Once again, cricket fans saw unstoppable Australia in day-night Tests.
Australia’s winning margin in the second Test of the current Ashes series is 275 runs. Despite batted two innings, England could not match Australia’s 473 runs in the first innings. After scoring 236 in the first innings, England stopped at 192 in the second innings. Joss Butler fought back and took the match to the final session. That’s all the visitors received. The Aussies bowled out the visitors for 192 in the second innings of the second Test of the series, to secure a win by a margin of 275 runs. In the event of this win, the notion that Australia is unstoppable in day-night Tests become even more evident.
Australia are 2-0 up in the Ashes after winning in Adelaide. The hosts won 9 out of the 9 matches played in the day-night Test format. Again, five of them are in Adelaide. England have won just one of their five Tests in the Pink Ball.
England’s target was 468 to win. There is no precedent in the history of cricket to win by chasing so many runs. Joe Root’s team didn’t even try that. On the fourth day, they lost 4 wickets and dropped out of the match. To save the match, Jos Butler made 26 runs at a strike rate of only 12.56 from spending 207 ball on the crease. It is the third slowest innings in Test history in terms of batters who played more than 200 deliveries. To see the full score card, click here.
Unfortunately, Butler’s resistance broke when he hit wicket in the last delivery of Jhye Richardson’s 18th over. Don Bradman was the last batter, after playing more than 200 balls on Australian soil, got out in similar fashion in 1947. After staying about two hours on the crease, Ben Stokes got out lbw 12 off Nathan Lyon. Steven Smith took the review even though the ball seemed to be going out of the leg. If he hadn’t, Stokes would have survived the voyage.
Gamerz Lodge
Watch FIFA gameplay videos here.
