London: England saw the back of Australia captain Ricky Ponting as they moved closer to winning their first Ashes Test at Lord’s in 75 years here on Sunday.
Australia were 178 for five at tea on the fourth day of the second Test of this five-match series – still needing a further 344 runs to reach their world record victory target of 522.
But England were now just five wickets away from wrapping up this match with more than a day to spare and so taking a 1-0 lead in the five-Test series.
Michael Clarke, who held firm with a typically stylish fifty in 58 balls, was 60 not out and wicket-keeper Brad Haddin 15 not out.
Ponting had added just one run to his lunch score, when 10 balls after the break, he tried to force the ball but played on to pace bowler Stuart Broad for 38. His exit left Australia in dire straits at 78 for three and continued Ponting’s poor run of Test scores at Lord’s where his best is 42.
It was all a far cry from last week’s drawn series opener in Cardiff where Ponting made a majestic 150 and Australia were only denied victory by a last-wicket stand between James Anderson and the now dropped Monty Panesar.
Off-spinner Graeme Swann then got in on the act with two wickets for two runs in 19 balls.
He removed left-hander Michael Hussey (27) with a ball that turned and bounce thanks to Paul Collingwood’s sharp slip catch. Hussey was given out by West Indies umpire Billy Doctrove although replays suggested the ball may have missed the outside edge – one of several umpiring decisions on Sunday that went against Australia.
But there was no doubt about Swann’s next wicket, with Marcus North bowled between bat and pad to leave Australia 128 for five.
Injury-hit all-rounder Andrew Flintoff, who before this match said he would retire from Test cricket at the end of the Ashes, struck twice to reduce Australia to 34 for two before lunch.
But controversy surrounded both wickets, with veteran umpire Rudi Koertzen, standing in his 100th Test, missing a no-ball in the lead-up to Simon Katich’s exit and then giving Phillip Hughes out to a disputed slip catch by England captain Andrew Strauss.
Fast bowler Flintoff, saw Katich guide his eighth ball to the gully where Kevin Pietersen safely held the catch. But replays showed Flintoff had overstepped the crease. That should have led to a call of no-ball from South Africa’s Koertzen which in turn would have denied England their first wicket.
Ashes-holders Australia then saw Hughes, their other left-handed opener, on 17 edge Flintoff to first slip Strauss. The 20-year-old started to walk off but was told to stay by Ponting, who on Saturday had seen England’s Ravi Bopara reprieved after the umpires referred a low catch to TV umpire Nigel Llong.
But this time around Koertzen, after asking Doctrove if the ball had carried, gave the decision without calling for Llong’s assistance.
Flintoff, the star of England’s 2005 Ashes triumph, had taken two wickets for two runs in 20 balls.
Strauss, with rain in the air, declared before play on Sunday on England’s overnight second innings score of 311 for six.
That left Australia chasing a target that, were they to achieve it, would be a new world record for the highest fourth innings total to win a Test, surpassing the 418 for seven made by the West Indies against Australia in Antigua in 2002-03.
