An eventful day at the Melbourne Cricket Ground ended with a loud cheer for Scott Boland as the pacer walked out to bat with Travis Head to open in the second innings of the fourth Ashes Test. After 20 wickets fell in the day, it was time for Australia to bat again in the second innings and Boland was sent in as the night watchman with Head. Nightwatchman is a term used for the tail-end batter sent in to bat near the end of a day’s play in Test or First-Class matches, not primarily to score runs, but to protect the more top-order batters.

The right-handed batter also took the strike in the only over bowled and remained unbeaten at 4.

Earlier, in the day, the bowlers from both end put up a brilliant show as the sides were bundled out in the first innings on the first day itself.

Batting first, the hosts could only manage 152 with Nessers tops-scoring with 35. Apart from him Usman Khawaja scored 29 and Alex Carey got 17 as the Australian batting unit couldn’t really do much. Josh Tongue was the pick of the bowlers who scalped a fifer. Gus Atkinson bagged a couple while Brydon carse and captain Ben Stokes picked up one wicket each.

But the Australian bowling unit responded well and didn’t really let the English batters take an advantage. They continued put pressure and picked wickets regularly to reduce the side to 77/7 before bowling them out for 110. Nessers scalped four, Boland picked three while Mitchell Starc had two to his name.

England’s Harry Brook tried to shift the gears and took on the bowlers but he could only get to 41 before getting trapped in front of the stumps by Boland. Australia now have a 46-run lead with all the wickets in hand.

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