The Ashes: Marnus Labuschagne, David Warner put Australia on top after day one of pink-ball Test | Cricket News

Stuart Broad marks return to England side and 150th Test with early wicket of Marcus Harris (3) before Marnus Labuschagne and David Warner hit watchful half-centuries; Steve Smith elected to bat after standing in as captain with Pat Cummins in isolation after a close Covid-19 contact

Marnus Labuschagne is closing in on a sixth Test century after being dropped on 21 and 95

​David Warner and Marnus Labuschagne’s watchful half-centuries – and Jos Buttler’s drops – gave Australia the upper hand on an attritional first day of the pink-ball second Test in Adelaide.

Cummins was identified as a close contact having sat near someone carrying the virus during an evening meal in the city, so vice-captain Smith has stepped up to lead the side for the first time since the ball-tampering scandal in Cape Town in 2018 ended his tenure as skipper.

Smith elected to bat after winning the toss and watched on as Warner (95 off 167) and Labuschagne (95no off 275) put on 172 for Australia’s second wicket, before the stand-in skipper hit 18 not out from 71 balls once Warner slashed Ben Stokes to Stuart Broad at cover to fall in the nineties for the second successive Test after his 94 in Brisbane.

Labuschagne was dropped by England wicketkeeper Buttler of Stokes on 21 and then again by the same man late in the day on 95 after James Anderson induced an outside edge with the second new ball.

Australia – who lead the five-match series 1-0 after a nine-wicket victory at The Gabba last week – closed on 221-2 from 89 overs with England’s samey, five-pronged pace attack, missing the rested Mark Wood, perhaps guilty of bowling too short, particularly under the lights with the old ball.

David Warner fell five runs short of a 25th Test hundred

It was slow going to start with as the returning Broad and Anderson limited the home side to 11-1 from the first 10 overs, with Broad marking his 150th Test appearance with the wicket of Marcus Harris (3) as Buttler took a stunning one-handed catch down the leg-side – a moment in stark contrast to the later blemishes which spared Labuschagne.

Warner took 20 balls to get of the mark, 53 to reach double figures, and recorded the third-slowest of his 32 Test fifties from 108 balls – an innings he was unable to turn into a 25th ton when he fell under the lights.

Labuschagne, meanwhile, was subjected to a blizzard of short deliveries from Stokes, who took on the role of England’s enforcer in the absence of their quickest bowler, Wood.

England plugged away on a slow pitch offering little movement – every seamer bar Stokes going at less than three runs an over and Anderson going at under two – but lacked variety with no express paceman or frontline spinner in the team.

The returns of Anderson and Broad meant the visitors left out Wood and left-arm spinner Jack Leach and the omissions of both could come back to bite the tourists as they bid to level the series and snap an 11-match winless streak in Tests in Australia – their last victory coming at the Sydney Cricket Ground in January 2011.

Part-time spinner Root found appreciable turn on day one, while Australia off-spinner Nathan Lyon has claimed 19 wickets at an average of 25.78 in pink-ball Tests in Adelaide.

Leach or Broad appeared England’s sole selection dilemma and it was the latter who got the nod as he made his first Test appearance since August and became the 10th man, and third Englishman after Anderson and Sir Alastair Cook, to the milestone of 150 Test matches.

Broad would have relished bowling at Warner having dismissed him seven times during the 2019 Ashes series in England – but it was the batter’s opening partner, Harris, whom he removed cheaply from his customary around-the-wicket approach to the left-handers.

Harris had successfully overturned an lbw dismissal off Broad in the sixth over – the ball set to slide past leg stump – but fell in the eighth as he skewed a pull down the leg-side and Buttler took a brilliant one-handed catch leaping to his right.

England’s attack frequently beat the bat but failed to induce the edges behind, perhaps emphasising that they were at least fractionally short.

The short-pitched approach from Stokes did rattle Labuschagne, though, with the Australia No 3 pinned on the fingers and ribs in the first session and then pulling Stokes behind down the leg-side in the second – only for Buttler to shell the chance leaping to his left.

Australia would have been 62-2 had Labuschagne been dismissed then but trundled along to 176 before the next wicket fell – Warner the man to depart as he clubbed Stokes’ short, wide ball to Broad in the off-side on 95.

Buttler could not cling on to a routine chance when Labuschagne drove off the back foot on 95, with the batter’s stand with skipper Smith now worth 45 from 150 deliveries.