England vs Australia live: Latest scores from the Ashes fifth Test

Hazlewood starts with a no-ball. With fewer fielders out, it will be harder for England to rotate strike this morning. Duckett works a couple off the hip, shots that would have brought a run in the rest of the series, and then finds a gap on the off side. Decent over from Hazlewood.

England’s biggest challenge today will be batting the full day. I don’t expect them to bat anything but aggressively BUT a day off their feet for England’s bowlers could be crucial to the final result of this test match. The game is on a knife edge. Not dissimilar to the whole series. Great cricket continues.

England are off to a flyer. Starc’s first delivery is full, wide and spanked to the cover boundary by Crawley, another to add to portfolio of statements of intent.

His opening partner Duckett also gets going with a boundary, pushing Starc classily through mid-on, and he ends the over with a clip through midwicket for four more. A very loose over from Starc, not that England will care. They lead by one run.

It looks like Ben Stokes is padded up, though apparently Joe Root also had his pads on when the players came onto the field the rendition of Jerusalem.

It’ll be Mitchell Starc to Zak Crawley, with two slips, a leg slip and a kind of fourth slip/gully. And there’s no deep point.

Both sets of players line up for a rendition of Jerusalem, performed by the Singing for the Brain choir, all wearing blue Alzheimer’s Society T-shirts. 

The England team are wearing the wrong shirts - Jonny Bairstow has Ben Stokes’ name on his back, and so on - to highlight the confusion experienced by people living with dementia. There’s nothing much to add about this most noble of causes.

Greetings from the Oval, where the sun is currently beating the patchy clouds. It should be the best batting day of the Test, today, with fewer clouds and the pitch having slowed up since a zippy opening day when Australia created 15 chances.

On Moeen, I suspect he will bat, but he can only go in at No 3 if the openers bat until lunch. He needs to be off the field for 120 minutes, or until the fall of the fifth wicket – whichever comes first! Some speculation on who might bat No 3 in his absence. Chris Woakes is an option, as are Joe Root and Ben Stokes.

Potential no 3 for England today? Chris Woakes. Technically correct, could hold an end for a while and protect those further down. Less likely to be bounced with the newer ball than if he comes in later and he spent a long time this morning in the nets with batting coach Marcus Trescothick. Moeen Ali cannot come in until the fall of the fifth wicket or two hours after the innings has started. Bring on the Wizard.

For the last time in this Ashes series, though definitely not the first, Sir Geoffrey pleads with England to bat sensibly. 

Initially, Smith thought he was out, and set off for the boundary as England’s fielders congratulated George Ealham, whose involvement drew comparisons with another famous Ashes sub fielder.

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He’s been in the nets this morning, though there’s no official word on his prospects.

This was not the opposite extreme of Bazball; it was not traditional Test cricket; it was simply bad batting. Australia’s top order surrendered the initiative to England by ignoring two of the basics: looking for singles and rotating the strike.

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Having a bet on the fifth Test? Find the best Ashes free bets to use throughout the five days.

Marnus Labuschagne was furious after his dismissal in the fifth Ashes Test thanks to an unusual move executed by Stuart Broad.

While it was Mark Wood who dismissed Labuschagne, courtesy of a phenomenal catch from Joe Root diving to his left at first slip, Broad will take a share of the credit too.

The ball before Labuschagne edged Wood, Broad, in a surprise move, came up to the stumps and switched the batsman’s bails around – moving the left bail to the right-hand side, and the right bail to the left-hand side.

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The urn is not at stake but two cricketing dogmas are battling for supremacy with both teams taking to extremes their different approaches to Test cricket. It is like watching Piers Morgan argue with himself. Neither side is backing down and acknowledging the other may have a point.

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So, the 2023 Ashes will end as it began: with a one-innings shootout. In the first Test at Edgbaston, England had a first-innings lead of seven. At the Oval, after yet another topsy-turvy day in this brain-scrambler of a series, Australia are ahead by 12.

It means a different challenge for England, who prefer to settle a game in the fourth innings than set it up in the third, though they have done the latter pretty well under Ben Stokes. You’d imagine they’ll want to set Australia at least 250, ideally 300, though it’s very hard to know the price of milk in this series. 

Given how dry the pitch is, the injury to Moeen Ali is a blow. It’s a problem today as well. England will need to find a new No3, with Joe Root and Chris Woakes the favourites. But whoever fills in, England will miss Moeen’s willingness to bat time. If ever there was a case for the batsmen to concentrate on overs as much as runs, this is it. Their four seamers – combined age 144 – looked shattered last night and could with a full day in the comfy chair. 

Unless it rains, and there might be a couple of light showers, they are unlikely to get it. England will go hard, as they have all summer. No team has ever scored at four runs an over across an entire Test series against Australia; England are going at 4.73. In the last Ashes series, since you asked, England hobbled along at 2.81 per over.

Even if they fall in a heap this morning, we should be immensely proud of them. And if all goes to plan, they will produce one last festival of Bazball to set up the scoreline this marvellous series deserves: 2-2.