Simon Jones ended Shane Warne's defiant, rearguard 90 with his second ball yesterday and finished with a career-best six wickets as Australia was bowled out for 302 in reply to England's first innings of 444 in the third test.
England reached lunch on the fourth day at 26 without loss in its second innings, an overall lead of 168.
Marcus Trescothick was unbeaten on 12 and Andrew Strauss -- who had an escape on one when his edge off Brett Lee sailed at waist height between Warne and Ricky Ponting at first and second slip -- was not out 10.
Jones had a total of six wickets from the opening two tests, developing a reputation for making big breakthroughs at the start of his spells.
He dismissed Warne with his second ball Sunday, then removed Brett Lee (1) for his second five-wicket haul in tests.
Jason Gillespie pulled him for six in the 85th over, prompting England captain Michael Vaughan to take the new ball. Jones struck three deliveries later, trapping Gillespie lbw to return 6-53, improving on his previous best of 5-57 against the West Indies in 2003-2004.
Gillespie faced 111 balls and batted for 143 minutes for his 26, sharing an 86-run eighth-wicket stand with Warne that saved Australia from the follow-on.
Australia added 38 runs in 74 minutes Sunday after resuming at 264 for seven.
Warne, on 78 overnight, cut Jones' first ball past point for four to move to 90 and then pulled the Welsh paceman around to Ashley Giles and was caught in the outfield.
His 90 contained a six and 11 boundaries and was the second-highest score by an Australian in this series, behind Michael Clarke's 91 at Lord's.
The Australian legspinner has scored more test runs (2,680) without scoring a hundred than any international cricketer. His highest score was 99 against New Zealand at Perth in 2001.
Warne's dismissal sparked a late collapse -- Australia losing its last three wickets for 15 runs as Jones took 3-6 in 29 balls. Jones and Giles took three wickets apiece on Friday and were frustrated on Saturday, when rain restricted play to 14 overs. Giles finished with 3-100 and Andrew Flintoff had 1-65. Steve Harmison and Matthew Hoggard went wicketless. Warne's was a defiant and chancy innings spanning three days.
Batting at No. 7 because of Clarke's back problems, he went to the crease with Australia at 133-5 in the 36th over and survived to reached 45 on the second day.
Taiwanese world No. 1 women’s doubles star Hsieh Su-wei on Saturday overcame a first-set loss to win her opening match at the Madrid Open. Top seeds Hsieh and partner Elise Mertens of Belgium, with whom she last month won her fourth Indian Wells women’s doubles title, bounced back from a rocky first set to beat Asia Muhammad of the US and Aldila Sutjiadi of Indonesia 2-6, 6-4, 10-2. Hsieh and Mertens were next to face Heather Watson of the UK and Xu Yifan of China in the round of 16. Thirty-eight-year-old Hsieh last month reclaimed her world No. 1 spot after her Indian
EYES ON THE PRIZE: Armed with three solid men’s singles shuttlers and doubles Olympic champions, Taiwan aim to make their first Thomas Cup semi-final, Chou Tien-chen said Taiwanese badminton star Tai Tzu-ying yesterday quickly dispatched Malaysia’s Goh Jin Wei in straight sets, while her male counterpart Chou Tien-chen beat Germany’s Kai Schaefer, as Taiwan’s women’s and men’s teams won their Group B opening rounds of the TotalEnergies BWF Thomas and Uber Cup Finals in Chengdu, China. World No. 5 Tai beat Goh 21-19, 22-20 in a speedy 33 minutes, her fourth straight victory over the world No. 24 shuttler since they first faced each other in the quarter-finals of the 2018 Malaysia Open, where Tai went on to win the women’s singles title. Malaysia followed up Tai’s opening victory
Chen Yi-tung (陳奕通) secured a historic Olympic berth on Sunday by winning the senior men’s foil event at the 2024 Asia Oceania Zonal Olympic Fencing Qualifiers in United Arab Emirates. Chen defeated Samuel Elijah of Singapore 15-4 in the final in Dubai to secure the only wild card in the event, making him the first male Olympian fencer from Taiwan in 36 years and only the sixth Taiwanese fencer to ever qualify for the quadrennial event. The last appearance by a Taiwanese male fencer at the Olympics was in 1988, when Wang San-tsai (王三財) and Cheng Ming-hsiang (鄭明祥) competed in Seoul. The
A soccer jersey carrying a national map including disputed Western Sahara has become a hot commodity in Morocco after a diplomatic dispute with Algeria. Retailers said RS Berkane jerseys have been flying off the shelves after a Confederation of African Football (CAF) Cup match against Algerian club USM Alger was canceled last month over the jerseys. “We are overwhelmed by the influx of messages and requests,” said Brahim Rabii, representative of the official RS Berkane jersey distributor. Algeria broke off diplomatic relations with Morocco in 2021, partly over the issue of Western Sahara. The former Spanish colony is largely controlled by Morocco, but claimed