Cricket news round-up – 18 August: Australia slightly ahead at Lord’s, openers’ fifties lead Sri Lanka’s victory push

Australia re slightly ahead at Lord’s after Day 4 of the second Test of Ashes 2019. Sri Lanka are on the driver’s seat against New Zealand. Cricket South Africa announced injury replacement for the India Test series.

Australia slightly ahead at Lord’s

Day four of the second Ashes test was highlighted by the battle between Jofra Archer and Steve Smith which saw Smith hit on his neck and had to retired hurt for some time. He was in the middle of a brilliant innings and was batting on 80. He returned after the fall of the next wicket and was finally dismissed for 92. His innings was the mainstay of the Australian innings and helped them to reach 250, just 8 runs adrift of England’s first innings score. Stuart Broad, Chris Woakes and Archer took 4,3 and 2 wicket respectively.

England’s second innings did not start well and they ended the day on 96 for 4, just 108 runs ahead. The not out batsmen Ben Stokes and Jos Buttler would like to bat as long as possible as only Jonny Bairstow and bowlers are yet to come. Australia, on the other hand, would like to bowl them out in the first one and a half session and chase down the target.

Sri Lankan Openers put them on Driver’s seat

A record, unbeaten 133 runs partnership between Sri Lankan openers Dimuth Karunaratne and Lahiru Thirimanne helped Sri Lanka in their victory push in the first test. With only 135 more runs to get with 10 wickets in hand against a depleted New Zealand attack, the biggest concern for Sri Lanka should be the chances of rain which may stop them from taking a 1-0 lead in the series.

Early in the day, New Zealand lower order showed good resistance and added more than 100 runs in the last three wickets. BJ Watling scored 77 and William Somerville was unbeaten on 40. There were also handy contributions from Trent Boult (26) and Ajaz Patel (14). For Sri Lanka, Lasith Embuldeniya took 4 for 99 and Dhananjaya de Silva took 3 for 25.

Heinrich Klaasen replaces Rudi Second for India Tests

Rudi Second from the South African Test squad for the upcoming India tour has to be replaced by Heinrich Klaasen as Second injured himself during practice for the South Africa A team. Klaasen was already part of the one-day squad and now included in the four-day squads of the South Africa A team which is going to tour India. The changes were announced through a CSA press release on Saturday.