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The Bazball seems to have come unstuck against the Australian bowling attack, which is higher in quality, experience and pace than any England had faced over their Bazball era since last year.
After going down in a close thriller in Edgbaston by two wickets to kick-off the Ashes 2023 in a spectacular fashion, England batters lost the plot in their first innings of the second Test at Lord’s and were bundled out for 325 in reply to Australia’s 416.
What was mind-boggling to see was how most of the England batters threw away their wickets to the short ball barrage from the Australian pacers. Despite knowing that the short ball ploy wouldn’t be carried out for too long as the Aussie bowlers would get tired in the face of the body demands for bowling bumpers and also for the fact that Australia had lost off-spinner Nathan Lyon due to an injury on Day 2.
All England batters needed was to bat out some time in the game sensibly that would put more miles in the legs of the Australian pacers, and that would have helped England not just in this game, where Australia would be missing Lyon for the rest of the game, but also for going forward in the series.
However, as much as England would claim they would continue to back their Bazball batting approach, this certainly wasn’t the best of the exhibition of their game awareness as a number of batters got out trying to hit out the short balls.
Cameron Green pulls off another spectacular catch to get rid of Ben Stokes
England suffered a collapse across two sessions from 188/1 to 325 all-out, handing Australia a handy lead of 91 runs with two days and two sessions left in the match.
They lost six wickets in the first session of Day 3, the first of which was of skipper Ben Stokes, although this time the wicket was credited to some good bowling from Mitchell Starc and another terrific catch from Cameron Green in slips.
Stokes had batted sensibly in the last session of Day 2, managing 17(57), but fell on the second ball of Day 3, edging Starc behind the stick. Green, who is becoming a force to reckon with in the gully region, moved his hands quickly to his left and grabbed the ball safely before tumbling on the ground.
Watch it here:
Mitchell Starc’s tactics do the job 🎯
The southpaw deceives the English captain to put the hosts under pressure 🙌#SonySportsNetwork #ENGvAUS #Ashes2023 #RivalsForever #MitchellStarc pic.twitter.com/mbrF5uHRS3
— Sony Sports Network (@SonySportsNetwk) June 30, 2023
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