The third of the five Ashes test matches started at WACA, Perth with Joe Root winning the toss and opted to bat first on a whole bouncy pitch to provide Australia enough lead for the second innings and end up on the right side of the match. England played with the same playing XI whereas Australia had only one change, Mitchell Marsh was roped in replacing Peter Handscomb.

Alastair Cook came to the crease with Stoneman to bat whereas Mitchell Starc had open the attack for Australia with his fierce yorker on the stumps. Starc wanted no time to remove Alastair Cook in his 150th test match, he was given leg before wicket with another poor show from the experienced opener of the visitors.

James Vince had to join Mark Stoneman in the middle to fulfill the early loss of Cook, both the batsmen were new to the crease with Stoneman striking the ball well. Sufficient good partnership was in need for England. The players started to rotate strike and jot down run on the board. Australia in search of a wicket, both the batsmen were playing their shots and building their innings after they reach fifty run partnership. They were both comfortable now on the crease but Hazlewood's Pitched up fuller outside off drove James Vince back to the pavilion after a good partnership of 63 runs. 

The first session of the first day was a decent one from England's point of view with Cook falling short on his 150th test match and a late breakthrough of James Vince had pumped Australia and had Stoneman under pressure of scoring runs, but he looked confident enough to put the bad balls away. Hazlewood with the pressure and it bore fruit as he finished off his spell with four maiden overs and the wicket. Root survived a few nervy minutes before lunch and has Stoneman for a company. They need to post a total in the first innings which the bowlers can ride on.

The second session of the day was resumed by Stoneman and Captain Joe Root on the strike who hit a cracking four on the first ball after Lunch.The Skipper had quickly reached on to his 20s with a bouncer down the leg side from Pat Cummings had pushed Root to his way back to the dugout.

The pressure was back with England when their Captain fell early where he was supposed to stabilize England Innings and in a matter of 5 overs their well-settled batsman was also outgoing against Mitchell Starc pace delivery, taken by Tim Paine behind the wicket, his third catch in this match. England were 131 for 4 wickets down struggling.

Two new batsmen on the crease hoping to create a handy partnership with their team wanting one. Dawid Malan and Jonny Bairstow had made themselves comfortable at the end of the second session batting on Malan (42*) and Bairstow (14*).

The second session had seen crucial wickets falling and also there were runs scored by the English players. Malan had looked very positive and has got a start, so had Bairstow. Two wickets in the session for the hosts, but they bowled a lot better than that. The match looked balanced at that point in time.

The last session of the day proceeded with Cummings taking the attack against Bairstow, Australia was hoping for a quick breakthrough that will provide them an extra edge but Dawid Malan and Jonny Bairstow were in a different mood today, as both the players had made themselves comfortable on the crease they frustrated Aussies to break their partnership. 

Malan had played beautifully throughout his innings with scoring runs, rotating the strikes and even leaving the outside off stump deliveries.He had a vital role to play in the resurrection of his team. Earlier also Malan had promising starts, this match inning is the apt platform to showcase his worth with a great support from the other end Bairstow also had England innings in control.First fifty in 10 innings for Jonny Bairstow. This is the third time he had a run of nine successive innings without a fifty & all three times he scored a 50 in his 10th innings.

Dawid Malan had mastered his first ever test century, he scored  110 runs to give his team a solid hand in the first innings and Johnny Bairstow also had nourished his innings with 75 runs together they had scored 174 runs with England comfortably sitting in driver's seat.

Australian bowlers played their heart to remove this partnership but were unlucky enough, England had frustrated Australia with this solid and huge partnership. Only pacers had the joy of clinching wickets.

At the end of first days play England is 305/4 and lead by 305, they will look to disseminate Australia tomorrow as well and the host will be searching for wickets.

Brief Scores

Brief scores: England 305/4 (Dawid Malan 110*, Jonny Bairstow 75*; Mitchell Starc 2-79) vs Australia.