Australia seamer Mitchell Starc proved to be too good for England's batting order and racked up figures of 7/58 to start the Ashes on a superb note. The left-arm seamer provided Australia with a fantastic start and got the wicket of Zak Crawley in the very first over. He then went on to pick up the big wickets of Ben Duckett and Joe Root during the first session of the day itself.
Starc continued to bowl with the same rhythm after Lunch as well and sent Ben Stokes back to the pavilion cheaply for six runs before tearing apart England's lower-order with the wickets of Gus Atkinson, Jamie Smith and Mark Wood. The left-arm seamer as nothing short of a one-man army as Australia bundled out England for only 172 runs.
Debutant Brendan Doggett also had a fine day at the office as racked up two wickets including the massive one of Harry Brook, who was England's top-scorer of the innings with 52 runs. A returning Cameron Green also managed to chip in with a wicket and it came in the form of Ollie Pope, who departed after scoring 46 runs.
No problems for AUS even without Cummins and Hazlewood
With both Pat Cummins and Josh Hazlewood being ruled out of the first Test, the England batters were expected to post a big total against the significantly weakened Australian bowling attack. However, an extraordinary performance from Starc prevented that from happening and helped in providing the hosts with the upper hand. Notably, Starc's fiery 7-wicket-haul saw him beat his own previous career-best of 6/9.
In reply, Australia also had a woeful start to their innings as debutant Jake Weatherald departed for a two-ball duck thanks to a ripper from Jofra Archer. However, the duo of Marnus Labuschagne and Steve Smith ensured that the side didn't lose any more wickets and finish the second session on 15/1.
Starc achieves major milestones
Meanwhile, not only did Starc become the 21st player in history to cross 100 wickets in The Ashes, but he also went on to surpass Ravichandran Ashwin's tally of 195 wickets in the World Test Championship (WTC). He now has 198 wickets under his name in the tournament and is third on the highest wicket-taker list only behind his teammates Nathan Lyon (219 wickets) and Pat Cummins (215 wickets).