Published: Jul 31, 2015, 08:49 PM (IST)
Edited: Jul 31, 2015, 08:50 PM (IST)
The sense of euphoria at an impending victory seems to have bitten England. The Twitter handle of Lord’s Cricket Ground didn’t mind a dig at Australia’s captain Michael Clarke for dropping Ian Bell in the slips earlier in England’s chase of 121 to win the third Test at Edgbaston: a page requested under Lord’s official website that doesn’t exist has an image of Clarke resting on the ground, with the words “Oops we’ve dropped a catch!” indicating the unavailability to the web page being looked up. Deep into England’s chase, when they closed in on a win that would make them lead the series, and a fair while after the dropped catch of Bell, Lord’s tweeted: “http://Lords.org ‘s page not found page is looking quite apt… Sorry, couldn’t resist! #Ashes”. SCORECARD: England vs Australia, 3rd Test, Edgbaston
http://t.co/NHz0jfW8ua‘s page not found page is looking quite apt… Sorry, couldn’t resist! #Ashes pic.twitter.com/ik8qqvD6nN
— Lord’s Ground (@HomeOfCricket) July 31, 2015
This is England’s second all-round performance in the series to trump their opponents, who hold the urn via a 5-0 thrashing in the previous version of the Ashes in Australia. But these were separated by a poor outing by the home side at Lord’s where Australia defeated them by 405 runs. The comeback in the next Test at Edgbaston was built on a solid bowling effort from the fast bowlers of the home side, in particular James Anderson, who was ruled out of for a significant portion of the remainder of the series due to a side strain, and Steven Finn, who took six wickets in the second innings to put his side on top. READ: Michael Vaughan predicts Australia to retain urn despite England’s impressive show at Edgbaston
Jokes aside, however, Clarke’s form in this series with the bat, which is his primary performing role in the field, is dry. He has so far scored 94 runs in the six innings he has played, at an average of 18.80, with a highest score of 38.
