Australia on a roll after Day 1 of the 2nd Test at Adelaide Oval under the day/night setting at 221/2, it’s nice to see David Warner & Marnus Labuschagne form a bigger partnership by using a mixture of defensive blocks off good balls & vary a couple of strike selections that made England tough to handle.
Although Warner may be unlucky not to escape the nervous 90s on 95 through that catch from Stuart Broad off Ben Stokes, there’s still some question marks though such as Marcus Harris’s batting which didn’t work out well once again in the afternoon session but we’ll wait and see how Michael Neser steps up on his debut Test match after Pat Cummins got in contact with someone who has COVID and was forced to isolate for a week.
For now, let Labuschagne (95) get his 100 tomorrow afternoon when play resumes as well as help stand-in skipper Steve Smith (18) form another big partnership for another 100-150 runs before declaring it & bring out these bowlers with a slightly changed line-up of Mitchell Starc, Michael Neser, Jhye Richardson & Nathan Lyon.
England had the early advantage off Marcus Harris thanks to the returning Stuart Broad who later captured another victim in Warner with his catch a while ago after he was dropped during the opening test which gave some relief, but they were helpless for the majority with no way to make Warner & Labuschagne feel vulnerable of their spin & speed plus there’s little support from the field either including that dropped catch from keeper Jos Buttler twice on Labuschagne at 21 & 95*
The away team will have much-needed sleep now for the night & hopefully they wake up refreshed with ideas at least to knock down the remaining Australian batting card first as early as possible, then the pressure is on for their openers to step up in order to help the top & middle order pile the maximum runs they need to help England stay in contention.
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