Ashes 2017-18, 4th Test, Day 2 - 5 Talking Points

Much to the surprise of all the cricket admirers across the globe, England has put themselves in a dominant position in Ashes‘ Boxing Day Test. Two veterans, Alastair Cook and Stuart Broad, who were under the scanner before the start of the Test match, stunned the hosts with breathtaking renditions. Cook notched his 32nd Test match hundred, whilst Broad is 3 shy of 400 Test scalps.

Australia got bundled out for 327, which was well below par when compared to where they finished at day 1. Steve Smith and Shaun Marsh scored the fifties for the hosts, but they failed to mount a big knock. Once they both were back in the hunt, Broad ran through the lower order in style. Broad returned with figures of 4/51 whilst Anderson picked 3. Jimmy Anderson also went past Courtney Walsh’s career tally of 519 wickets and is second right now amongst the fast bowlers.

England was on the front foot right from the outset. Cook smashed his way towards a scintillating hundred and he is currently accompanied by skipper Joe Root. The skipper is one short of a half-century whilst Cook is batting on 104. England trail by 135 runs, but the way they went about things sent a strong message in the Australian dressing room.

Here are the five talking points of the day.

1. Deliciously ‘”Cook”ed!

Talk about answeing your critics in style, Alastair Cook is a champion of that art. Lambasting all the negative remarks on him, he smashed his 5th Ashes century and incidentally, all of them came in Australia. When he is in full flow, there are very few players who can match up to his brilliance and the Australian bowlers had a horrid time dealing with him. Cook, without a shadow of a doubt, was the star of the day.

2. Broad back amongst the wickets

Broad’s knee injury has been halting his progress for a long time now. His bowling standards had diminished in recent times and that didn’t go well with the experts. Nevertheless, just like his companion Cook, he smoked the Aussie batsmen with a breathtaking spell of bowling. By picking up four wickets, his career tally moved on to 397 and he is just 3 short of joining a very elite list.

3. Smith drops a regulation catch off Cook

Who in the world would’ve expected Steve Smith to drop a catch in the slip cordon. The Aussie skipper has set high standards for himself with his exploits over the years. But when Cook’s outside edge went straight to him off Mitchell Marsh, he spilled the cherry. Eventually, that proved to be incredibly costly for the hosts.

4. Smith once again falls to a debutant

Craig Overton’s debut in the second Test turned out to be a memorable one. His first ever wicket in Test cricket happened to be the World number one batsman Steve Smith. Tom Curran, the man who’s replacing Overton, did something similar in his first Test. Smith tried an extravagant cut shot and ended up dragging the ball on to the stumps. By doing so, he became Tom Curran’s first ever Test victim.

5. “Root”ing up for a big one?

Joe Root is one short of yet another half-century. But the biggest conundrum is, can he convert that into three figures. He clearly is having an issue with his convertion rate, which is worst amongst his Fab-4 compatriots. Only 13 times he managed to convert a 50 into a 100 out of 46 occasions. This is his big chance of making it count and surely, he needs to get this century to give the English fans someting to smile about.

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