A suspected calf injury to Nathan Lyon has thrown Australia’s Ashes defence into chaos, the champion bowler limping from the field midway through Day 2 of the second Test at Lord’s to sour another fascinating day’s play.
Lyon clutched at his calf after sprinting in from the deep to attempt a catch off Ben Duckett at backward square leg, immediately leaving the ground attended by the team physio.
With England cruising at 1/182 when Lyon departed, the off-spinner having accounted for the innings’ only wicket when he had Zak Crawley stumped down the leg side, the injury blow seemed destined to cruel Australia’s chances of pushing for a 2-0 series lead.
However, a short-ball onslaught from Australia’s pacemen did what another docile pitch couldn’t, England’s top order repeatedly falling into the trap to hand the tourists three crucial wickets within seven overs during a frenetic final session – including Duckett, caught at fine leg just two runs short of a maiden Ashes century.
Nathan Lyon is helped from the field. (Photo by Mike Egerton/PA Images via Getty Images)
The hosts remain on course for a sizeable first innings total at 4/278, with Ben Stokes restoring calm to the innings with a sedate 57-ball 17 to finish the day and Harry Brook unbeaten on 45, and Lyon’s likely absence for the rest of the Test has them as comfortable favourites.
But they still require another 138 runs to equal Australia’s first innings 416, and have struggled to hold momentum for lengthy periods throughout the series to date.
The late drama overshadowed a morning that belonged to Steve Smith, the 34-year old recording his 12th Ashes century to once again stake his claim as Australia’s best batter since Don Bradman.
Resuming overnight unbeaten on 85, Smith took just 20 balls to find the runs he needed on Day 2, driving James Anderson gloriously through cover to secure a 32nd Test century – second only to Ricky Ponting among Australians, and behind only Bradman for centuries made in England by an overseas batter.
By that point, though, Australia had lost two wickets at the other end, with an early Alex Carey onslaught ended by a successful LBW review off Stuart Broad that found the wicketkeeper plumb in front for 22.
While Mitchell Starc’s first involvement in the series was positive, the recalled left-armer whipping Broad wide of mid-on for four first ball, he’d manage just 6 before flashing outside off to hand Anderson his first wicket of the Test.
Suddenly running out of partners, Smith’s growing urgency cost him his wicket: on 110, he flashed at a wide drive off Josh Tongue, England’s most impressive bowler on the opening day found enough movement off the lifeless surface to catch a thick outside edge, Duckett snaffling the chance to leave Australia eight down and still seven runs short of 400.
Pat Cummins and Lyon, Australia’s heroes at Edgbaston, saw past the milestone, though the latter’s penchant for the hook shot would bring him unstuck on 7.
In similar fashion to his first-inning dismissal in Birmingham, the veteran was unable to resist a short ball from Ollie Robinson, simply guiding him to fine leg for a simple Tongue catch.
Josh Hazlewood and Cummins would each add another boundary before the former was caught at slip to hand Robinson his third wicket for the series and ensuring a haul of 5/77 for England on a productive morning.
With conditions perfect for batting, the surface looking unresponsive and a home batting line-up champing at the bit, there was an unmistakeable feeling that Australia’s total of 416 wasn’t steep enough: a notion soon reinforced by Duckett and Crawley.
Reigning in their usual aggression to negotiate four overs before lunch, the pair grew more expansive following the break.
A punched Crawley on-drive for four to start Cummins’ fourth over was the signal to go: having made just 21 runs from the first seven overs of the innings, another 67 would be added from the next 10, with Crawley in particular looking in fine touch.
Bludgeoning an expensive Starc out of the attack with successive boundaries on either side of the wicket, Hazlewood would far little better: with Duckett flaying anything short either in front of point or through mid-wicket, the usually miserly right-armer would go for 37 from his first five overs before Cummins turned to himself once again.
As it so often does during testing times for Australia, Lyon would find the breakthrough: though he too found little help from the surface, some rare spin did for Crawley as he looked to advance, the ball turning past his legs and flicking the thigh pad en route to Carey, who made a difficult stumping look simple.
A run-a-ball 48 for Crawley, while falling short of a well-deserved half-century, had provided the lion’s share of he and Duckett’s opening partnership of 92 at better than five an over, setting a platform that Ollie Pope, despite dealing with a shoulder injury sustained on Day 1, was keen to capitalise on.
Together with Duckett, the pair would pass the three-figure mark despite a restrictive spell from Cummins and Lyon, once again simultaneously Australia’s most threatening and least expensive bowlers.
Starc was recalled and immediately dispatched for 16 in his opening over thanks to a trio of Pope boundaries – the first a French cut past leg stump, the second whipped elegantly to leg when the left-armer strayed straight, and the third punishing an overpitched offering through cover.
With England 1/145 at stumps, Duckett having moved without incident to 57, the Test was already slipping away from Cummins when Lyon’s calf went in the seventh over after play resumed, with the partnership having swelled to 90, there were grim tidings of the sort of extensive punishment England have made a habit of dishing out in the last 12 months.
The absence of his premier spinner saw the skipper turn to Plan B: shelving the previously conventional fields, Cummins stacked the leg side with catches in a similar manner to Stokes’ tactics against Australia’s tail in the first innings at Edgbaston.
With Cameron Green in the middle of an expensive early spell and Starc back into the attack for Lyon, the message was clear: Australia were to fight Bazball with a bouncer battle.
The plan took 10 balls to pay dividends: on 42, the aggressive Pope backed himself to hook Green over deep mid-wicket, only to fall a matter of metres short of the boundary rope, Smith running around from backward square to safely pouch the catch.
Green seemed to have a second for the over just three balls later when Joe Root, who himself had wrangled a double-wicket over on Day 1, tamely gloved another bouncer behind with a gleeful Carey.
But the all-rounder’s front foot, a recurring problem for him with six no balls across seven overs for the day, would spare the England talisman – much to the glee of a packed Lord’s crowd at last beginning to find its voice.
Undeterred, the Australian onslaught continued, with Duckett, having moved so fluently into the 90s, now looking discomfited against hostile short bowling.
On 97, he came within millimetres of a century when Labuschagne scored a direct hit with an unneeded fling at the stumps – had he missed, with Australians on the off side to back up the throw, Duckett would have had his century.
He’d get merely a single – and that would be his last score of the innings, hooking a Hazlewood riser straight to David Warner at fine leg, one diminutive left-handed opener to another.
Hazlewood bounces out Duckett for 98, who falls agonisingly short of a century at Lords.
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Warner’s instant celebration told of the scalp’s significance: having steered England into a commanding position, Duckett too had fallen for the short-ball trap on 98, depriving himself of a maiden Ashes century.
While Harry Brook was more keen to improvise against the assault, stepping away to slap Hazlewood over cover just three balls into his innings, Root seemed far less sure of himself.
A far cry from the batter who had terrorised Australia at Edgbaston, even after his early reprieve, a scratchy innings was ended on 10 when a Starc short ball was flicked to a diving Smith at backward square.
The on-field call of out would be supported by the third umpire – despite more than a suggestion the ball may have grazed the ground in scenes reminiscent of Cameron Green’s infamous catch against India in the World Test Championship final – but with England having lost 3/34 in 44 chaotic balls, a more pressing concern for the hosts was stopping the sudden flow of wickets.
Stokes, once the most attacking batter in this England team, took it upon himself to restore sense: with the bouncers finally subsiding as Australia’s quicks battled late-day fatigue, the captain soaked up the pressure and let Brook keep the scoreboard ticking over.
Though the 23-year old’s stay was fraught with danger – a full-blooded hook was shelled by Labuschagne at square leg on 25, while he was reduced to giggles after backing away and swinging wildly at a fuller sucker ball from Green that whistled just past leg stump – it also brought with it plenty of runs, Brook continuing to score with nearly every ball to prevent England’s run rate from plateauing.
With the part-time off-spin of first Travis Head and then Smith – the latter bowling the last over of the day and switching midway through it from his usual leg-breaks to offies – needed to finish the day, neither Brook nor Stokes had any desire to throw their wicket away, Head milked for 10 off his tight five-over spell and Smith conceding just one from his sole over as the day ended with its least eventful 20 minutes.
Still cruising along at 4.55 runs per over, a new day gives Brook and Stokes both a chance to do what Crawley and Duckett couldn’t and capitalise on their starts: with the ferocious Jonny Bairstow still to come, a monstrous first-innings total can’t be discounted.
Australia, for their part, will now have to toil all the harder for every wicket, with the looming loss of Lyon sure to put extra strain on Cummins, Hazlewood, Green and Starc’s workload: not to mention the likely reality of needing to stop an England run chase without their most dangerous fourth-innings bowler.
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