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Luckless England brace for uphill task in Adelaide
It is usually a sign of a day with few redeeming features when a coach rather than a player faces the media after play and Sunday's appearance of England's Trevor Bayliss was no exception.
1. When rain forced an early end to day two of the second Ashes Test, England were 29 for one in reply to Australia's 442 for eight declared, having thrown their best at their hosts only to come off second best.
2. Two DRS referrals that overturned what looked to the naked eye to be plumb lbw decisions off the bowling of the luckless James Anderson were symptomatic of a day where little went right for the tourists.
When Alastair Cook and James Vince crashed into each other trying to take a simple catch to dismiss Shaun Marsh, who went on to make an unbeaten 126, memories of the 5-0 drubbing on the last Ashes tour Down Under started to surface.
England are already 1-0 down after a 10-wicket defeat at the Gabba but a defiant Bayliss was not prepared to surrender to the gloom only two days into the first day-night Ashes Test.
"There's a good feeling in the dressing room," he told reporters.
"They're certainly not disheartened at all. Shaun showed it's not impossible to score runs out there. It will be up to one or our guys to go out and make a big score.
"We’re here to win. We’re not here to make up the numbers. That means batting all day tomorrow and well into the fourth day."
The day started with Stuart Broad removing Peter Handscomb with the third delivery and for the first hour it looked like England's bowlers had raised their game after putting Australia in and only taking four wickets on day one.
3. Although debutant seamer Craig Overton (3-105) ultimately ended the day as England's biggest wicket-taker, Bayliss was not prepared to countenance the idea that his spearhead of Broad and Anderson was simply no longer good enough.
"Some days it goes your ways and some it doesn't," he said.
"On that wicket the bowlers we've got are more than capable of taking wickets and creating chances, which I thought we did over the last day or two.
"It didn't go our way on this occasion but these are the bowlers we’ve got, there’s no point wishing or hoping someone else is going to come along with a click of the fingers.
"I thought they both bowled extremely well."
Bayliss also defended his captain Joe Root's decision to bowl first after winning the toss on Saturday.
"He wouldn’t do anything different," he said.
"It certainly wasn’t a decision that was taken lightly but for us to win games we’ve got to take 20 wickets.
"We bowled pretty well and didn’t get the rewards we thought we deserved."
