Welcome to sportsday with me, james pearce. The headlines this evening can england finally get an ashes test win . Double century for Alastair Cook has given them a great chance to do so at melbourne. 3 point arsenal at Crystal Palace in the evening premier league match. And phil taylor powers his way into the quarter finals of the pdc world darts championship. Good evening. In less than an hours time Alastair Cook will return to the crease in melbourne on 244 not out. Its a double century thats given england the upper hand in the fourth ashes test, and a chance to restore some much needed pride. The tourists are 491 9. Thats a first innings lead of 164. Theres still of course plenty of work for england to do, and having lost the first three tests they wont be taking anything for granted. Lets cross live to melbourne and speak to our reporter patrick gearey. Good morning. Is this a winning lead . The australia coach Darren Lehmann in his press conference last night admitted if not a winning lead its certainly a position he doesnt think england will lose from. Australia will not complete a second straight five no whitewash over year against england. 5 0. Its down to the innings from Alastair Cook. A remarkable innings in a careerfull of them. He batted for 12 and a half hours, he called it his most emotional knock given the doubts that surrounded him going into the match. He moved beyond brian lara in the all time run scorer list in the course of doing so. Some achievement. He added a few more iu ns achievement. He added a few more runs this morning. England had one first innings wickets left. The majority of day four will be about the england bowlers and how what they can do to dismiss the bear second innings. Any signs the pitch might change from being friendly to the bowlers . Very little, its been criticised, this mcg pitch, its a dropping wicket because they used the surface for australian rules football. England also criticised it earlier in the match. They will point out they dealt with it better than the australian bowlers. Anderson and australia cant exploit pace as they have in some of the other wickets around australia. England might feel greater know how might be the crucial advantage for them. What about the mental state of england players . They must be bruised after what has happened so far in this series. Theyve had good positions before, theyve thrown them away. Does this feel different . It is feel a little bit different to be honest. England have kept a very united group through this ashes series and i think its different to previous tours. They will feel they have noticed a change in the wind in this test match, though the ashes have gone. Weve now had two or three days of continued england dominance. Its different from any other test match in the series. Theyll feel the Alastair Cook innings was a rallying cry. They applauded him back into the dressing room last night. The fitness, concentration, they want to deliver on his tireless effort and get the first ashes victory. Coverage as always on test match special overnight. Arsenal have won 3 2 away at Crystal Palace in this evenings premier league match. Arsenal dominated for large periods of the match, and always looked the likely winners, but once again their defence creaked when under pressure. Jim lumsden watched the match. As Manchester City speed towards the title there appear to two courses left for the others, getting into europe or not getting relegated. Arsenal in contention for the former. Palace prised from the bottom of the table by roy hodgson. The best part of their staff the gunners patiently passed the ball around. Hodgsons men often come from behind to win. Andros townsend struck back. Arsenal not used to losing having done so only once in the last six. Alexis sanchez regained the lead for his side. The third even easier on the eye from stroke it delightful pass from jack wilshere, stroked home by the chilean. James tomkins pulled one back but arsenal got the points. Palaces rocky resurgence will be further tested by the visit on sunday. Its results at home in the final minutes. We were comfortable 31. Not final minutes. We were comfortable 3 1. Not at all any more, 3 2. We scored goals again today. It was a bit nervy in the end. I thought we we re every bit nervy in the end. I thought we were every bit as dangerous and hard every bit as many chances as they had. Especially in the second half, perhaps more. We werent clinical enough to take those chances. We have lost the game tonight against a very good team that over the 90 minutes probably did deserve to win the game. Lets look at the table, the game. Lets look at the table, the wind keeps arsenal sixth, level on points with north london rivals spurs, just behind on goal difference. 2 points behind Manchester City. At the other end of the table palace remain in the 16th, level with west ham and newcastle, only one point ahead of bournemouth, who are third from bottom. The premier league bottom club have appointed former czech york wednesday boss Carlos Carvajal as their new manager. He was doing his best to make a good impression at his first swansea press conference. Hes been sacked by Sheffield Wednesday on christmas eve. Fresh in the mind that sacking. They were 15th in the table at the time. Hes never managed in the english top flight never managed in the english top flight before. Everybody understands it is ina flight before. Everybody understands it is in a very difficult situation. But its what we like. Maybe a lot of persons will say that it may be just a miracle that swansea will stay in the premier league but i dont agree because miracles is something not from our world. These kind of things, this kind ofjob is so kind of things, this kind ofjob is so they can do the things. Theres still plenty of chatter about liverpools £75 million signing of Virgil Van Dijk from southampton, making him the worlds most expensive defender. One man who knows him well is Leicester City boss claude puel, who managed the dutchman at southampton last season, and believes liverpool have bought one of the worlds best centre backs. One of the best defenders in the world and he has other quality to become the best. This is, i think, fantastic, a very good possibility for liverpool, of course, he can play on different teams, different quick teams. Phil the power taylor has breezed into the quarterfinals of the pdc World Championship with a 40 of the pdc World Championship with a 4 0 win over keegan brown. The 16 time World Champion is playing in his farewell event and made light work of the 2014 world youth champion, dispatching him with a 106 check out to the approval of the ally pally crowd. He will play either former champion Gary Anderson or steve west in the last eight. Taylor avoided being on the wrong end of an upset, but the likes of peter wright and adrian lewis have already fallen and today fifth seed Mensur Suljovic of austria has been knocked out. Suljovic was beaten four sets to nil by the world youth champion dmitri van den bergh from belgium in the last 16 van den bergh was in brilliant form and suljovic hardly had an opportunity. And in the last eight van den bergh will face one of the sports rising stars, englands rob cross. The bbc understands that a heavyweight unification fight between britains anthonyjoshua and Joseph Parker is close to being confirmed. Joshua is seeking to add parkers wbo crown to his wba and ibf titles. The main stumbling block until now has been how the revenue would be split. Parker was said to be demanding a0 , but a compromise appears to have been reached that will see the New Zealander take between 30 and 35 per cent. The cheltenham gold cup winner sizing john fnished well down the field in the big race of the day , the christmas chase at leopardstown. It was won by the 8 1 shot road to respect. Ridden by sean flanaghan and trained by noel meade he came home comfortably ahead of 66 to 1 shot balkos day flow and outlander. That completed a one two three for the jigginstown stud. Sizing john finished seventh. Thats all from sportsday. Coming up in a moment, the papers. Hello and welcome to our look ahead to what the papers will be bringing us tomorrow. With me are broadcaster david davies and journalist dina hamdy. Not a journalist, political analyst, im so sorry. Lets get it right shall we . Well be talking cricket later and dina will hopefully learn a lot from david. The times reports that the best paid Family Doctors can earn up to seven hundred thousands pounds. The telegraph reports that the minister for the constitution has accused Jeremy Corbyn of trying to rig the election. The i leads with a suggestion that drunk revellers should be treated in, what is described as, drunk tanks rather than our hospitals. The guardian leads with an mp warning social media giants they could face sanctions if they continue to stall parliament. The daily mails front page covers a study suggesting britain has a growing problem with addiction to prescription drugs. The Financial Times says worldwide merger and acquisitions surpassed three trillion dollars this year the mirror is launching a campaign to end charges in hospital carparks. The sun reports uk supermarkets will start selling bacon that doesnt have harmful added nitrates. The Daily Telegraph headline, got been trying to rig the election. A minister calling for an attempt to block boundary reforms an affront to democracy. Daesh parliamentary boundary changes are always, always controversial. Another set is scheduled for 2018. Most observers think were they to be introduced to balance up the size of constituencies, at the moment we have some constituencies with 51,000 voters and other constituencies with 90,000 voters. The idea is proposals will cut the number of mps from 650 to 600. And balance. Most constituencies around 70,000. Thats the idea. Surprise surprise, the party that would be more likely to lose out on this would be the labour party. Surprise surprise the labour party. Surprise surprise the labour party are opposed, are likely to oppose, the changes. Actually the truth is that in the past you can find other parties, big parties, one might even say, that have opposed. What could you mean . Some remember boundary changes in the 1970s and 80s. They make a difference to the lives of people whose seats disappear. A certain seat in islington under likely changes might disappear. It might seek the current mp, Jeremy Corbyn. That is why it is inevitable there will be opposition. Having said that, the background to this was it all came into the limelight. After the mp scandal. The tories had a majority then. Nothing could have stopped them from doing the boundaries, finishing it off. And they didnt. Because it would have been counterbalanced at that stage by introducing the proportional Voting System which they were not keen on. There is that element to it. Lets look at the i. Facebook and twitter warned over inquiry into fake news. Not being very forthcoming with the information required of them. Its astonishing that they have been asked to hand over similar information in the us. Eventually they did handover to Congress Huge amounts of data. They are effectively snowballing and ignoring the Parliamentary Committee here. Now they are being