Snapshot of day four of second Ashes Test at Lord’s

ENGLAND v AUSTRALIA, Second Ashes Test, Lord’s, Day Three on Friday.

SCORE: England (325 and 4-114) need 257 runs to beat Australia (416 and 279), with six wickets in hand.

SUMMARY: Steve Smith and Usman Khawaja drove three boundaries in the first three overs, before Australia’s batters barely got another ball in their half of the pitch all day. All eight of Australia’s wickets to go on day four came from the short ball, as England restricted their scoring with fields set back for bouncers and eventually strangled them out. The highlight of the innings was a heavily wounded Nathan Lyon helping Mitchell Starc add 15 for the last wicket, hopping onto the field and even completing a run on one leg. Starc then struck twice early with the ball, including the ball of the Test so far to bowl Ollie Pope, before Pat Cummins knocked over Joe Root and Harry Brook to put Australia firmly in the box seat. Ben Stokes is eyeing off another Headingley-like miracle on 29 not out, but at 4-114, England’s target of 371 seems a long way away for England.

PLAYER OF THE MOMENT: He only spent 25 minutes on the field, but they may be the 25 minutes this Ashes series is remembered by. Lyon hobbled down the Lord’s Pavilion stairs, limped to the field, hopped a single and put on 15 runs for the last wicket with Mitchell Starc with a badly torn calf. The morale boost it gave Australia may have been worth far more than that.

KEY MOMENT: Mitchell Stars’s ball to bowl Ollie Pope was a beauty, but the damage from Pat Cummins’ second over of his second spell could be series defining. He struck Joe Root on the bicep and had the England caught at slip next ball off a fast-climbing bouncer, before bowling Harry Brook a few deliveries later. England were 4-45 at that point, and their hopes of chasing down 371 seriously crushed.

STAT OF THE DAY: Ninety-eight per cent of balls England bowled in the middle session were short, as the bumper barrage on a lifeless Lord’s wicket went into overdrive.

QUOTE OF THE DAY: “I had to go down to the long room and wait in the long room, because I would have been timed out. The lifts here are pretty slow, so I had to go down the stairs.” – Nathan Lyon, summing up his battle to go out and bat.