The Ashes: England flattens Australia at home; worrying for the Aussie World Cup campaign?
The Ashes has easily been one of the most respected, widely followed and recently, ‘competitive’ tournaments that Cricket has to offer.
Australia were thrashed by an innings and 71 runs in the second Ashes Test at Adelaide as England claimed their 100th victory in Test match cricket over their arch rivals; in style.
England ended day 4 on top. After thoroughly dominating the hosts in the first four days, the Three Lions gave themselves a brilliant opportunity to seal their first victory of this year's Ashes.
England took a remarkable 375 runs lead in the first innings courtesy of Alistair Cook’s 148 runs at the top and Kevin Pietersen’s career best 227. Australia got off to a solid start in the second innings but spinner Graeme Swann pegged the Kangaroos back
with two dismissals, removing Simon Katich with a caught behind and then http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Clarke-c51120 formed a solid
partnership and steered the ship for the Aussies but Kevin Pietersen’s first test wicket on the last ball of day 4 ended their 104 runs partnership.
The home side stepped on the field on the final day. They were trailing by 137 runs with 6 wickets in hand against an upbeat English side which was evidently looked to go for the kill. The Australians were by no means out of the running as they had Marcus
North and Brad Haddin to come in. However, neither the rain nor the lower order batsmen could help the hosts from going 1-0 down in the series as England bowled their opponents out for 304. Graeme Swann took 5 wickets in the second innings as the Aussie batsmen
crumbled under pressure on day 5. It was Graeme Swann's 10th five wicket-haul of his career and probably the most memorable as well. Kevin Pietersen was named man of the match for scoring a superb double century and giving his side a crucial breakthrough
with the ball.
It's the first time since 1986-87 that England have managed to take the lead in an Ashes series in Australia. They didn't give the lead away back then and that's exactly what the visitors would be hoping to replicate. As the English team currently holds
the Ashes, Australia will have to beat them twice in the remaining matches in order to reclaim it.
Both sides will face each other for the 3rd Test on 16th of December at the WACA. Australia has a lot of work to do and will probably make some changes ahead of the next match. Opener Simon Katich is ruled out for the rest of the series because of an Achilles tendon
problem, their bowling line-up looks far from threatening at the moment so they might look to change it. England, on the other hand, will be without Stuart Broad for the remaining matches due to an abdominal injury.
The three lions only need one more victory to retain the Ashes and they would be hoping that they continue with their current form at Perth. However, the home side has won 6 out of 10 matches at the WACA with only one loss against England.
However, looking ahead, Kevin Pietersen, the batsman that did most of the damage in the 2nd test, urged the England team not to let the result get to their heads and focus on competitive cricket for the coming test”
“Australia are going to get better and we're going to have to play better cricket going into Perth and Melbourne and Sydney."
Losing on home soil is definitely not going to go down well with the Australian team and crowd alike. However, seeing as the World Cup is around the corner, they really need to dig deep and remind the world of their dominance on the cricketing stage.
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