London: England are on the driver's seat after the end of second’s day play of the Second Ashes Test at Lord’s on Friday. It was some brilliant bowling from Graeme Swann which rattled the Australian batting and they were bundled out for 128 runs in their first innings. Though, Peter Siddle brought back some kind of life to this game by dismissing three top-order English batsmen, it would be interesting to see that how Aussies would bowl and bat in the remaining match as England have managed to take a comprehensive lead of 264 runs after the second day of the Test match.
The final session started off by some very good bowling off Graeme Swann and James Anderson. Anderson got the break-through in second over after lunch as he got the wicket of Siddle who scored just a couple of runs. Haddin too followed his foot-steps back into the pavilion as Swann claimed his fourth wicket and reduced the Kangaroos to 9/104. With Pattinson and Harris on the crease not much was expected and they lasted just 24 more runs before Swann completed his five-wicket haul by getting Harris caught at mid-on.
The hour of the second day’s play saw some terrific bowling from Siddle, who first dismissed the English skipper Alastair Cook for just eight runs and managed to get the wicket of Jonathan Trott, who was played-on without scoring any run. England suffered some good grilling from both the ends and result was the priceless wicket of Kevin Pietersen, who departed after scoring five runs. Siddle’s spell did give the Aussies some hope of making a bounce back on Saturday morning.
England ended the day with a score of 3/31 in the 20 overs that they had played in their second innings so far.
The second session of the day saw some very poor batting from the Aussies and Swann made a good use of this as he ended up picking up his first five-wicket haul of Ashes 2013 Series. Off-spinner picked up the wicket of Chris Rogers, who departed at the score of 15 runs after the lunch and soon Philip Hughes got out for a duck to Tim Bresnan.
Clarke and Khawaja managed to add 16 runs before Khawaja played a mistimed shot off Swann and was caught at mid-off by Pietersen. Clarke was looking in decent touch in the manner he was scoring the boundaries but early departure of Smith at the score of two runs got him under some serious pressure and he was sent back to pavilion by Stuart Broad.
Australians were looking down and out at the score of 6/91 but duo of Brad Haddin and Ashton Agar did try their bit to resist the deadly duo of Anderson and Swann but couldn’t succeed much. Anderson got the wicket of left-hander and very soon England were looking to impose the follow-on as they reduced them to 7/96 till the tea-time.
Earlier in the first session, England started off on a sour note as they lost the wcket of Bresnan off the very first ball but Broad and Swann managed to put up a great partnership of 48 runs for the last wicket and took the score to 361. Broad scored 33 runs whereas Swann remained unbeaten on 28. Meanwhile, Ryan Harris ended up the impressive figures of 5/72 and Aussies took the charge as Shane Watson and Chris Rogers took the centre. Watson was looking good with the way he was playing those exquisite cover drives but just before lunch, he was sent back to dressing room by Bresnan. Watson scored 30 runs before he was given lbw by umpire.
Brief Scores- England 2nd innings 3-31 ( Joe Root 18,Time Bresnan 0,Kevin Pietersen 5, Alastair Cook 8, Peter Siddle 3/8)
Australia 2nd innings 10-128 (Shane Watson 30, Michael Clarke 28, Chris Rogers 15, Graeme Swann 5/44, Tim Bresnan 2/28, James Anderson 1/25)
England 1st innings 10-361 (Stuart Broad 33, Graeme Swann 28, Ryan Harris 5/72, Steve Smith 3/18)