Ashes: Australia dominate proceedings on day 2

England has managed to put up 85 for the loss of 4 wickets in reply to Australia’s 566/8 declared.

Lord’s witnessed a brutal Aussie attack as they dismantled the English batting line up with some authority. Mitchell Johnson, who in the last Test match tried hard to save his side from a crunching defeat with his willow, took up the position of wrecker-in-chief as he first picked up Gary Balance (23) and then dealt another vicious blow by sending back the in-form Joe Root (1).

It was Mitchell Starc who started off proceedings in the very first over as he got English opener Adam Lyth (0) to edge one to the Aussie wicketkeeper, the newly appointed Peter Neville. Neville, playing his first test had to wait for just 2 deliveries to pick his first scalp, he had one more when Johnson did the same with Root.

Josh Hazlewood bowled a full length delivery to Ian Bell (1) to rock back his stumps.
Having ended day one on a high, Australia started day two in a similar fashion. Chris Rogers who scored a career best 173, failed to score a double century. It was the other centurion Steven Smith who did so. Smith’s marathon innings came to a close after Root trapped him leg before but by then he had already score 215, which included 25 hits to the fence and one on to the stands.

The bright thing for England however was the wickets column, they did manage to pick up seven Australian wickets as opposed to the one they had on the previous day. Stuart Broad picked up 4 for 83 in 27 overs. Root chipped in with 2 wickets for 55 runs. Ali and Mark Wood had one each for them.