England face stern test in the day-night second Ashes Test against Australia in Adelaide. After the hammering England got in the first Test, Joe Root and England have their task cut out as Australia have never lost a day-night Test till date. Australia have won all their seven matches played at home and in their last encounter, they bowled India out for 36 and will have happy memories when they meet their arch-rivals England.
Australia will miss Josh Hazlewood, who has been ruled out with a sidestrain, but the hosts have enough firepower in the bench and Jyhe Richardson should replace Hazlewood. Pat Cummins must be beaming with confidence after a great start to his captaincy stint in the first Test at Brisbane, where he got a fifer and will be happy with the form of fellow bowlers, Mitchell Starc and Nathan Lyon, who reached the 400-wicket milestone in the first Test.
The Australian batters also scored heavily with David Warner scoring 94, Marnus Labuschagne 75 and player of the match Travis Head scoring 152 to ensure Australia out batted England and won the match by nine wickets easily.
For England only Joe Root and David Malan showed some form with the bat and they put on a 150-run partnership for the third wicket in the second innings. The rest of the batters looked at sea and history will be against England as in 53 years England have never come back to win or draw an Ashes series in Australia. In fact, in the last 11 matches England have lost ten and not won a single game and that would be haunting Root. The only silver lining for Root is that both his premier bowlers James Anderson and Stuart Broad will be playing the Adelaide Test and will be hoping that their experience will help England bowl out Australia cheaply. England will also have to get their fielding sorted as they were quite sloppy and missed many chances and will hope to make amends.
Legendry batsman Geoff Boycott was so upset with the loss that he said it was a stupid loss, as always, by England to Australia and said: “Hey Joe, England has been just walloped by nine wickets by Australia so please don’t tell us that England are not far away from beating Australia, show us your performance in deed and not in words.”
