A methodical second-innings batting performance has England poised to end Australia's era of dominance at Lord's. Only inclement weather or a historic Australian fourth-innings effort can deny Andrew Strauss' men, who have amassed an authoritative 521-run lead after three days of the second Test.
No team has successfully chased more than 418 runs to win a Test match - the record at Lord's is 344 - although the South Africans demonstrated recently that survival at this ground is possible in desperate, late innings situations. Graeme Smith's side batted for almost 12 hours to reach 393 for 3 to save the first Test almost a year ago to the day, but whether Australia's batsmen are capable of holding out a driven and in-form England pace attack for six sessions remains to be seen.
Rain prompted a premature end to play on Saturday, and Australia will be hoping for more of the same over days four and five. Intermittent showers are predicted for Sunday and Monday, but they will presumably bring with them heavy overhead conditions which the likes of James Anderson and Graham Onions can exploit, as was the case on a rain-interrupted day two.
England, having declined to enforce the follow-on, advanced to 311 for 6 in their second innings, scoring their runs at a merry 4.35 an over and again taking a fancy to the out-of-sorts Mitchell Johnson. Kevin Pietersen (44 from 101 balls) and Paul Collingwood (54 from 80) denied the Australians any hope of a prompt end to the innings, and Matt Prior (61 from 42) compounded the tourists' misery with an innings that could scarcely have been more dashing had it taken place in the Twenty20 arena.
0 comments:
Post a Comment