It’s always important to believe what you are capable of doing inside a cricket pitch. England are a good team and they showed it in great deal during the first Ashes Test against Australia in Cardiff. But somewhere down the line, they don’t believe that they are good enough to dominate the visiting Australian team throughout. Otherwise, Australia wouldn’t have been driving home all the advantage on the second day of the second Test match at Lord’s.
After Steven Smith and Chris Rogers made their career best scores of 215 and 173 respectively, England’s top-order was expected to strike back with some gutsy display of batting. But they lost the plot very easily. At stumps, the hosts were reeling at 85 for four in reply to Australia’s mammoth 566 at the loss of eight wickets. It was always going to be tough for England after the Smith-Rogers show dominated the opening day of the Test match, but a little bit of application and self-belief on the field could have helped Alastair Cook and his men.
With an overnight score of 337 for one, the Australian surged ahead on Day Two and virtually made it impossible for the England bowlers to make a comeback into the first innings. Smith, in particular, wasn’t in a mood to let go the opportunity to score his first double-hundred of his career. He surpassed his previous best Test score of 199, which he has scored against the West Indies last month. He also became the third Australian to score a double hundred at Lord’s. He joined the elite class of Don Bradman (254 in 1930) and Bill Brown (206 not out in 1938).
For England, pacer Stuart Broad did get those four wickets to his credit, but he didn’t get enough support from the other end. The most surprising package of the match was James Anderson’s wicket-less spell of bowling. He didn’t look the same bowler who had the Australian on the mat in the previous Test match. On the contrary, the out-of-form pacer Mitchell Johnson was in his elements for a change. He took two wickets from his six over spell and could pose as a threat to the rest of the England middle-order. In order to avoid follow-on, England will have to play out of their skin. It’s time to believe that nothing is impossible.
