Ashes 2011 Page 5

  For his part, Bell looked by far the most complete of England's batsmen, a far cry from the soft touch of 2005, playing with time to spare, and with far better awareness of the game unfolding around him than has been his habit. Of Bell, Australians have been inclined to reprise Shane Warne's comment regarding Monty Panesar: that he hasn't played fifty-eight Tests, but the same Test fifty-eight times. Out of Aussie sight, however, he has matured into a flourishing Test batsman, who finally overreached himself only when the circumstances compelled it.

  When Cook succumbed to Siddle after almost five patient hours, the bowler charged down the pitch into the welcoming arms of the slips cordon, which joyously engulfed him. His head emerged from the huddle bearing a smile, which was as jagged as a crocodile's and broad as the Harbour Bridge. He looked like a man for whom life could simply not get better. It was a logical inference to draw. He was wrong.

  25 NOVEMBER 2010

  PETER SIDDLE

  Up and at 'Em

  Peter Siddle's first ball in Test cricket hit Gautam Gambhir on the helmet. During his recent interstate comeback, he hit Phil Jaques on the helmet too. A disciple of the blood-and-thunder school of fast bowling, he looks like he'd be happier knocking your block off than your stumps over. Yet he proved in Brisbane today that he can work both sides of the street. On a surface seemingly yellowing by the hour and that should tomorrow be ideal for batting, pitching it up was the way to go, so pitching it up was the way he went. To show for it, he had that rarest of cricket feats, a hat-trick.

  Not long before he died, Donald Bradman was asked by Greg Chappell which deliveries had troubled him most in his career. After at first waving the question away, Bradman came up with an interesting and inherently authoritative answer: the full ball attacking the stumps that might go this way or might go that but at all events compelled a stroke was, even at his peak, a challenge.

  What was good enough for Bradman those many years ago proved today more than enough for England. The third ball of Siddle's twelfth over was sharp and tight on off stump. When he entered Test cricket three years ago, Siddle rather struggled with left-handers, and lost knots and accuracy when bowling round the wicket. From over the wicket, this ball demanded a defensive bat from Cook, and snagged an edge as it angled away.

  Siddle found the right solution for Prior too, who for a batsman with an average above 40 is bowled too often – 28 per cent of his dismissals. The ball was again full. It found bat and pad not just ajar but almost at odds.

  The younger Siddle might at such a point have bowled a bouncer, into the ribs, maybe at the helmet. But it was Siddle's twenty-sixth birthday today. This is his eighteenth Test. He is in his fast-bowling prime, coming into savvy to go with the sizzle. In the nets before the game, both Tim Nielsen and Troy Cooley were entreating him to bowl a fuller length – as he did so, he was excited to find the ball swinging. So for his hat-trick ball, he aimed again to skid the ball from the otherwise disobliging surface, to take advantage of slow-moving feet and an uncalibrated eye.

  Stuart Broad's preparatory rituals were as elaborate as those of a prize fighter shadow-boxing in his dressing gown: stretching, skipping, fiddling and generally farting around. His failure was almost foreordained. Siddle's yorker was rather like the jubilant sandshoe crusher with which Jeff Thomson at the Gabba thirty-six years ago upended Tony Greig; it is destined to be replayed as often. Broad legged it from the scene of the crime like an urchin spied stealing an orange, but was collared by the long arm of the lbw law, personified by Aleem Dar and ratified by Tony Hill.

  Here was the delayed gratification of Test cricket at its best. In the hour before it, the Test had slipped from a restless doze into REM sleep. Alastair Cook and Ian Bell were restoring English heart, ticking over calmly enough, if not threatening at any stage to break away. The commentators were chatting. The crowd was a little listless. Marketers were busy thinking about how to squeeze in another T20 international. They were disturbed in their machinations by the sound of celebration reverberating around the concrete crucible of the Gabba, by the outbreak of cricket worth waiting for.

  Australia had special need of Siddle under the circumstances. The attack was generally persevering rather than consistently penetrative. Shane Watson chipped in, but Ben Hilfenhaus was no better than adequate, and Xavier Doherty was rather flattered by a couple of tail-end wickets.

  Debutant Doherty came on to bowl the 21st over with a slip, a bat-pad and, after his first ball bit and bounced promisingly, a short mid-on. Except that he struggled with his line to Cook, asking too little of the left-hander's cover drive and offering too much to be nurdled round the corner, a bread and butter shot that sustained the batsman when his vital signs, every so often, showed signs of failing.

  The comparison was unfair but inevitable. Four years ago, Warne let Pietersen know there would be no gimmes with a waspish throw back to the keeper that struck his old mucker's bat, following up with some pantomime huff-and-puff. Doherty's response in his third over to stopping Pietersen's crisp straight drive was rather less assured: his throw bounced at the edge of the cut strip and would have vanished for four overthrows had Haddin not darted quickly to his left.

  A moustache has made Mitchell Johnson look a little more like Dennis Lillee, meanwhile, but it hasn't enhanced the bowling resemblance. His arm still swings through like a roundhouse punch, leaving little margin for error with his release, and his general presence remains rather less than menacing: as he pauses at the end of his run, it still looks as though he's trying to remember the last five things Troy Cooley told him.

  Bowling to Bell during the afternoon, Johnson was at one stage nudged to mid-on. When he proceeded to hare after the ball himself, it looked a little odd, like the act of an overactive boy in a backyard; it was not an action one could have expected of Glenn McGrath, who would have chuntered about bloody short leg or bloody mid-off bloody well doing what they were bloody well paid for.

  Johnson was the only bowler to make a pre-match prediction, talking up the need to be aggressive, and his intent to bombard Andrew Strauss. How long ago these prophecies and prognostications already seem. As Siddle might have said: 'The only way to go is up.' The same sentiment now applies, in a somewhat different sense, to England.

  26 NOVEMBER 2010

  Day 2

  Close of play: Australia 1st innings 220–5

  (MEK Hussey 81*, BJ Haddin 22*, 80 overs)

  In Australia's great period of ascendancy, Michael Hussey was a talisman – a symbol of Australian cricket's panache, vitality and fertility. The dwindling of his average from its zenith of 80 to a more mortal 50 has been a leading indicator of the country's cricket decline. Today he found a new role, shoring up the order of a rebuilding team with batting in some of his best vein, ending the day undefeated on 81.

  Likewise unfinished, Hussey's partnership of 77 with Brad Haddin allowed Australia to feel ever so slightly ahead at the end of day two of this First Test at the Gabba. Still 40 in arrears of England, Australia will want a lead. Although Kevin Mitchell's surface will not deteriorate badly in the unseasonally mild weather, the hosts would not relish a substantial fourth-innings chase after three consecutive Test defeats.

  England opened the day in search of early wickets, but with the sun out struggled even to generate appeals, let alone beat the bat. Stuart Broad's spell was like a pat-down airport search: invasive but not particularly effective and chiefly irritating. His best moment was a bouncer which Watson bore beneath the left arm, and at which the batsman, anxious to defend his stumps, issued a fresh-air kick as it fell. Otherwise there was too much to shoulder arms to and sway away from, which was nonetheless applauded monotonously in the slip cordon. A couple of clumping drives early on, including an on drive that Watson drilled down the ground from Finn's fifth ball, seemed to have the effect of discouraging the bowlers from pitching up, despite Siddle's first-day example. A run-out opportunity went begging; overthrows were conceded. This was not the New England
so widely praised, but a hint of Ye Olde England during the long Australian ascendant.

  Between times, nonetheless, Anderson picked up Watson with a good one, nicking to slip, and Ponting with a bad one, feathering down the leg side. Australia were glad of some stern resistance from Katich, a turtle of a batsman, who retracts his head at the first hint of danger and always has the long view in mind. His stabs, jabs and back-and-across step are not a method you'd recommend anyone emulate, but his head is still when he plays the ball and he defends right under his nose. The South Africans and Englishmen had some success bowling outside his eyeline last year – Flintoff picked him up in the gully at Lord's. For whatever reason, there seemed no such plan today. His eventual fall, bunting back a low caught-and-bowled, surprised the batsman almost as much as the bowler: it was his first such Test dismissal, as well as a useful first Ashes wicket for Finn, whose stoop to conquer involved almost all his 6ft-6 frame.

  At 100 for three, there was abruptly the hint of danger. Hussey nicked his first ball just short of Swann at second slip, and Clarke ducked unblinkingly into a Broad bouncer. From Clarke, in fact, emanated signals of some distress, which cannot help but be interpreted in light of his chronic back problems. He never achieved fluency in a fifty-ball stay, and set off without looking at the umpire when he nicked a half-hearted pull as though glad the interlude was over.

  When Swann resumed after lunch, Hussey came down the track to shovel him back down the ground for six and rocked back to pull three early boundaries. It evinced less a concerted plan from the batsman than erratic length from the bowler, perhaps from an excess of sprinkler dancing. Actually slightly flattered by three overs for 34, Swann looked momentarily vulnerable. He perked up finally when able to bowl to the left-handed North, whom he dismissed for the fourth time in six matches. Suddenly his bowling acquired a little more loop and shape, a mix of speeds, and greater economy: after his early prodigality, he gave away just two runs an over.

  In the on-going battle between man and machine that is the referral system, meanwhile, Aleem Dar was outdoing Garry Kasparov against Deep Blue. For the fifth time in the game, Tony Hill upheld his judgement when England appealed for a catch at the wicket against Clarke (then on 1). Snicko later detected a tiny, indeterminate click, although this said little – studying the Australian vice-captain's struggles, you half imagined the noise to have come from his creaking back.

  Australia's backbone was Hussey. He was unbending, the slow pitch feeding the pull shot he favours, the bowlers' inconsistency of line allowing him the singles he likes. He found a trustworthy partner in Haddin, who belied his reputation for peeling off exotic 40s with a strait-laced 22 in 105 minutes. England were on the brink of a new ball at 4.20 p.m. when the heavens suddenly opened, finally reminding us that we were in Brisbane rather than the milder south. The forecast for the next three days suggests few further problems overhead; England have a few at ground level to dispose of first.

  26 NOVEMBER 2010

  MICHAEL CLARKE AND MICHAEL HUSSEY

  Two by Four

  Number four is the hinge point in any batting order. Think Tendulkar, Lara, Pietersen. In days bygone, think Greg Chappell and Graeme Pollock, David Gower and Colin Cowdrey. If your number four is making runs, your team is probably ticking over nicely. If not, his failures can reverberate down the order.

  In England last year, Australia's number four Michael Hussey could barely buy a run until the Oval Test. It seemed to set his team-mates' teeth on edge. The tale of Australian batting in Brisbane today was accordingly bittersweet. Hussey made a sterling undefeated 81. The trouble is that he is now batting at number five; a version of his earlier malaise has enveloped his successor at number four, Michael Clarke.

  First the good news – for Australia anyway. Early on, Channel Nine's protractor, which measures the alleged deviation of balls after pitching, and is studied as seriously as ballistics testimony before the Warren Commission, had little to do. By the time Hussey took guard, however, the game was in the balance at 100 for three. He propped forward to his first ball from Steve Finn, which arced from a tentative edge towards Swann at second slip. On a quicker deck, the snick would have carried comfortably; here it fell tantalisingly short. Some batsmen in this match will blame the slow pitch for their dismissals; Hussey is one who should bless it.

  For the last eighteen months, of course, far less has been coming out of Hussey's batting than has been going in. A cricketer with a Stakhanovite ethic, he reminds one of the comment attributed to his former state team-mate Graeme Wood after he was advised to relax: 'I'm working really hard on this relaxation business.' But the dwindling dividends of that physical and mental investment have sorely puzzled him. In the middle, Hussey has been lurching back and forward between strokeless defiance and headlong attack. In Mohali, he grafted almost three hours but scored from only every fifth ball he faced; in Bangalore, he played a sparkling cameo then chased a wide one. Returning home, he indulged his taste for pop philosophy by saying that he didn't 'feel the talk' about his place, and expressing the view that he was 'playing well inside myself'. Outside himself, he commenced the domestic season with three runs in three innings.

  Then last week at the MCG, Hussey peeled off a domestic hundred, and a positive hundred at that, with 72 in boundaries. It's debatable whether such performances can be deemed to represent a restoration of that precious state of grace called 'form'; Mitchell Johnson, who took a fast, furious five-for in the same game, has here bowled like a drain. But at the very least it hinted that batting proficiency is only ever an innings away.

  Here, as in Melbourne, Hussey set quickly about punishing even minor errors of length, the trampolining bounce tending to make short balls sit up for a batsman's delectation. He pulled Swann thrice early, Finn twice more, each shot comfortably controlled and kept to ground. After tea, Swann bowled to him with a deep mid-on and a deep mid-wicket, which he still bisected: in all, nine of Hussey's thirteen boundaries were cross-batted to leg. He seized on opportunities to drive too, and responded to a glare from Stuart Broad, which seems roughly equivalent to getting an earful from Aled Jones, by stroking him soundlessly through the covers – perhaps the shot of the day.

  Now for the bad news. Clarke also made a hundred in the first innings of his most recent Sheffield Shield game, but when he batted low in the order in the second innings to save the aching discs in his lower back was gingerly walking singles as he drove the ball into the deep. Clarke told anyone who would listen that he was fine coming into this Test, giving himself a clean bill of health even on Shane Warne's new talk show, but his performance today suggested that you can't believe everything you see on television.

  When Clarke's back first played up five years ago at Old Trafford, he batted like a man in a full body cast. Today he seemed resigned to limited mobility, and to be trying to play accordingly, but the conditions did not suit his forward press or his limited footwork. His travails against short-pitched bowling were painful for onlookers, and for him as well, especially when he nodded into a Broad bouncer as though he simply couldn't avoid it.

  Clarke has made himself Australian cricket's marathon man – the only player being consistently selected in all forms of the game. He is trying to prove a point, but is now in danger of proving another. A year ago, Clarke seemed a banker to replace Hussey in the number four slot, yet his average since assuming the position as of right is just 20. Thirty in April, he should be in his batting prime. Australia needs more from number four: it will have to find it from somewhere.

  27 NOVEMBER 2010

  Day 3

  Close of play: England 2nd innings 19–0

  (AJ Strauss 11*, AN Cook 6*, 15 overs)

  The first hour of the third day of the First Test contained 21 runs and the last hour 19 runs, although they were in their ways as integral to a fascinating contest as the 240 runs between times. Australia's survival of the first hour without losing a wicket was crucial to their dominance; England's similar
survival at the end offers some hope for the morrow.

  The balance of the day was almost entirely Australia's. Michael Hussey, 'Mr Cricket', fell five runs short of a double-hundred in five minutes short of 500 minutes, an innings encompassing 330 deliveries, a six, 26 fours, four threes, ten twos, and 53 singles – and which was as impressive as those vital statistics sound. It was model batting from a model professional. His head was bent as low over the ball at the end as at the start, like a schoolboy swotting over his homework.

  With the bustling Brad Haddin, Hussey constructed a record-breaking 307-run stand on sturdy foundations, taking a careful 299 balls over their first hundred runs, 158 balls over their second, and 84 over their third. England now need to bat perhaps 150 overs, about twice as long as in their first innings, to salvage a draw; it is not beyond them by any means, but nor theoretically is a political comeback by Margaret Thatcher.

  What will gall them is that it could easily have been otherwise. The first hour of the third day was the Test's tensest so far. Channel Nine are introducing new batsmen and bowlers this season with quaint identification portraits: Englishmen and Australians pose uneasily in strangely washed-out colours, which lend them the exsanguinated pallor of the stars of Twilight. Just for once, James Anderson bowled as menacingly as promised on screen, hungry for blood. He bent the ball both ways, used the full width of the crease, and beat the bat almost as often in eight overs as bowlers had in the rest of the game. There will be few better spells this summer, and few better unrewarded ones ever.

  Again, the referral system was on trial – and, frankly, flunked. After fifteen hesitant and nervous minutes, Hussey (82) was hit on the pads by Anderson and given out immediately by Aleem Dar. When Hussey challenged, replays suggested that the ball would have hit the stumps but had landed a micron outside leg. If you recall, the referral system was meant to counteract umpiring 'howlers'; this was the kind of fifty-fifty lbw decision that batsmen would once have accepted as their occasional lot, hoping for better luck another day. Yet it was overturned.