Key events
43rd over: Australia 183-8 (Green 64, Lyon 15) Hasan continues his spell and he picks up where he left off with his line and length targeting the stumps. Midway through the over he loses his line and puts one right in the slot – wide outside off – for Green who cuts it gleefully to the boundary for four. He finishes the over with another four, a powerful drive that slices through the in-field.
42nd over: Australia 173-8 (Green 55, Lyon 14) We get our first look at Shoriful for today after his outstanding performance on day 1. Green starts confidently against the left armer with a well-timed cover drive for two. He is more watchful for the next few balls, before rotating the strike. Lyon reckons he’s got the measure of this guy and drives the first ball he faces for four – the first boundary of the day.
41st over: Australia 166-8 (Green 52, Lyon 10) Green starts on strike with Hasan bowling. He hasn’t yet taken a wicket in this innings (Shoriful has been hogging all the wickets) so he’ll be keen to play his part in bringing Australia’s innings to a close. His first couple of balls are outside off stump and Green is happy to leave them alone. He adjusts his line and brings it in at Green’s stumps – he defends comfortably for a couple of balls and then flicks one off his pads to get off strike with a nicely worked single. Lyon finishes the over with a solid defensive shot.
The teams are out on the field and we’re ready to get underway!
While Australia has a chance to add to their lead today, the batting is still a concern and no one is more concerned than Marnus Labuschagne. The commentators are chatting about him this morning and Mark Waugh is adamant that if he doesn’t score runs in the second innings, his time in the team is over. The problem may be that there aren’t enough runs for him to get to prove himself. I’m interested to hear from you – who do you think should hold the number 3 spot? Is it Marnus? Or have you got your eye on someone else?
And if you’re still wondering why on earth there’s Test cricket happening up in the tropics in winter, you might need to take one more step back and read about what happened in Darwin last week. The always brilliant Geoff Lemon has you covered with a breakdown of Bangladesh’s incredible upset.
You’ve got some time before the first ball is bowled, so why not spend it catching up on yesterday’s action? Here’s the match report to get you up to speed.
Preamble
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Megan Maurice
Welcome to live OBO coverage of day two of the second Test between Australia and Bangladesh from the Great Barrier Reef Arena in Mackay. Play begins at 10am AEST.
Day one was quite something with 18 wickets falling in the day’s play. While Australia are on top with a lead of 101 runs, they will be disappointed in their inability to really pile on a commanding score and bat Bangladesh out of the contest.
If you asked me to sum up the first day of this Test in three words, I’d have to go with “left arm pace”. Both Mitchell Starc (6-12) and Shoriful Islam (6-35) were on song with the ball and took advantage of a good wicket to snaffle six wickets apiece.
Shoriful also top scored for his team with the bat, however since that top score was 14, he’s probably not in a big hurry to write home about that, despite the fact that his tail-wagging antics frustrated the Australian bowlers no end and saved Bangladesh from recording their lowest-ever Test innings score.
Australia’s batting had a few more bright spots, with Cameron Green passing late in the day and Steve Smith contributing 42. But their opening woes continue with replacement opener Matt Renshaw only able to add eight runs before he was dismissed (surprisingly not by Shoriful).
All this wicket-falling mayhem on day one has set us up brilliantly, so let’s get into the second day and see what it has in store for us!