Dismal England still in it

CRICKET ASHES TEST SERIES: IMPLAUSIBLY, ON a day when wickets fell like autumn leaves, England are still in touch with an Australian…

CRICKET ASHES TEST SERIES:IMPLAUSIBLY, ON a day when wickets fell like autumn leaves, England are still in touch with an Australian team that at one stage, with Ricky Ponting and Shane Watson pummelling ill-disciplined bowling to all points square of the wicket, appeared to be leaving them with little to sniff but the exhaust fumes.

Bowled out for 102 – the fourth-lowest first-innings total in their Test history when they have won the toss and batted – England claimed the early wicket of Simon Katich, caught round the corner as he fended Steve Harmison from his throat, but then suffered as Ponting, magnificently, and Watson overhauled the total inside 23 overs and added 119 for the second wicket.

If England were in disarray, then they came back strongly in the final 90 minutes as the ball began to perform some acrobatics. Graham Onions, whose early spell from the Rugby Stand End had been roughly treated, returned down the hill from the Kirkstall Lane End and had Watson lbw for 51, his third straight half-century.

Stuart Broad, wayward up to that point, induced Ponting, on 78, to play all round his front pad, and then, from round the wicket, speared one into the left-handed Mike Hussey enough to convince Asad Rauf that the necessary geometry was in order.

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There were to be no further wickets as Australia progressed to 196 for four before play ended seven overs short of the allocation.

But while Marcus North dug in, Michael Clarke was given a torrid working over by Harmison, who struck him so hard on the back of his helmet that he required prolonged treatment and a new lid, and then appeared to catch the wristband of his glove as he tried to evade another wicked bouncer, the ball looping high into the air to Matt Prior.

To disbelief on the field, Rauf turned down the appeal. Clarke merely readjusted the Velcro on the glove.

The preamble to the game, in which Prior’s back went into spasm, prompting a delayed toss and the prospect of Paul Collingwood keeping wicket until a replacement could arrive, was an unwanted distraction, not least for Andrew Strauss, who on winning the toss had less time than usual to prepare.

But even taking that into account, England’s failure to come to terms with a relentless display of fast and fast-medium bowling was disheartening. If the line-up looked not so much thin as threadbare, with Harmison a direct replacement for Andrew Flintoff and Broad therefore in the lofty heights at number seven, then they should have coped better with conditions that, while offering the bowlers some movement and, for the first time in the series, good carry, were not insurmountable.

As it happened, only Alastair Cook, with 30, and Prior, 37 not out, reached double figures.

Strauss, the linchpin of the batting this series, should have been lbw to the first ball of the match, had Billy Bowden been loose, but he was brilliantly caught at third slip by North to set a standard for flawless catching and start a procession which profited all four Australian seamers, the spinner Nathan Hauritz having been dropped for Stuart Clark.

In this, the Australian selectors may just have read the conditions better than England. All the indications were of a dry pitch, although this seems hard to understand given the amount of rain that has fallen during the past month. The dark scars of the bowlers’ footmarks on the pitch told of residual moisture: Ponting would surely have batted first, but it was perhaps a good toss to lose.

Australia’s bowlers were superb, with Ben Hilfenhaus claiming a nervous Ravi Bopara, Clark slipping into his line and length as if it were a comfy armchair to snare Cook, Collingwood and Broad, Mitchell Johnson continuing the progress he displayed at Edgbaston to rip out Ian Bell and Peter Siddle dismissing Strauss early on. The latter then returned after lunch to take the last four wickets for three runs in 14 balls, finishing with five for 21.

There was no secret to this beyond the capacity to keep a full length, interspersed with the judicious short ball of a kind that caught Bell unable to drop his hands fast enough and proved too hostile for Anderson and Onions. That, and giving little to the batsmen that they could leave.

How much of this the England pace attack had been watching and, more pertinently, absorbing is a matter of conjecture. Inside half an hour as many boundaries, 10, had been hit as England managed in their entire innings. Fed short stuff, Watson cut and Ponting, one of the great pullers, did so with abandon.

In between, the ball frequently was flagged through harmlessly.

It was desperately poor stuff.

Guardian Service

Headingley Scoreboard

ENGLAND– First innings

A Strauss c North b Siddle 3

A Cook c Clarke b Clark 30

R Bopara c Hussey b Hilfenhaus 1

I Bell c Haddin b Johnson 8

P Collingwood c Ponting b Clark 0

M Prior not out 37

S Broad c Katich b Clark 3

G Swann c Clarke b Siddle 0

S Harmison c Haddin b Siddle 0

J Anderson c Haddin b Siddle 3

G Onions c Katich b Siddle 0

Extras (b-5, lb-8, w-1, nb-3) 17

–––––

Total:(all out; 33 5 overs) 102

Fall of wickets:1-11, 2-16, 3-39, 4-42, 5-63, 6-72, 7-92, 8-98, 9-102.

Bowling:Hilfenhaus 7-0-20-1; Siddle 9.5-0-21-5; Johnson 7-0-30-1; Clark 10-4-18-3.

AUSTRALIA– First innings

S Watson lbw b Onions 51

S Katich c Bopara b Harmison 0

R Ponting lbw b Broad 78

M Hussey lbw b Broad 10

M Clarke not out 34

M North not out 7

Extras (b-9, lb-3, w-2, nb-2) 16

–––––

Total(four wickets; 47 overs) 196

Fall of wickets:1-14, 2-133, 3-140, 4-151.

To bat:B Haddin, M Johnson, P Siddle, B Hilfenhaus, S Clark.

Bowling:Anderson 12-2-55-0; Harmison 13-3-55-1; Onions 11-2-45-1; Broad 11-4-29-2.