Ashes 2013: England preview - Second Test, Lord's

England players are jubilant after winning the first Test match at Trent Bridge

After a thrilling first Test at Trent Bridge, the caravan has reached the home of cricket- Lord’s- where cricket’s oldest enemies will square-off for the 164^th time. Many believe England were ‘lucky’ to win the first Test but the fact remains that England are leading the five match series 1-0.

The most important lesson England would have learned from the first Test was that they will have to play better to beat this Australian side. Cook and co. will be cautious after they let Australia come back in a match which they should have won more convincingly last weekend.

For starters, England needs their top-order to fire. Joe Root after a somewhat disappointing start as an opener will be keen to prove himself as an opener. This county season, Root has been in tremendous form for his county Yorkshire but he has so far failed to replicate it at international level, though he had scored a hundred against New Zealand, at Leeds, earlier in the season.

England’s middle-order looks formidable with Ian Bell’s return to form bolstering their batting line-up, which already has prolific numbers to back them from one to seven, perhaps barring Jonny Bairstow.

On to the bowling front, Steven Finn is obviously under pressure after leaking runs in the first Test and Tim Bresnan is being tipped to come in. But Finn has an excellent record at Lord’s; he has taken 29 wickets in five Test matches at an astonishing average of 20.65. Considering the above mentioned stats, Flower may have second thoughts on whether to replace Finn. Rest of the bowling attacks picks itself.

In this Test match, Cook will need to ensure that the workload is spread around more judiciously to take the pressure off Jimmy Anderson. Surely, Cook will like to have his ace bowler playing all the nine Ashes Test matches.

If the topsy-turvy first Test is anything to go by, where predicting which way the match would go was impossible right until what was the final delivery of the match when James Anderson induced an edge from Brad Haddin’s bat, fans are in for some fireworks over the next five days. The neutrals would be hoping for Australian win, which would mean a fascinating latter half of the series.

England, of course, will not show any clemency towards their oldest enemies and would like to punch a knockout blow by taking a 2-0 lead in the series.

Conditions:

London weather at this point is very dry and for the first couple of days, the temperatures are expected to soar up to 30 °C. The pitch at Lord’s is expected to be batsman’s paradise.

So expect some big hundreds in this Test match. Pitch though is not as dry as the one at Trent Bridge but is expected to help spinners with turn and bounce. As England have just the one spinner in their unchanged 13-man squad for the second Test in Graeme Swann, they would bank on the likes of Joe Root and Kevin Pietersen to bowl a few overs in between.

Meanwhile, Australia are also mulling to bring in Nathan Lyon as their second-spinner.

Teams:

England (Probable): Alastair Cook (c), Joe Root, Jonathan Trott, Kevin Pietersen, Ian Bell, Jonny Bairstow, Matt Prior (wk), Stuart Broad, Graeme Swann, Steven Finn, James Anderson.

Australia (Probable): Shane Watson, Chris Rogers, Michael Clarke (c), Steven Smith, Phil Hughes, Brad Haddin (wk), James Faulkner, Ashton Agar, Peter Siddle, James Pattinson, Nathan Lyon.

Match Prediction:

With the bowling attacks of both teams more than capable of taking 20 wickets, as was proved by the first Test, the match could well be decided by which team’s batting line-up performs over next five days. That makes England the big favourites to win this. But as a neutral, I hope for a miraculous Australian victory.