Lift-off!!

Ashes 2013

 

Lift-Off!!

 

July 10^th

 

D-Day for the cricketers of England and Australia in the first of a mere ten consecutive Tests. If you got bored with England playing New Zealand recently, this will be a more severe test, even for such sworn rivals as England and Australia. The first day often sets the tone for a series although it is rarely decisive in itself: as Steve Harmison fairly points out, his first ball wide in 2006 did not lose England the series, but it did set the tone, as in when in 2002, Nasser Hussain won the toss and inserted, watching as Australia racked-up 364-2 by the Close. In contrast, in 2005 Steve Harmison’s second ball crashed into Justin Langer’s arm: England lost that Test by a distance, but showed that they would not be intimidated and set the basis to level the series in the 2^nd Test.

Today, England’s choices are simple: Finn or Bresnan. Win the toss and bat. The pitch is expected to have little life in it and to aid reverse swing, making Bresnan the likely choice. If England can bat first and put up a big score, they can bring into play Graeme Swann against the army of left-handers in the Australian batting line-up on the 4^th and 5^th days. Australia are expected to go with the pace of Pattison (who all the media have pointed out carefully is really English – his brother did famously play one Test for England) and Starc to support Siddle, with Nathan Lyon as the spin option. Do not be amazed if the pitch neutralises the Australian strengths and plays to the strengths of the England attack: pitch preparation in England, it seems, has lost its innocence; no longer will England prepare a raging turner at The Oval when the opposition contains Muttiah Muralitharan, nor a fast green pitch for Malcolm Marshall. Australian fans will scream foul if this happens. Many England fans will justify this as simply being what other sides have been doing for years. Some will remember the furore last winter when one Indian curator refused to prepare a pitch to order; are English groundsmen, famous for their independence, going to be more amenable to influence now? Possibly we are moving to a system whereby the ICC oversees all pitch preparations.

We have the standard headline this morning “is this the worst Australia squad ever?” (this time the culprit is the BBC) – I read this headline for the first time in 1981 and it seems to have been trotted-out regularly since (answer: no, the 1978/79 Packerless squad will take some beating in that respect and even they won a Test in that series). Otherwise, the level of excitement is intense, far more so than for series against other sides, which rarely seem to capture the public imagination to this level. Jon Agnew tweets that he was too excited to sleep… yes, it must be Australia.

For what it is worth, I am going with a 3-1 to England.

[10:40 CEST] Rumours swirling that Nathan Lyon has been dropped and Ashton Agar, who looks to be an amazing prospect, has been included. That would be a major shock, particularly, one suspects, to the much criticised Nathan Lyon. The other swirling rumour is that Steve Smith is included to allow Australia to play two spinners on a pitch that already has a network of fine cracks and that may break up on the last two days.

[10:42 CEST] It is official. Agar gets his baggy green from Glenn McGrath. He is in and Lyon is dropped. Australia spring a big surprise by including a player well short of his 20^th birthday.

[11:08 CEST] Aggers says “Finn for the good guys”. Finn is in, it seems, when most of the smart money was on Bresnan.

[11:30 CEST] England win the toss and bat as the clouds start to lift. Advantage England? Or are the Australian quicks going to steamroll the England batting using the swing in the air that was available in practice? Michael Clarke hints broadly that the inclusion of Agar was decided days in advance to neutralise Kevin Pietersen – whatever you think about KP, sides seem to plan their strategy around him.

[15:25 CEST] Trott, who looks totally set on batting for five full days falls to Peter Siddle. England are 124-4 and on the slide. They seem to be finding ways to get out to a persistent Australian attack. This is a very disappointing first day performance by England.

 [16:30 CEST] Nine minutes ago, England were 178-4 and seemingly heading towards 300 and a negotiable total. Now it is 180-6. Every time England look to be getting back on an even keel, another wicket falls. Siddle has 5-49 now and England are struggling to reach 250. Things now rest on the shoulders of Jonny Bairstow.

[21:00 CEST] Just when you thought that Bairstow and Broad were launching a fightback at 213-6, when a total of 300+ seemed quite possible, four wickets went down in thirteen balls and the final total of 215 seemed massively insufficient. To be honest, it was a poor batting effort, boarding on miserable and more so when Watson and Rogers set off at a tremendous pace. Enter Steve Finn, who was a whisker away from taking a hat-trick as Watson and Cowan fell to the third and fourth ball of his second over and Michael Clarke only just missed edging the hat-trick ball. Minutes later Anderson bowled what is already a candidate for the ball of the summer. Australia 22-3 and everyone was wondering whether or not the match would last into a third day, let alone a fifth.

At 75-4 at the Close, 1^st innings lead is far from decided.

Never judge a match after a single innings. In fact, often it is still hard to judge even after both teams have batted. Here is an example of why.

First Test in 2005. Australia were dismissed by England for 191 in 40.2 overs. England fans were jubilant. Despite losing almost two sessions to rain, the match barely made it into the fourth morning, with England losing by 239 runs. Despite their disappointing first innings total, Australia obtained a lead by bowling England out for 155 and proceeded to dominate the match totally.

What of today? It has been frenetic and crazy. And England have been without Stuart Broad, who came off second best in a testy encounter with James Pattinson. Broad is only bruised and will bowl tomorrow: it may get interesting when Pattinson comes out to bat at the fall of the seventh wicket, as Broad is not exactly the forgiving type.

Joe Root scored 30 and Jonny Bairstow 37. The question remains hanging: if the Australian attack had had to watch Nick Compton blocking for a couple of hours and then had faced Root at #6, against tiring bowlers, might England have scored more? We will never know. What we do know is that of the seventeen batsmen to reach the wicket today, only Jonathon Trott has reached 40.

The day has been even. An early wicket for England tomorrow and, suddenly, the balance will shift again. However, tomorrow looks like being a better day for batting.