Australia take a commanding 2-0 lead at the Ashes after a 43-run win over England

Ben Stokes played one of the best Ashes innings, even by his standards, but failed to win the second Test for England on a day of great controversy at Lord’s.

Stokes made 155, including an Ashes record nine sixes, with an impressive display of batting, but England fell 44 short of their winning target of 371 in front of one of the most intense and feverish crowds ever seen at Lord’s.

The final day had been ignited by the most disputed decision when Jonny Bairstow was ‘stumped’ by goalkeeper Alex Carey after leaving his crease thinking the ball was dead with England making a decent fist to go after their formidable goal.

Bairstow had ducked under a Cameron Green goalkeeper at the end of the 52nd minute and saw the ball pass to Carey, who had earlier produced another excellent catch to send Ben Duckett back for 83 after England had had a productive fifth. day.

The Australian keeper rolled the ball into the stumps and hit them after Bairstow had clawed his ground and left his box thinking the over was done. He was clearly out of his league, but the bottom line was that it looked like the umpires had started to move into position for the next over.

England captain Ben Stokes gave his team hope with a dazzling 155 stroke on the final day.

It was a dramatic day as tempers flared after Jonny Bairstow was controversially stumped.

Bairstow couldn’t believe what had happened and was clearly not happy when he left.

Referees Chris Gaffaney and Ahsan Raza called for the Marais Erasmus television official to judge and Bairstow had clearly left his ground so he was dropped. But Australia captain Pat Cummins squandered a golden opportunity to do the right thing and withdraw the appeal from him, and in failing to do so sent a full house into Lord’s wild.

The Aussies were booed throughout the remainder of the final day and members in the Lord’s long room, usually one of the most elegant, well-behaved and traditional areas in the sport, angrily confronted the Aussies over lunch, prompting a complaint from Australia and an apology from MCC.

But what the incident did was wake up the beast in Stokes, who was on 62 for 126 balls at the time, but then crushed his next 38 for 16 balls to move to a hundred. Suddenly, out of the blue, England had a great chance to take one of the most famous victories in all of the Tests and level this series.

Stokes joined forces with Stuart Broad, who angrily took issue repeatedly with the Australian fielders for their act of sportsmanship in dismissing Bairstow, to add 108 for the seventh wicket and raise England’s hopes of an even greater victory than the one inspired by Stokes against Australia in Headingley in 2019.

Stuart Broad was the next to enter and exchanged some intense words with the Australian players.

At the lunch break, both David Warner and Usman Khawaja clashed with the MCC members.

Previously, Stokes played one of the greatest shots of all time when he gave the Aussies real concern.

But Stokes, whom Steve Smith had missed on 114, dropped his head on his hips as he aimed another big shot at Josh Hazelwood and only managed to top Carey with 70 still needed.

There was no looking back for England after that and the last three wickets quickly tumbled with Australia taking a 2-0 lead in this five match series and almost certainly retaining the Ashes. Only once in Ashes history has a team come back from two down to win the urn and no team from England has ever done so.

But at least the series ignited on the most eventful and incredible fifth day imaginable, with England heading to Headingley for the third Test on Thursday, recovering from a rant and in a renewed spirit after another classic encounter.

He was visibly devastated when he was sacked after mistiming a Josh Hazlewood serve.

The Aussies now hold a 2-0 series lead and are on pace to retain the Ashes.