Ashes | Twitter laughs as Cummins calls out Crawley's antics with mind games of own in heated battle

England put up a commendable display with the ball to kickstart Day 4 of the third Ashes Test as they bowled out Australia for 349 from an overnight score of 270/4 to set themselves a target of 435. Openers Zak Crawley and Ben Duckett walked out to bat with jsut 10 minutes left to Lunch but it was enough for Pat Cummins to induce a thick outside edge off the latter's bat and have him caught in the cordon just eight ball into the innings. New batter in Ollie Pope managed to get on the board immediately with a single, leaving Crawley to face the remaining deliveries from the Aussie skip and setting up an enticing battle that delivered the drama it promised.

Cummins went short of a length to begin and was met with a straight bat, followed by a fuller effort that experienced the same fate. As Cummins returned to his mark, Crawley realized the clock was running down and there was just a minute left for close of play to allow a 40-minute break. Not willing to face another over against the new ball with the Aussie quicks having their tail up, the veteran with his usual confident stride walked down the pitch and did some gardening with his willow even as his counterpart stood on top of his mark. Only when the clock struck past the hour mark did Crawley face up but Cummins was not willing to let go of such blatant shenanigans easily. With a huge smirk on his face, the quick returned the favour to Crawley by bending down and playing around with his shoes to make him wait, knowing the next delivery was bound to be the last of the session. Once through with it, Cummins steamed in as per and just as he was about to leap at the end of his run-up, Crawley raised a hand and walked away from the stumps to draw a huge smile from his rival. Cummins almost seemed to be expecting something such as he walked away with purpose, and had the final laugh by ultimately delivering an absolute peach that squared Crawley all-hands up and narrowly missed the outside edge of the wilow. The Australian captain made sure to add some salt to injury with some words to Crawley, who could do not much but smile as the teams walked off for Lunch.

Twitterati was thoroughly enthralled.

Mind Game!

Cummons vs Crawley!

haha!

Peak ashes!

Mind game!

Fun on field!

On fire!

Yeah!

Aura!