It was going exactly as predicted.
In the first session, Australia’s shoddy lower order fell to the class of Jimmy Anderson and Graham Swan with an ease that even I found frightening. We lost 5/9 in 32 balls and still trailed by 100 runs chasing a paltry 215. With fine weather and cockahoop, England needed only to take the final scalp, enjoy the best day of batting for the test and watch as Swan humiliated Australia on the drying track in three and half days. The Test was over.
Then what strode to the wicket was not so much a gangling Australian youth as it was a gigantic Black Swan, waddling in from Perth like some feathered behemoth.
Ashton Agar then proceeded to demolish England’s attack for 1o1 balls, scoring 98, the highest number 11 dig in the history of the game. Phil Hughes ably supported him at the other end, out-scored 2-1, and not out in the end on 81.
England lost the plot. They banged the ball into the pitch in frustration and got caned to square leg by Agar and to point by Hughes. Steve Finn needs a serious dressing down.
But does it change anything? Cyclically it most certainly it does. England is now 2/80 with a lead of just 15. They need another 250 to make a game of it. Australia has its nose in front.
But structurally nothing has changed. The Jimmy Anderson and Graham Swan show was seriously intimidating in the morning. Anderson is the best swing bowler I have ever seen. When excellent batting conditions prevented him from using orthodox swing he quickly shifted to reverse swing going both ways and scythed through the Australian lower order like they were cardboard cutouts.
Swan was turning the ball sideways on a day two pitch and will be very tough on wearing tracks. What he lacks in variety he makes up for in bravado and and sheer tweak velocity.
Hughes’s performance was professional but his awful technique was painful to watch and he will be found out on more lively English tracks. Worse, this performance will cement his position for the series.
Our own bowlers looked like a herd of directionless buffalo in the second innings, thundering into the pitch all muscle and grunt, and lacking completely in the finessed skills on display in the morning. The exception was Starc who consistently swung the ball in and rode his luck to capture two wickets before tea, strangling Joe Root down the leg side and enjoying a dodgy LBW of Jonathon Trott in consecutive balls. The English were impressive if boring in the final session with Alistair Cook and Kevin Pieterson turning back Australia’s powerful momentum.
In short, nothing has changed in the structure of the series. A Black Swan caused an English stock crash on day two but their fundamentals remain far more sound than our own. We must seize our good fortune!.
Scorecards courtesy of The Sun:
