-fought partnership between Ben Stokes and Jonny Bairstow that briefly gave England hopes of avoiding a fifth straight loss.
Cummins began the 85th over with one that squared up Buttler, seaming away off the pitch. Three balls later, he had the wicketkeeper-batter all tied up with a searing inswinger that darted in and rapped him on his front pad, the bat tangled up around his left leg. Umpire Paul Reiffel initially turned down the appeal, but a review revealed that the ball had missed the bat, and would have gone through to hit the middle and leg stump. It’s the seventh time Buttler has been dismissed by Cummins in Tests, the most by any bowler against him.
No.8 Mark Wood evaded the next ball, but could do little off the final ball of the over, after a crunching yorker brought him to his knees. The delivery swung in sharply into Wood, hitting him full on his front boot to hand Cummins his second wicket of the over. A hobbling Wood opted for a review, but it was more in plain hope than anything.
Watch Cummins’ double strike here:
Simply sensational fast bowling from Pat Cummins. As good as it gets 👏#Ashes pic.twitter.com/WDNMevyD8W
— Wisden (@WisdenCricket) January 9, 2022
