Tag Lords-May-2012

England captain Andrew Strauss made a masterful century to give his side a 16 run lead over the visiting West Indies side. England ended day 2 of the first test at 259/3.

Earlier, yesterday's hero for the West Indies Shivnarine Chanderpaul and debutant number 11 Shannon Gabriel walked out in the chilly morning with hopes to be able to somehow survive to first hour against the in-form English bowling attack and go on to make a respectable score. However, that was not to be. Gabriel fell to the very first ball of the day. He was out caught at second slip by Swann, edging an unplayable (for a number 11 batsman especially) delivery by Stuart Broad, taking Broad's first innings tally to 7 wickets. Having taken Fidel Edwards on the last ball of his previous over yesterday, Broad will be on a hat trick when England return to bowl in the second innings.

England started their innings a tad cautiously. Strauss and Cook (who opened the batting) were happy to leave most of the deliveries outside of offstump alone. There were a couple of close calls when Fidel Edwards got an edge that fell short of third slip and when Roach beat Cook just outisde off. Eventually, Strauss came into his own and began to play some really classy strokes. Cook chopped a Roach delivery onto his stumps when England were just shy of 50 runs on the board and West Indian fans may have hoped that this could be the start of a collapse. However, the English batsman were unrelenting. They were prepared to slow things down in order to solidify the innings and went to lunch at 80/1. A few overs post lunch, there were appeals for LBW, edges and snicks. They were close calls, but the rub of the green went England's way. Strauss was even dropped when he was on 95. He, having spent over half an hour in nineties, eventually went on to make a well fought out hundred - his first in as many as 18 months (his last was against Australia).

Despite a few close ones, the West Indies attack really lacked "bite" and couldn't extract much from the wicket. Captain Darren Sammy took the new ball towards the end of the day, but the the shadow of gloom had spilled out from the faces of West Indian supporters and bad light led the Umpires to call it stumps. England ended the day at 259/3.

Tomorrow, England will look to consolidate from the position they are in and aim to not have to bat again in this match, while West Indies will try to put first two days behind and strive to get early wickets and continue to pick them at regular intervals.

Stuart Broad

got his first 7 wicket haul in test cricket. His previous best figures were 6 for 46 against India at Trent Bridge last year. Broad also had a 6 wkt haul against Australia at Leeds back in August 2009.
Moreover, Stuart Broad is now only 7th player to put his name down on honours board at Lord's cricket ground, listing century makers and those with 5 wkt hauls. Other allrounders to do both at Lord's are Sir Gubby Allen, Sir Ian Botham, Ray Illingworth and Andrew Flintoff from England and Keith Miller from Australia and Vinoo Mankand from India.

Andrew Strauss

Scored a much awaited century, his 20th in career ans 5th at Lord's. Strauss is now only one more century behind Graham Gooch and Michael Vaughan who've made 6 centuries at home of cricket.