By India Blooms News Service Jun 30, 2023
London/UNI: Though Ben Duckett unfortunately missed his century by two runs, the star opener helped England breathe easy as they just needed 139 runs to overtake Australias first innings score of 416 on Day 2 of the second Ashes Test at Lords here on Thursday.
At stumps, England were 278/4 in 61 overs in reply to Australias 416 in the first innings. Harry Brook and Ben Stokes were batting on 45 and 17, respectively. For Australia, Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood, Nathon Lyon and Cameron Green bagged a wicket each.
Apparently England seemed to hog the days limelight, but Australia came back strong in the final session. Their bowlers picked up Ollie Pope, Duckett and Joe Roots wickets soon after missing the services of their prime offie Lyon due to a calf injury. Then, the hosts were looking ominous at 188/1, but eight overs thereafter brought some relief to the visitors.
England could have been easily five down as upcoming star English batsman Harry Brook was dropped on 25 off a short ball from skipper Pat Cummins.
Barring Ben Stokes, the dismissed batsman went for attack to counter a barrage of bumpers and lost their prized wickets, but the English skipper allowed himself to take a few body blows.
The Test stands perfectly set for an enthralling third day of play with aggressive Jonny Bairstow and Stuart Broad still come into bat.
Openers Duckett and Zak Crawley stitched a crucial 91 runs partnership for the first wicket, taking advantage of the odd bowling by Hazlewood and Starc.
The Australians needed a bit of offbreak magic from Lyon to dismiss Crawley stumped after he struck 48 runs off as many balls.
Crawley had survived a huge appeal for leg before of Starc as Australia decided against the review. The nip-backer pitched outside off and shaped back in appreciably to hit Crawley on the front pad, but replays revealed a missing leg stump.
Ollie Pope (32) was restive and edgy to begin with, but came into his elements after Pat Cummins employed Starc.
Earlier, Steve Smith achieved a historic milestone as he cracked his 32 Test hundred, but that did not help Australia to extend their total as they folded their innings at 416.
The English bowlers did a great job as they removed the last seven Australian wickets for 100 runs.
Board snapped up overnight batsman Alex Carey for 22 in the second over of the day, and James Anderson did not last long either as he was caught by Jonny Bairstow for 6.
Smith got to his century after caressing Andersons ball wide of cover for a boundary. He also achieved a rare milestone by becoming the second fastest player ever to reach 9,000 Test runs in less than 100 Tests. Sri Lankas Kumar Sangakkara had achieved it in 172 innings.
Smith became the 7th fastest batsman to reach 15,000 international runs in terms of innings. He achieved this feat in his 351st international innings.
And just when things started to look up for the Aussies, Josh Tongue got rid of Smith for 110 and Ollie Robinson sent back Nathan Lyon (7) and Josh Hazlewood (4) to keep Australia under 420.