Old Trafford: For the first time in the Ashes 2013 series, Australia has shown their dominance and is looking in supreme control after the end of the second day’s play of the Third Test at Old Trafford on Friday. The vistors first declared their innings at 527 for seven and later Peter Siddle got a couple of wickets in the final hour of the play to push England on the back foot.
Joe Root did try his best for around 90 minutes but finally nicked the ball and was caught by Brad Haddin. Siddle was steaming in after getting the first wicket and after few balls, he struck again to get the wicket of Tim Bresnan.
Meanwhile, Alastair Cook, who had a scratchy start tried to steady the ship with his vertical bat shots. He remained unbeaten on 36 whereas Jonathan Trott was batting at two after the end of day two.
Earlier, Steve Smith fell early in the day’s play as he threw his wicket when he came down the track against Graeme Swann and mistimed the shot. He contributed 88 runs with the bat before getting caught at mid-wicket by Jonny Bairstow. Meanwhile Clarke was looking in aggressive mood as he stated taking the aerial root quite often which helped Australia to release some pressure. He picked up Tim Bresnan as his soft target and kept smacking him for boundaries.
David Warner failed to make much of an impression in his comeback match and departed after scoring five runs off 10 balls. He became the fourth victim of Swann. Clarke and Haddin did well to knit a partnership and took Australia to 5/392 before the lunch.
Post-lunch session saw some great comeback from English bowlers as they kept their line and length quite tight and with some short, stuff Stuart Broad managed to end up the innings of Clarke who added 62 runs to his overnight score and departed after scoring 187 runs. Australia were looking for quick runs which led to the fall of Peter Siddle who became the fifth victim of Swann. It was Swann’s 17th five-wicket haul in Test cricket.
However, Haddin and Starc were at their element best as Haddin took 74 balls to reach his fifty whereas Starc took 53 balls to score his half-century which also took Australia over 500 run mark. They added another 20 runs in the post-lunch session before declaration came off. Australia was 7/527 after 146 overs.
Brief Scores
England 1st innings- 2/52 (Alastair Cook 36*, Jonathan Trott 2*, Joe Root 8 , Peter Siddle 2/7)
Australia 1st innings- 7/527 (declared) (Brad Haddin 65*, Mitchell Starc 66*, Michael Clarke 187, Steve Smith 89, Chris Rogers 84, Graeme Swann 5/159, Stuart Broad 1/108)