England vs Australia live: Latest scores from the Ashes fifth Test

Crawley works Cummins off the hip for a couple, then belts an off-drive that is half stopped. Two more. No England batsman has come close to playing Cummins as well as Crawley in this series. Their head-to-head average this summer is something like 120, though Cummins almost halves it with a beauty that beats the outside edge. 

Cummins has restored order, as he did in the first innings, and a good over ends with Crawley spooning a drive not far short of extra cover.

England’s average opening partnership in this series is a fraction above 40, with a run-rate of 4.95 per over. That’s their fastest in an Ashes series since at least 1932-33.

During Bodyline Australia’s captain Bill Woodfull said that there is only team out there playing cricket. You might say now that there is only one team out there playing Test cricket...while England are intent on T20-plus.

Yep, Cummins replaces Starc. This is his 177th over of the summer, all in the last seven weeks; only Stuart Broad has bowled more. 

Duckett flicks his fifth leg-side boundary of the morning, somehow bisecting the men at square leg and backward square leg. In the Sky commentary box, Ricky Ponting’s blood pressure is accelerating with every boundary.

Though Australia haven’t been great, Duckett is batting beautifully. He opens the face to steer Cummins wide of gully for four more; that’s his sixth boundary and he has vroomed to 28 from 19 balls.

Too straight from Hazlewood, and Duckett puts him away through midwicket. That’s his fourth boundary, all on the leg side. “If you’ve got a deep point, you can’t them bowl straight,” fumes Ricky Ponting on Sky. “They don’t have protection out there.”

Australia haven’t started well, and Pat Cummins - who bowled sensationally in the first innings - is already getting loose. Don’t be surprised if he’s on next over.

Hazlewood finds his line by the end of the over: Crawley edges short of slip and is beaten outside off.

Australia have kept their square-leg up to Ben Duckett, and seen the good and bad of that ploy. It’s stopped a few singles, but he’s also drilled two boundaries just past the man. How long until they get defensive again? 

Starc has started poorly here. Another loose ball is flicked for four by Duckett, who then survives a big LBW appeal after being hit in front by a very full delivery. I was going to say an inside-edge saved him, but replays show he middled it onto his pad. 

The over ends with another boundary, Crawley slicing a kitchen-sink drive over the slips. Not even a Richie Benaud voice can redeem Starc’s figures: 2-0-22-0.

Hazlewood starts with a no-ball. With fewer fielders out, it will be harder for England to rotate strike this morning. Duckett works a couple off the hip, shots that would have brought a run in the rest of the series, and then finds a gap on the off side. Decent over from Hazlewood.

England’s biggest challenge today will be batting the full day. I don’t expect them to bat anything but aggressively BUT a day off their feet for England’s bowlers could be crucial to the final result of this test match. The game is on a knife edge. Not dissimilar to the whole series. Great cricket continues.

England are off to a flyer. Starc’s first delivery is full, wide and spanked to the cover boundary by Crawley, another to add to portfolio of statements of intent.

His opening partner Duckett also gets going with a boundary, pushing Starc classily through mid-on, and he ends the over with a clip through midwicket for four more. A very loose over from Starc, not that England will care. They lead by one run.

It looks like Ben Stokes is padded up, though apparently Joe Root also had his pads on when the players came onto the field the rendition of Jerusalem.

It’ll be Mitchell Starc to Zak Crawley, with two slips, a leg slip and a kind of fourth slip/gully. And there’s no deep point.

Both sets of players line up for a rendition of Jerusalem, performed by the Singing for the Brain choir, all wearing blue Alzheimer’s Society T-shirts. 

The England team are wearing the wrong shirts - Jonny Bairstow has Ben Stokes’ name on his back, and so on - to highlight the confusion experienced by people living with dementia. There’s nothing much to add about this most noble of causes.

Greetings from the Oval, where the sun is currently beating the patchy clouds. It should be the best batting day of the Test, today, with fewer clouds and the pitch having slowed up since a zippy opening day when Australia created 15 chances.

On Moeen, I suspect he will bat, but he can only go in at No 3 if the openers bat until lunch. He needs to be off the field for 120 minutes, or until the fall of the fifth wicket – whichever comes first! Some speculation on who might bat No 3 in his absence. Chris Woakes is an option, as are Joe Root and Ben Stokes.

Potential no 3 for England today? Chris Woakes. Technically correct, could hold an end for a while and protect those further down. Less likely to be bounced with the newer ball than if he comes in later and he spent a long time this morning in the nets with batting coach Marcus Trescothick. Moeen Ali cannot come in until the fall of the fifth wicket or two hours after the innings has started. Bring on the Wizard.

For the last time in this Ashes series, though definitely not the first, Sir Geoffrey pleads with England to bat sensibly. 

Initially, Smith thought he was out, and set off for the boundary as England’s fielders congratulated George Ealham, whose involvement drew comparisons with another famous Ashes sub fielder.

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He’s been in the nets this morning, though there’s no official word on his prospects.

This was not the opposite extreme of Bazball; it was not traditional Test cricket; it was simply bad batting. Australia’s top order surrendered the initiative to England by ignoring two of the basics: looking for singles and rotating the strike.

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Having a bet on the fifth Test? Find the best Ashes free bets to use throughout the five days.

Marnus Labuschagne was furious after his dismissal in the fifth Ashes Test thanks to an unusual move executed by Stuart Broad.

While it was Mark Wood who dismissed Labuschagne, courtesy of a phenomenal catch from Joe Root diving to his left at first slip, Broad will take a share of the credit too.

The ball before Labuschagne edged Wood, Broad, in a surprise move, came up to the stumps and switched the batsman’s bails around – moving the left bail to the right-hand side, and the right bail to the left-hand side.

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The urn is not at stake but two cricketing dogmas are battling for supremacy with both teams taking to extremes their different approaches to Test cricket. It is like watching Piers Morgan argue with himself. Neither side is backing down and acknowledging the other may have a point.

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So, the 2023 Ashes will end as it began: with a one-innings shootout. In the first Test at Edgbaston, England had a first-innings lead of seven. At the Oval, after yet another topsy-turvy day in this brain-scrambler of a series, Australia are ahead by 12.

It means a different challenge for England, who prefer to settle a game in the fourth innings than set it up in the third, though they have done the latter pretty well under Ben Stokes. You’d imagine they’ll want to set Australia at least 250, ideally 300, though it’s very hard to know the price of milk in this series. 

Given how dry the pitch is, the injury to Moeen Ali is a blow. It’s a problem today as well. England will need to find a new No3, with Joe Root and Chris Woakes the favourites. But whoever fills in, England will miss Moeen’s willingness to bat time. If ever there was a case for the batsmen to concentrate on overs as much as runs, this is it. Their four seamers – combined age 144 – looked shattered last night and could with a full day in the comfy chair. 

Unless it rains, and there might be a couple of light showers, they are unlikely to get it. England will go hard, as they have all summer. No team has ever scored at four runs an over across an entire Test series against Australia; England are going at 4.73. In the last Ashes series, since you asked, England hobbled along at 2.81 per over.

Even if they fall in a heap this morning, we should be immensely proud of them. And if all goes to plan, they will produce one last festival of Bazball to set up the scoreline this marvellous series deserves: 2-2.