Michael Vaughn, the former England cricket captain, likes to stir the pot.
Yesterday, after the second day’s play of the fifth and final cricket test in the Ashes series between England and Australia at the Oval in London, Vaughn did not let him wait again.
According to Vaughn, he has never seen an Australian cricket team bat with as much fear as on Friday morning.
This after the Aussies were bowled out for 295 runs in their first innings after England scored 283 runs in its first innings.
The English start batting in their second innings on Saturday.
Perhaps Vaughn is trying to patch up some of the English’s shortcomings, because the Aussies have already won the Ashes series 2-1.
Vaughn particularly referred to Marnus Labuschagne (7 runs from 59 balls) and Usman Khawaja (47 runs from 157 balls) who were very much in their shells.
The Master at Work!
Mitchell Starc bowls a peach to dismiss England captain Ben Stokes.#MitchellStarc #Cricket #ashes #ENGvAUS #BenStokes #CricketAustralia #Sky11 pic.twitter.com/2LyIraI2LR
— Sky11 (@sky11official) July 27, 2023
A brilliant Stokes catch on the boundary ends the day, a top effort by Australia’s tail gives the visitors a slender lead at the end of Day 2!#Ashes #ENGvAUS #EnglandCricket #CricketAustralia #England #Australia #WTC25 #CricketTwitter pic.twitter.com/SzumwZfcvw
— The Sportz (@TheSportzIndia) July 28, 2023
The Aussies were overly cautious, because it took them 27 balls before the first run was scored on Friday morning. It took them 47.4 overs to reach 100 runs – the longest in 33 years in an Ashes series.
But perhaps Vaughn should go and review his own performances, and also realize that not all teams have embraced England’s attacking batting approach.
Vaughn had a strike rate of just 51.13 in Test cricket in 82 Tests. In one-day cricket it was not much better, because there his strike rate was only 68.39.
Yes, there have been many an Aussie batsman who has fired under any bowling attack in the past, but also give some credit to the English bowling attack, with Chris Woakes (3/61), Stuart Broad (2/49), Mark Wood ( 2/62) the part-time spinner Joe Root (2/20) who made good use of the favorable bowling conditions and kept the Aussie batsmen under pressure.
