McIlroy cannot find the spark
AT TRENT BRIDGE STUART BROAD, playing for England for the first time at his home venue since a withering spell of 8-15 two years ago tilted the Ashes their way, was once again the stand-out bowler yesterday.
Yet this time, while his efforts were no less strenuous, they yielded a more modest 3-47 as South Africa found spirit with the bat which had been lacking at Lord’s to finish the first day 309-6.
This was a day of graft for England after the Proteas won the toss, elected to bat and then frustrated Joe Root’s side with a succession of partnerships from their rejigged batting line-up.
And none were more spirited or more frustrating than the seventh-wicket stand between Vernon Philander and Chris Morris which, at 74 and counting had by the close taken the shine off the new ball and England’s day.
Indeed, the perfect snapshot of the day’s play came from the final delivery as a fired-up Ben Stokes charged in and found the edge of Morris’s bat only for the ball to fall just short of the England captain at second slip.
Root rotated his bowlers nicely throughout as he sought breakthroughs and kept his fields challenging even if he perhaps over-egged their plans to bowl RORY McILROY’S odds to win a second Claret Jug will surely lengthen after he crashed out of the Aberdeen Asset Management Scottish Open yesterday.
What began on Monday with a pleasant ferry trip across the Irish Sea turned into a gloomy passage for McIlroy with rounds of 74 and 71 to miss the cut by one stroke at Dundonald Links near Irvine.
It is the second week in succession and a third event in four starts the world No 4 will sit out the weekend rounds.
And after two separate injury concerns this year, and with the Open to commence on Thursday, he is well short of competition.
“I have not had enough competitive rounds this year with my injuries and I have missed a lot of events”, he said. “You just can’t mess with an injury and come back too early, so I missed a lot of play because of that and I’ve been playing catch-up all year.
“I’m just waiting for something, some sort of spark, something to go right but the last couple weeks haven’t been like that.”
Padraig Harrington (68), Callum Shinkwin (68) and German Alexander Knappe (65) lead the field on nine under par.
Harrington, who is clearly excited about returning to Birkdale, where he won the 2008 Open, enjoyed a “boring” second day compared with some anxiety on day one in searching for a lost ball late in his round.
“Today was just boring,” he said. “There was no stress all day. I made two birdies on par fives and I hit two seven irons on my 10th and 11th hole, the first and second hole, in pretty close.
“So that was my day and it couldn’t have been more opposite than yesterday.”