England''s improbable task: Can it chase down 435 to keep Ashes hopes alive?
Adelaide (AP): Ben Stokes and his England bowling attack did everything possible Saturday morning to keep the Ashes series alive, taking six Australian wickets for 78 runs and setting up a target of 435 to win the third cricket test.
It would take a world-record chase to win at the Adelaide Oval, but with a relatively flat wicket and five sessions remaining it wasn't entirely out of the question.
It didn't start well for England, with Australia skipper Pat Cummins taking a wicket with his second ball to remove Ben Duckett (4).
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At lunch on Day 4, England was 5-1 and needed 430 for an unlikely victory. Australia needed nine wickets to clinch the series with two tests to spare.
After losing the first two tests in Perth and Brisbane, England needs a victory to keep the five-match series alive. Australia needs only a draw to retain the Ashes.
Still, for England, it's a far better equation than it appeared at stumps on Day 3, when Australia reached 271-4 in its second innings, a lead of 356, with Travis Head unbeaten on 142 and Alex Carey on 52.
The Australians, already with a 2-0 series lead and needing only a draw in Adelaide to retain the Ashes, were all out for 349, a lead of 434. Travis Head's dismissal for 170 triggered a lower-order collapse, with the last six wickets falling for 38 in 11 overs.
The record test run chase was West Indies' 418 in a three-wicket win over Australia at Antigua in 2003.
England has successfully chased 370-plus targets twice to win against India in the last three years.
England's rallyMomentum was all Australia's way initially, even to the point of getting an extra run when a fielder's throw at the non-striker's end deflected and rolled away to allow the batters to return for 2.
Head raised his 150 soon after, and gave a very brisk wave ot the bat to acknowledge it.
His 219-run innings came when he pulled a short ball from Josh Tongue (4-70) high and deep into the outfield where Zak Crawley took a catch looking into the sun at deep mid-wicket.
The end of the 162-run fifth-wicket stand had Australia at 311-5 in the eighth over of Day 4.
Carey took the lead to 400 with a cut boundary off Stokes, leaving the England skipper grimacing and shaking his head.
Josh Inglis got a reprieve on 3 when he was adjudged lbw to Stokes but immediately reviewed and had the decision overturned. At that stage, Australia led by 409.
Stokes made a momentum-swinging breakthrough when he had Carey out for 72, tucking a short ball around the corner and caught at leg slip.
Brydon Carse (3-80) was on a hat-trick when he had Cummins (6) caught behind, stretching to swat a wider ball, and trapped Nathan Lyon lbw on the next ball.
No. 11 Scott Boland left a wide ball to deny England its first Ashes hat-trick since 1999, but he was out soon after when Jofra Archer (1-20) had him fending away a short ball and offering a return catch.
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36 ex-judges slam Opposition move to impeach Justice Swaminathan
New Delhi (PTI): Thirty-six former judges on Saturday gave a call to people, including parliamentarians, to denounce opposition leaders' move to impeach Madras High Court judge Justice G R Swaminathan, saying such an attempt, if allowed to proceed, would cut at the very roots of democracy and independence of the judiciary.
On December 1, Justice Swaminathan held that the Arulmighu Subramania Swamy Temple was duty-bound to light the lamp at the Deepathoon, in addition to the customary lighting near the Uchi Pillaiyar Mandapam.
The single-judge bench said that doing so would not encroach upon the rights of the adjacent dargah or the Muslim community.
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The order sparked a row, and on December 9, several opposition MPs, led by the DMK, submitted a notice to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla to move a motion for the removal of the judge.
Taking serious exception to the move, the former judges in a joint statement said this is a "brazen attempt to browbeat judges who do not fall in line with the ideological and political expectations of a particular section of society".
"If such an attempt is permitted to proceed, it would cut at the very roots of our democracy and the independence of the judiciary," they said.
"We therefore call upon all stakeholders -- Members of Parliament across party lines, members of the Bar, civil society, and citizens at large -- to unequivocally denounce this move and ensure that it is nipped in the bud at the very inception," they added.
The statement emphasised that the judges must remain answerable to their oath and to the Constitution of India, not to "partisan political pressures or ideological intimidation".
"The message from all constitutional stakeholders must be clear and firm: in a republic governed by the rule of law, judgments are tested by appeals and legal critique, and not by threats of impeachment for political nonconformity," it said.
The statement was signed by former Supreme Court judge Krishn Murari J as well as ex-chief justices and former judges of different high courts.
The statement said the opposition party's move is not an "isolated aberration". It fits into a "clear and deeply troubling pattern" in India's recent constitutional history, where sections of the political class have sought to discredit and intimidate the higher judiciary whenever outcomes do not align with their interests, it added.
"The unprecedented bid in 2018 to initiate impeachment proceedings against then Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra, the sustained campaigns of vilification directed at Chief Justices Ranjan Gogoi, S A Bobde and D Y Chandrachud while they were in office," the statement noted.
"The targeted attacks now being mounted against the incumbent CJI, Justice Surya Kant, whenever a judgment/remark displeases a political constituency, are all manifestations of the same trend," it said.
"This is not principled, reasoned criticism of judicial decisions; it is an attempt to weaponise impeachment and public calumny as instruments of pressure -- a practice that strikes at the heart of judicial independence and the basic norms of constitutional democracy," the statement added.
