(Reuters) – England’s Ashes marketing campaign started disastrously on Wednesday as they misplaced three wickets, together with Joe Root for a duck, within the first half-hour after the skipper gained the toss and elected to bat within the opening check on the Gabba on Wednesday.
Paceman Mitchell Starc bowled Rory Burns round his legs with the primary ball of the sequence, a full supply clattering into leg stump after the opener scuttled throughout the crease in an unpleasant dismissal.
Dawid Malan was then caught behind for six, needlessly pushing at a rising Josh Hazlewood supply, the sting giving debutant wicketkeeper Alex Carey his first check dismissal.
Root grew to become England’s second duck of the morning when Hazlewood induced an edge to David Warner within the slips, leaving the vacationers reeling at 11 for three.
Opener Haseeb Hameed and Ben Stokes had been left to resurrect the innings on a grassy pitch and in humid circumstances in Brisbane.
(Reporting by Ian Ransom in Melbourne; Editing by Lincoln Feast.)
