On the Day 1 of the first Test, England declared their innings after only losing eight wickets and scoring 393 runs on a surface that seemed to be very good for batting. Joe Root was still at the crease after having scored a century.
After winning the toss, England decided to bat, and Zak Crawley got things going with a boundary off the first delivery. Early on, Ben Duckett struck Josh Hazlewood to the "keeper," marking the first success. Crawley and Pope shared a second-wicket partnership of 70 runs. Later Ollie Pope was caught legbefore by Lyon with a flat delivery from behind the stumps. Crawley continued to bat, hitting seven boundaries in his 61-run innings. At the beginning of lunch, the opener was out when Scott Boland's delivery rocketed up and edged the bat on its way to the wicketkeeper.
England continued to play aggressively despite losing three wickets in the early session. After lunch, Harry Brook assumed leadership of the assault. Australia quickly struck again, reducing Ben Stokes' team to 176 for 5 as a result of his boldness to go fetching for a delivery outside the off-stump. Even though Australia held the advantage in the match, England didn't back down. Root momentarily made the innings more stable.
Once he entered his 90s and had little left in the way of batting support, Root slowed down significantly. Nevertheless, Stuart Broad and Ollie Robinson kept him company for long enough to help the team reach the required score and get them to a place where they felt secure enough to declare their innings.
Brief scores: England 393/8 decl. (Joe Root 112*, Zak Crawley 61; Nathan Lyon 4-149, Josh Hazlewood 2-61) lead Australia 14 for no loss by 379 runs.