His unbroken 10th-wicket partnership of 61 with Root was a record for England at the Gabba.<\/p>\n
The world\u2019s top-ranked batsman, Root had failed to reach triple figures on three previous Ashes tours.<\/p>\n
But the man who is second on the all-time run-scoring list behind only Sachin Tendulkar silenced the critics who said he couldn\u2019t be considered a true batting great until he had made a century in Australia.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnbelievable day for Joe. He has had that coming for a long time. I\u2019m chuffed for him,\u201d said Zak Crawley, who made 76 and shared a 117-run stand for the third wicket with Root.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s the best player I\u2019ve ever played with or against. A champion bloke.\u201d<\/p>\n
Coming to the crease in the third over at 5-2 with Starc swinging the new pink ball, he embarked on an epic knock, bringing up his century with a leg glance to the fine leg boundary off Scott Boland.<\/p>\n
Starc\u2019s six wickets moved him to 418 in Tests, surpassing Pakistan great Wasim Akram\u2019s 414 as the most prolific left-arm paceman in Test history.<\/p>\n
\u201cWasim\u2019s still the pinnacle, I think he\u2019s still better than me,\u201d said Starc.<\/p>\n
Starc again was the destroyer at the top of the order, removing Ben Duckett in his first over and Ollie Pope in his second to reduce a shell-shocked England to 5-2.<\/p>\n
But unlike in the first Test defeat in Perth, England showed some grit with the partnership between Root and Crawley moving the score on to 122.<\/p>\n
Both teams wore black armbands in memory of former England batsman Robin Smith, who died unexpectedly this week.<\/p>\n
Australia, who won the opening Test inside two days, went into this match without regular skipper Pat Cummins.<\/p>\n
He had been rumoured to be making an early return from a back injury, but instead the hosts sprung a major surprise by leaving out off-spinner Nathan Lyon for seamer Michael Neser.<\/p>\n
It was the first time in almost 14 years that Australia played a Test at home without a frontline spinner.<\/p>\n
Duckett was first to go on the last ball of Starc\u2019s first over, nicking a full ball to Marnus Labuschagne at first slip for a golden duck.<\/p>\n
Pope then chopped on a wide delivery he could have left alone to leave England wobbling.<\/p>\n
Crawley and Root survived an examination from the Australian attack and began to take advantage as the wicket flattened.<\/p>\n
Root shared important partnerships with Harry Brook (31), Ben Stokes (19) and Will Jacks (19) as England played more conservatively than they had in the first Test.<\/p>\n
Root brought up his half-century off 83 balls, shortly after England had reached 150.<\/p>\n
Starc was the only Australian bowler who looked threatening, but Boland did produce the ball of the day \u2013 bowling Jamie Smith for a duck with a beautiful delivery which cut back from outside off stump.<\/p>\n
England had slipped from 210-4 to 211-6 before off-spinner Jacks justified his inclusion to bolster the batting with some positive stroke play before an expansive drive to Starc brought his downfall.<\/p>\n
England were 251-7 which quickly became 264-9 as Gus Atkinson and Brydon Carse came and went to a rampant Starc under the lights.<\/p>\n
Just when it looked like England would fold, Archer and Root went on the attack.<\/p>\n
Pace bowler Archer hit two towering sixes and Root joined the fun with a reverse scoop off Boland that cleared the ropes at third man.<\/p>\n
\u2013 AFP<\/p>\n
– AFP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"His unbroken 10th-wicket partnership of 61 with Root was a record for England at the Gabba. The world\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":169061,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[5272,1975,85,5972,1634,109027,4960,111,139,69,8466,213,765,223,1237,7245],"class_list":{"0":"post-169060","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-ashes","9":"tag-at","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-day","12":"tag-england","13":"tag-gabba","14":"tag-live","15":"tag-new-zealand","16":"tag-newzealand","17":"tag-nz","18":"tag-second","19":"tag-sports","20":"tag-test","21":"tag-the","22":"tag-two","23":"tag-updates"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169060","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=169060"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169060\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/169061"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=169060"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=169060"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=169060"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}