Oval, August 21: Andrew Strauss promised that the mistakes of Headingley would not be repeated. But while England’s batsmen made life harder for Australia’s bowlers at The Oval yesterday, they still have no more than their fingertips on the Ashes urn. But at least that is a start.
After being rolled over for 102 in the fourth Test, some improvement from a reworked top order was almost inevitable – and, on a bone-dry pitch nothing like the strokemaker’s paradise that most people had predicted, England’s total of 307 for 8 may turn out to be quite a bit better than it looked at first glance last night.
Most home supporters among a capacity crowd of 24,000 could not help but come to the conclusion, however, that Strauss’s men had lost three or four more wickets than they should have done with Ian Bell, debutant Jonathan Trott and the captain himself getting good starts but failing to add to England’s century count in this series.
–Agencies