The Ashes: Ben Stokes heroics come up short as Australia win Lord’s Test to takes control of series with England

A heroic effort from England captain Ben Stokes came up short as Australia won a thrilling Test at Lord’s to take a 2-0 Ashes lead.

There appeared to be little chance for England when they started the final day needing 257 to pull off an unlikely win.

Stokes took the fight to Australia and made a brilliant 155 to seemingly turn the match in England’s favour, but his departure allowed the tourists to blast out the tail and claim the win.

England made a fine start to the day’s play, with Stokes and Ben Duckett batting without trouble.

But Australia removed Duckett with a clever passage of play, as Alex Carey stood down the leg side behind the stumps and Josh Hazlewood found an excellent ball which the England opener edged behind to the wicketkeeper.

Jonny Bairstow came in and looked good, but he departed in controversial circumstances.

After ducking a short ball, Bairstow wandered out of his crease and Carey threw down the stumps.

Bairstow seemingly thought the ball was dead, but it was alive as Carey – who had seen the England man wander out of his crease for the previous two balls – legitimately threw down the stumps.

England were not happy and Stuart Broad, who came out to replace Bairstow, had angry exchanges with a number of fielders – but it was a legitimate dismissal.

What it did was fire up the crowd, and fire up Stokes. After batting in a defensive bubble, Stokes switched gears and took down Cameron Green in back-to-back overs and brought up a brilliant century.

The atmosphere at Lord’s following the controversial departure of Bairstow was toxic, with Usman Khawaja and David Warner involved in seemingly testy exchanges with members in the Long Room as the teams left the field for lunch.

England and their fans may have been upset with Bairstow’s dismissal but it could only be described as dozy batting as he left his crease while the ball was still live.

With Stokes switching gears, it evoked memories of his brilliant innings to win the Headingley Test in 2019 from a hopeless position.

Australia’s plans were wrong at Headingley, and they were wrong before lunch at Lord’s with the field set for short-pitched bowling and Stokes cashed in.

After lunch, Australia’s fields were better and they crafted the big chance to remove Stokes, but the normally reliable Steve Smith shelled a simple chance at backward square leg.

Stokes continued on his merry way and went serenely past 150, but Australia began to dry up his scoring options by bowling wide on the off side.

On 155, he chased a wide one off Hazlewood and top edged the ball to Carey – to silence Lord’s aside from a sizeable contingent of Australian fans.

With Stokes gone, England’s tail was exposed and Ollie Robinson and Broad were blasted out.

Josh Tongue and Jimmy Anderson resisted a bizarre short-ball barrage and got the target below 50, but Starc eventually pitched one up and removed Tongue’s leg stump to wrap up a 43-run win.