Aussies show some fight

Australia piled up 287 for three on the first day of the final Ashes Test against England.

Australia piled up 287 for three on the first day of the final Ashes Test against England.

Published Aug 21, 2015

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They may have made all the right noises about the importance of ending this tumultuous Ashes with a bang but England could not quite bring themselves to kick Australia while they were down.

There was something of an ‘after the Lord Mayor’s Show’ feel to the first day of the final Investec Test, even though the stage was set for one last push by England to try to earn an historic fourth win in a home series against Australia.

The pitch at The Kia Oval looked unusually green and there was plenty of cloud cover to encourage the bowlers when Alastair Cook again won what looked like an important toss and had no hesitation in asking Australia to bat.

Yet, whether it was down to a barely discernible lack of edge to the England attack or long overdue Australian resistance, what unfolded did not follow the script that Cook would have desired to end this unpredictable summer.

There was little arguing with his decision to bowl, despite the historic reliability of the Oval surface and a suspicion that this year’s pitch was not quite as seamer-friendly as it looked.

This, though, could hardly have been a more different opening day from that at Trent Bridge, where Australia were bowled out for 60 before lunch and England were well on the way to an Ashes-clinching win by the close.

For 60 all out read 82 without loss at lunch yesterday as Australia finally found the application that has been missing from batting derided as ‘diabolical’ by their own chairman of selectors, Rod Marsh, after the Nottingham calamity.

Marsh must have been wondering what took Australia so long as, with the urn lost and their side resembling a divided rabble before this match, they finally played watchfully and skilfully left the moving ball.

England did not do much wrong, apart from bowling a little too short with the new ball, but this time they found their route to easy wickets blocked by Chris Rogers in his last Test and David Warner in his first since being named vice-captain.

The volatile Warner is an incredibly risky choice by Australia as Steve Smith’s new right-hand man but if this is what responsibility does to his game then perhaps it is not such a barmy decision by Marsh and company after all.

Here the man who has a much better record in second innings than first saw the shine off the new ball, which is how it used to be done, before hitting the day’s first boundary in the 15th over and then moving up through the gears.

At the other end Rogers, who is going to bow out from international cricket aged 37 after one blow to the head too many, was quietly becoming the leading run scorer in this series with his uncomplicated brand of no-nonsense batting.

This was Test cricket but not as we have known it during this turbo-charged summer that has seen the ultimate game turned on its head by a new positive, helter-skelter, Twenty20-influenced game.

Not that there was anything wrong with batsmen making bowlers work for their wickets, as Rogers did before Mark Wood, the pick of the England attack, gained reward for a spell of short bowling by inducing a nick to slip.

Warner looked certain to reach three figures but he has found Moeen Ali’s bowling troublesome throughout this series and now, with a hundred in sight, he too edged to slip to fall to the off-spinner for the fourth time in this series.

Enter Michael Clarke in his own last Test to a standing ovation from the Oval crowd and a guard of honour from the England team which ended with Cook removing his cap and shaking the Australian captain’s hand. It seemed an old-fashioned gesture on an old-fashioned day but it was one that may have disturbed Clarke’s focus — in the style of Don Bradman, who was dismissed for a duck in his final Test — and he would have been run out first ball had Ian Bell reacted quicker at leg slip.

Clarke had said before the Test that he did not care if he scored enough runs here to end with an average of 50 and, as Bradman finished on 99 at The Oval, so might Clarke conclude on 49 as he again fell cheaply.

This time it was Ben Stokes who had Clarke edging behind, a desperate review not being able to save him, and this under-appreciated figure departed to another ovation with no fairytale finish in sight just yet.

At least Clarke’s successor in Smith held firm to ensure this was undoubtedly Australia’s day, even though he could easily have fallen in a fidgety opening that again raised question marks over his suitability at No 3.

Once Smith had got through the jitters he gained in confidence, punching Moeen straight for six, and ended unbeaten on 78 after finding a capable partner in Adam Voges, who was on 47 when bad light brought a premature close.

A low-key day then, at least in the context of this thrilling Ashes, but one that ended with England having much to do if they are going to force that fourth win that would mean so much to them. – Daily Mail

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