Zak Crawley made a brilliant century on the 2nd day of the 4th Test. England batters showed no mercy and their run-rate was over 5. Australia made 317/10 in their 1st innings and England made 384/4 in 72 overs at the end of the 2nd day. They have a lead of 67 runs till now.
Australia started the day and without adding any run to their day 1 score, on the very first ball, Anderson took the wicket Cummins. Cummins only made 1 run. (299-9). After that Starc and Hazelwood took their team to over 300 runs. Then Woakes took his 5th by dismissing Hazelwood. He made only 4 runs. (317-10). Starc remained not out on 36 runs.
Chris Woakes gets his maiden 5 wicket in the Ashes. Broad remains with 2 wickets. Anderson, Wood and Moeen get 1 wicket each.
England didn’t get the start they wanted and lost Duckett in the 3rd over. Starc gets the credit for dismissing him. (9-1). Then Moeen Ali and Zak Crawley put together 121 runs for the 2nd wicket. Starc again came and provided some relief to the Aussies by taking the wicket of Moeen. Moeen contributed with 54 runs. (130-2).
After the 2nd wicket fell, the nightmare for Australia started as Root and Crawley both showed the bazball cricket. They both together contributed 206 runs for the 3rd wicket and scored with above 6 runs per over. Chris Green came for the rescue and took the wicket of dangerous Crawley who made 189 runs in 182 balls. His innings includes 21 fours and 3 sixes. After that Root didn’t score his century and got dismissed by Hazelwood. He scored 84 runs in 95 balls, including 8 fours and a six.
After that Ben Stokes and Harry Brook play a little slow game so they both can remain stuck to the pitch. They both batted almost an hour and remained not out at the end of the day. Stokes is at 24 runs and Brook is at 14 runs.
Starc gets the first two English batters. Hazelwood and Green get 1 wicket each.
Now on the 3rd day it will be interesting to see that will England continue their Bazball cricket or will play slow to get a good lead on 3rd day.