Bad Horse Meat
Grade: D-
Well, that didn’t take long, did it? Australia resumed on the second day with their two most reliable batters, Cameron Green and Nathan Lyon, at the crease, looking to extend their first innings lead.
In real life, of course, a Green-Lyon pair implies the horse meat for the zoo’s big cat enclosure was served well beyond its ‘best by’ date. A perhaps fitting analogy for the sickly menagerie of Australia’s struggling batters.
Here in Mackay, however, the Green-Lyon pair resembled more of an evolutionary adaptation, adding the power of camouflage to the more traditional leonine advantages, enabling it to stalk its prey with greater efficiency in a more humid biome.
Which is precisely what Green and Lyon did, adding 21 comfortable runs, until Green was suddenly pinged on the toe by an inswinging yorker from big game hunter Shoriful Islam. Josh Hazlewood joined Lyon, and, despite the lack of a visually coherent image based on the duo’s names, they were still able to add 24 further runs without too much trouble, until Hazlewood lost his head, slogging Taijul Islam straight up. Australia all out for 210 and Nathan Lyon, stranded 68 runs short of his first Test century.
Still, a sign that the pitch was getting easier to bat on, right?
Er, about that…
Mediating Parental Figures
Grade: B
In Bangladesh’s first innings, Mitchell Starc selfishly took the first five wickets. Pretty childish behaviour from Mitchell, who has developed an unfortunate tendency to look at the top half of a batting innings and shout ‘mine!’ at them, leaving none for anybody else to play with. Beastly behaviour that’s getting worse over time. Grow up, Mitchell.
