The much awaited Ashes series started today in Brisbane at The Gabba. One can confidently say that England had control for major portion of the day’s play. However, they lost wickets towards the end of the day only to help Australia take the driver’s seat.
Despite losing 1 hour of play due to rain just after the Lunch break, Australia were able to bowl 80.3 overs before Stumps on Day 1, thanks to the late sunset. England are 196/4 at Stumps on Day 1 with Dawid Malan batting on 28* along with Moeen Ali who is on 13*. I have compiled some of the stats from the First Day’s play at The Gabba:
53 – Mark Stoneman playing his first Test match in an Ashes series scored a half-century. This is his fourth fifty-plus score in this tour. Stoneman has scores of 85, 61, 51 & 111 in the four innings he played in the 3 warm up games before the Brisbane Test.
83 – James Vince scored his maiden half-century in Tests. This is also his maiden Test innings in an Ashes series. His previous best in this format was 42 vs Pakistan on two occasions. Turned out be a good Ashes debut for Vince!
78 – This is the number of Test Matches missed by Tim Paine between his 2 appearances (2010-2017). This is the joint most for Australia along with Brad Hogg (missed 78 Tests between 1996-2003).
125 – The Partnership between Mark Stoneman and James Vince for the second wicket. England’s best partnership in the Ashes 2013 – 14 series in Australia in which they were whitewashed was 111 (by Joe Root and Kevin Petersen at the Adelaide Oval). Can this partnership be counted in as the best start for England this time Down Under?
451 – Cameron Bancroft has made his debut for Australia in Test Cricket. He becomes the 451st player to represent Australia in this longer format of the game.
2 – Alastair Cook today departed for just 2 runs, his first single digit score at The Gabba. His previous scores at this venue are 11 & 43 (in 2006), 67 & 235* (in 2010), 13 & 65 (in 2013) in his previous 3 Test matches at this venue.
