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Ian Bell scored his second century in as many innings but Steven Smith spoilt England’s party with a late haul of three wickets for Australia on the first day of the second Ashes Test. We’ll have live scores and commentary from 8.00pm AEST.
Batting first was the right way to go about it for England on a rather flat-looking surface at Lord’s but they will be ruing the loss of three wickets in a clusters on two separate occasions.
First Alastair Cook, Joe Root and Kevin Pietersen fell within a space of 11 deliveries of each other.
Then Smith came out of nowhere and broke the English back in the third session by picking up three wickets in a six-over spell that sent the English side tumbling from 4/271 to 7/283 before the number eight and nine added another six more to the total.
England will be disappointed by their performance. Like how Bell showed, as did his partnerships with Jonathin Trott and later with Jonny Bairstow, it wasn’t a track they should have lost seven wickets in a day.
Credit where its due though. Australian captain Michael Clarke made some excellent changes in the first and the third sessions.
Bringing Shane Watson on after only four overs in the day and then throwing the ball to Smith when the new ball could well have been taken.
That said, the task is barely complete. First, Australia need to run through the tail given how well Tim Bresnan bats – he has a Test average of more than 30.
With Stuart Broad and Graeme Swann always ready to chip in with the bat, the last thing Australia need on the second day is for the team to run away with a score touching 400.
Then on to their batting. While the pitch can be expected to be at its best on the second and third day, Australia have generally struggled with the bat in recent times.
Anderson will continue to hold the key but the visitors can probably take heart from their performance in the second innings of the Trent Bridge Test.
Every batsman will need to put up a lot of value to his wicket and try and eke out a lead.
More vitally Australia will hope to bat long into the third day and not allow England to use the best of the batting conditions second time around.
England’s task first up isn’t a simple one. They will be up against the new ball first up and the sense one gets watching them bat is they will go after it. Not too much hanging about.
Then, with the ball, it will be interesting to see whether the likes of Anderson, Broad and Bresnan can maintain the kind of control that Australia failed to after grabbing the first three wickets.
There were a couple of them that turned for Smith, so that will keep Graeme Swann interested.
Follow the live score and blog of the second day’s play of the second Test from 8.00pm AEST. You can join me for this live blog and post your comments below.
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