England v Australia Second Ashes test Day Two In-play Tips: England in the mire

• England in big trouble

• Rain may help bowlers

• Root still looking good for ton

England v Australia
Thursday 29 June, 11:00
TV: Live on Sky Sports

Lay the draw

England were aggressive, alert and quick off the mark at Lord's on day one. The only problem was those qualities were shown when trying to remove Just Stop Oil protestors from the pitch instead of the Australians.

Despite a late flurry from Joe Root, in comical village style, it was as chastening a day as England can remember on home soil against their old rivals. Australia closed the day at 1.608/13, a significant bite out of post-toss odds of around 2.506/4.

Steve Smith returned to ominous runscoring form with an unbeaten 85 while Travis Head's 73-ball 75 was straight out of England's style book. They are sitting pretty at 339 for five.

There is still plenty of time left in the game but Australia are on course for more than 400, a eyewatering prospect for Ben Stokes who won the toss and decided to bowl. He expected - rightly - that a green-tinged surface, moist conditions and cloud cover would be perfect for his bowlers. Unfortunately, England fluctuated between being passive and timid in a bizarre performance.

All their big talk of going hard at Australia was precisely that. They dropped two catches and conceded a mammoth 36 extras. It was, frankly, not good enough and the drift from 2.1211/10 to 6.005/1 perfectly illustrates that.

On day two they have a new ball and ordinarily at this stage we would be lining up a short of the batting team's par runs line at a whopping 468.5. But who trusts England to turn up at show some gumption even if excessively bowling-friendly conditions are forecast?

Get ready to lay the draw

It was particularly frustrating from England that they should claim two wickets in an over just when a classic draw lay came into view.

Travis Head fell over and was stumped. Cameron Green flat-batted one straight up in the air. Both dismissals would have both gone viral if it was the Dog & Duck versus the Amateurs.

The draw price was on the cusp of going below 4.003/1 to lay and the fingers were poised. As it is the lay price closed at 4.804/1.

We may now have to wait for the weather to do us a favour. The forecast is for showers in the morning until lunch at a percentage chance of around 40%.

England first-innings runs

The one good bit of news for England is that once the new ball loses its lustre, batting doesn't look to difficult. The pitch was easy-paced and there wasn't extravagant movement.

Pre-match we identified Root as value at a price-boosted 5/1 with Betfair Sportsbook for a first-innings century. We've not seen anything to change our mind apart from a cut to 9/2, although it is still value on win rate.

It would also be wise to keep run shorts of Zak Crawley and Ben Duckett on side with Sportsbook. At least we can be confident one team will come hard with the ball. Under leaden skies Pat Cummins and crew should be real handful for the opening pair.

England's innings par line is at 338.5 and if they are not backing up their big talk with some big walk for the first wicket then it very much has the air of a short at even money with the option to trade later. If day one was tough, day two could get tougher.

Top bat wins/matches under Ben Stokes captaincy
Brook 4/7
Pope 4/15
Bairstow 2/7
Root 2/13
Stokes 1/14
Crawley 1/14
Duckett 0/6