England are in firm control of the proceedings in the third Ashes Test in Melbourne as the tourists finished day 2 at with a score of 445 for the loss of 5 wickets.
After having bowled Australia out for a meagre 98 runs, the England batsmen piled on the misery on the Aussie quickies.
The star performer of the second day was Jonathan Trott, who slammed an unbeaten 100 to guide his side to a commanding first innings lead.
England look set to take an unassailable 2-1 lead in the four match series after their performance in the two days of the Test match so far.
Trott slammed his fifth career century as he remained unbeaten on 141 at the end of day’s play and along the way helping his side take a 346-run first innings lead.
England resumed on the overnight score of 157 for 0 but lost quick wickets in the opening session before Trott along with Matt Prior took control of the proceedings to guide Poms to a commanding position in the match.
Australia started the day brightly when Alastair Cook was caught in the slips off Siddle in the fifth over falling 18 short of what could have been his 3rd 100 on the tour.
His Captain soon followed him into the pavilion, this time the catch went to gully off the bowling of Siddle to leave England at 170 for 2.
But Pietersen joined hands with Trott to guide England past the 200-run mark and helped his side negotiate the nervy opening session of the day taking his side to lunch with the score at 226-2.
Ricky Ponting’s woes continued as he was involved in a verbal altercation with on-field Pakistani umpire Aleem Dar. The incident occurred when Pietersen was given not out by Aleem Dar but spurred by Brad Haddin, Ricky Ponting decided to use the referral
and that too was denied by the third umpire as the hot spots indicated that the ball had not touched the bat at all.
Aleem Dar’s decision was upheld but Ponting refused to accept it as he continued his protests to Aleem Dar and his square leg partner Tony Hill. The furore continued for about 15 minutes much to the dismay of the packed MCG crowd.
The incident was another low point of the Australians as they had been outplayed for almost the entirety of this match and their frustrations started showing.
Pietersen looked in sublime form as he was stroking the ball nicely and looked to be enjoying what he was doing out there but soon after reaching his 21st half-century he was adjudged lbw to Siddle leaving England at 262-3.
Collingwood and Bell fell cheap as England looked to be in a spot of bother at 286 for five but Matt Prior and Trott made sure there were going to be no hiccups this time as they batted wonderfully to guide his side to stumps with a first innings lead of
almost 350 runs.
For http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Australia-c746, Siddle got three wickets while Johnson claimed the other two.
Australia face an uphill task from here on to save this Test match as England will only be looking to bat once in this Test match.
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