The Cricketer looks at the main talking points from day two of the fifth Ashes Test between England and Australia at the Kia Oval
Ben Stokes can hardly be criticised for throwing the new ball once again to James Anderson and Stuart Broad a whirl in an attempt to clean up the Australia tail.
Steve Smith and Pat Cummins had proved tough to break through and their seventh-wicket stand worth 54 was handy in bringing the tourists towards restoring parity.
Chris Woakes has been by some considerable distance England's best bowler in this match. He extracted David Warner on the first evening and has been the only consistent threat across the innings.
He had to wait for his chance with the second new ball until it was seven overs old to be exact. But he quickly repaid the faith of his captain.
A slower ball out of the white-ball playbook saw Smith, on 71 at the time, mistime an attempted pull and skew the ball up in the air. Jonny Bairstow, amid another eventful day with the gloves, ran back, circled underneath the ball and took a smart catch.
It was a change up which gave England sight of the Australian tail.
Steve Smith hit 71 as Australia edged their way into the lead (Ryan Pierse/Getty Images)
By some considerable distance, the moment of the day belonged to Joe Root, who ended Marnus Labuschagne's stoic innings in quite brilliant fashion.
The Australia No.3 was proving tough to dislodge, leaving well, offering few chances and taking time out of a tricky period to bat.
It was always going to take a moment of inspiration to remove him, and so it proved. Mark Wood, who had been unable to replicate his success from the Ashes series down under in 2021/22, found the perfect length and caught the edge of Labuschagne's bat.
As the ball threatened to fly quickly between wicketkeeper Jonny Bairstow and Root at first slip, the latter dived down to his left, stuck out a hand and held on with the ball virtually behind him.
The moment lifted a 27,000-capacity crowd inside the Kia Oval, provoking cheers which shuddered through the ground. For much of the first four sessions, the spectators have appeared in a haze, but they were sparked into life in the most dramatic way possible.
Out or not out? (Stu Forster/Getty Images)
Day two saw us take another dip into the lawbook as the Test's major flashpoint dominated the evening session.
Steve Smith and Pat Cummins attempted a second run in the middle of the 78th over but didn't account for the arm of George Ealham, son of former England seamer Mark, running in off the boundary.
Ealham hurled the ball into Jonny Bairstow, who duly dismantled the stumps. Umpires sent the decision upstairs.
Depending on your interpretation of events and whether you have one, two or three TV angles available, Bairstow either dislodged the stumps without having control of the ball, or the bail had not lifted out of its groove by the time a diving Smith had made his ground.
It took several minutes for the final decision to be made by umpire Nitin Menon, with Smith eventually remaining in place, much to the consternation of the assembled crowd. Explanations followed from the likes of Mark Butcher, Ian Ward, Glenn McGrath and the MCC (who supported the on-field decision) but they only appeared to muddy the waters.
What is not in dispute is how important the decision was in the context of the Test.
Australia were 194 for 7 when Smith returned for the second, 99 adrift of their hosts with the tail to come. They extended the partnership by another 45 runs, with Smith registering a 38th Test fifty, and took 10 overs out of the new ball.
It isn't the first time in this series attention has turned to the laws of the sport. Hopefully, it is the last.
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