After a thrilling start to the series at Edgbaston, the Ashes moves to Lord’s where the Aussies are favourites to go 2-0 up.
Head-to-Head
Despite losing the toss and facing a docile pitch which negated their superior bowling, Australia escaped with a win in the opening Test and look to have far more upside than an English team who have already fired a lot of their bullets.
There’s plenty of scope for improvement in the Aussie batting with Travis Head’s 50 in the first innings the best return from he, Smith and Labuschagne – the three top batsmen in the world entering that match according to the ICC rankings. Given each of their form entering their series, you would expect a strong response from that trio here.
That’s a major concern for an English bowling attack whose old and/or underprepared bodies are already showing strain. They couldn’t dismiss Australia’s long tail in the second innings, their greatest ever bowler Jimmy Anderson was overlooked in the dying overs and Moeen Ali’s spinning finger was a blistered, bloody mess after his first innings of bowling in over 18 months. He is inexplicably likely to play at Lords along with Mark Wood, who also hasn’t played since December. UPDATE: England going with an all-pace attack with Josh Tongue set to play his second Test in place of Ali.
Bazball was a moderate success in Edgbaston but on as lifeless a pitch as has been seen in Test cricket for some time and their star bat Joe Root could not have played much better. The continued presence of Jonny Bairstow behind the stumps is a massive disadvantage for Brendon McCullum’s team despite his quality batting too.
Lord’s will surely offer more for the Aussie quicks and with cloudier conditions forecast, it could be the undoing of England’s cavalier approach. England are only 2-2 in their last four Tests at Lord’s (including a win over Ireland last month) with their capitulation to South Africa last summer of serious concern. The Poms scored just 165 and 149 runs and got destroyed by an innings and 12 runs as Rabada ran riot. While its not the fortress for the Aussies that it once was, they’ve still only lost twice there in the last 89 years.
Take the draw out of the equation given 14 straight England Tests have produced a result and back the Aussies to deliver a second straight win.
Same Game Multi
Steve Smith has scored 50+ runs in his last three innings at Lord’s while Joe Root averages more than 50 there.
Nathan Lyon did the damage for the Aussies in the First Test, taking eight wickets.
Value Bets
Big price for Crawley here who was the third top scorer for England in the first innings behind Root and Jonny Bairstow, who may be lucky to hold his spot given his flakiness behind the stumps.
Travis Head averages the second-most player of the match awards for any player to receive the award more than five times in Test cricket history with 6 in 38 Tests, only behind Wasim Akram. He was brilliant in the WTC Final against India and hit a 50 in the first innings against England.
