England captain Michael Vaughan stroked 166 Thursday, reviving his masterful form of the last Ashes series in three sessions when Australia's only real joy was Shane Warne's 600th test wicket.
Vaughan won the toss, decided to bat and then survived dropped catches on 41 and 141 in his fourth test hundred against Australia and his 15th overall.
England was 341 for five at stumps on day one of the pivotal third test.
Brett Lee took two late wickets, including night watchman Matthew Hoggard (4) on the last ball of the day, and finished with 3-58.
Ian Bell remained unbeaten on 59, facing 146 balls for his confidence-boosting maiden Ashes half century.
Warne, who started this test with a world-record 599 wickets, shouldered the bowling attack in an unchanged 27-over stint that netted 1-75.
He reached the 600 milestone in his fifth over when Marcus Trescothick (63) was undone by a ball that hit his thigh, then his bat and deflected to wicketkeeper Adam Gilchrist.
After persevering with Warne and the wearing ball hoping to force another breakthrough, Australian skipper Ricky Ponting took the new ball after 86 overs and turned to his pacemen.
Lee struck with the second ball of the next over to start a spell of 2-4 in 11 balls.
Lee, who spent two nights in hospital for treatment on knee infection before rejoining the squad on Wednesday, had Kevin Pietersen (21) caught by substitute fielder Brad Hodge on the midwicket boundary and then bowled Hoggard.
He had taken the only wicket of the first session, bowling Andrew Strauss (6) after hitting the England opener in the neck with a steeply rising ball in his previous over.
England was 26 for one at Strauss' dismissal, lucky not to be two wickets down after Trescothick had a reprieve on 13 when Gilchrist put down a regulation chance off Glenn McGrath.
It was the first of four costly dropped chances for Australia.
Vaughan was under pressure. Coming into the test, he had scored only 32 runs in four innings and he had been bowled three times.
He made the perfect response to critics of his technique, carefully playing Warne's legspin and then attacking the pacemen at the other end in the alternate overs to notch his highest score as England captain.
Vaughan shared a 137-run, second-wicket stand with vice-captain Trescothick and a 127-run, third-wicket partnership with Bell before lofting a full toss from part-time spinner Simon Katich directly to McGrath at long-on.
He made the most of his chances. The 30-year-old righthander had not added to his lunchtime score of 41 when he flashed outside off stump at McGrath, and Gilchrist, leaping in front of first slip, deflected the one-handed chance down to the rope for four.
Next delivery, Vaughan had his stumps rattled by McGrath but umpire Steve Bucknor ruled it a no-ball.
On 141, Vaughan slashed at a Warne ball outside off stump and smacked a sharp chance to first slip, where Matt Hayden couldn't handle the catch.
The England captain was the leading scorer in the 2003 Ashes series in Australia, scoring 633 runs at an average of 66 and notching three hundreds.
England lost that series 4-1 but is in a stronger position at home after the series-leveling two-run win in the second test at Edgbaston last Sunday.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
Rafael Nadal on Wednesday said the upcoming French Open would be the moment to “give everything and die” on the court after his comeback from injury in Barcelona was curtailed by Alex de Minaur. The 22-time Grand Slam title winner, back playing this week after three months on the sidelines, battled well, but eventually crumbled 7-5, 6-1 against the world No. 11 from Australia in the second round. Nadal, 37, who missed virtually all of last season, is hoping to compete at the French Open next month where he is the record 14-time champion. The Spaniard said the clash with De Minaur was
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but