England were eight down after scoring just 65 runs in their final innings at the Boxing Day Test, with almost all of their recognised batters back in the hut in the morning session of Day 3 at the MCG.
England lost Ben Stokes, Jonny Bairstow, captain Joe Root and Mark Wood in a space of just 10 overs having scored only 20 runs. Mitchell Starc started the proceedings in the morning removing Stokes and the rest of the work was done by debutant Scott Boland, whose relentless line and length on the off stump gave England batsmen nightmares.
Jonny Bairstow’s wicket was possibly the only unfortunate wicket to fall in the morning with the batsman getting called LBW on umpire’s call.
Boland was the star of the show picking up five wickets for five runs in 3.1 overs bowling extremely tight lines. It seemed like Boland was creating chances in every single delivery creating big issues for the right hander, exploiting their problems on the off stump line.
At the time of writing, Boland had taken four wickets for four runs in the morning session. His fifth wicket was taken yesterday of nightwatchman Jack Leach.