England leads Australia by a wide margin thanks to Root, Bairstow, and Crawley

At the Oval on Saturday, England batted aggressively to seize control of the last Ashes test. At the end of the third day, they were 389-9, leading Australia by 377 runs. For the hosts, who are trying to prevent Australia from winning the Ashes in England for the first time since 2001 despite trailing the series 2-1, Joe Root (91), Jonny Bairstow (78), and Zak Crawley (73) were the key performers.

Ben Duckett and Crawley had a quick-fire opening combination of 79, setting the tone with Crawley's drive to the cover boundary off Mitchell Starc's first delivery of the day. Root was tricked by a spinning ball from Murphy that maintained low and bowled him when it appeared like he would easily reach a century but instead fell nine runs short. Bairstow also showed excellent attacking intent and struck the boundary 11 times. The day ended with Broad’s announcement that he will retire from the game of cricket after this game.