Background: Great preparation for England, winning loads of warm ups with a settled and happy side. Not so much for Australia, who only decided on their team the day before, and come into this test on the back of 3 test defeats in a row.
How did it start: With a bit of a ceremony. The teams lined up for a minutes silence for the NZ Miners, and then we had a "Welcome To Australia" speech. Everyone sang along to the national anthems (curiously except Hilfenhaus - German?) and we got underway. Strauss won the toss and had a bat.
Where did it all go wrong for Australia?: Allowing Cook and Bell to get on top of them during the second session. And a sort-of costly drop of Cook from Doherty early
Where did it all go right for Australia?: Peter Siddle's hat trick. That, and constant wickets throughout, restricted England to a below par 260
Where did it all go wrong for England?: Strauss getting a third ball duck didn't help, neither did losing three in three later on.
Where did it all go right for England?: The form of Ian Bell looks superb; only giving his wicket away at the end when batting with the tail. Pietersen looks in a good place with his game, and signs of improvement from Cook.
Who won each session?: Morning - honours even. Just about. But probably shaded by Australia. Afternoon - same again. But maybe England with two set batsmen felt happier. Evening - Australia. 6 wickets for not many runs, and getting through the last few overs unscathed.
Who won the day?: Australia. Big time. Restricted England to a below par score, and have already started to chip away at it.
Crumb of comfort?: A few of England's top order looked in good nick, with Bell and Cook passing fifty, and Pietersen looking likely to go on (before he got out of course).
Shot of the day: Jimmy Anderson's reverse sweep off Doherty for 4. (Before he tried the same shot again and missed it)
Ball of the day: Peter Siddle's ball to Prior (the second part of the hat trick). Bowled him middle stump; Prior was nowhere near it.
Man of the day: Peter Siddle. How could it be anyone else?
And finally... Ashes Oddity: The "Welcome To Australia" bloke's tie. That, and the sheer amount of moustaches on show. I know it's Movember and all, but that was ridiculous.
The Hilfen King is of course a native Australian despite his name, his tribe, the Hilfenhauses, lives in clusters in West Germany though (I had looked that up a while ago out of interest). But Oz is an immigrant nation and people have weird names sometimes, like Ajmal Shahzad or Andrew Strauss, which is German as well, meaning ostrich, or bunch (of flowers).
ReplyDeleteHilf not singing the anthem might just be because he can't sing for shit, you see that with footballers frequently, they simply feel too embarrassed to sing.
I forgot, in your podcast posts, could you perhaps also include the podbean link, it is always a pain in the arse to find it, and I am too stupid to remember the podcast blogroll on my blog,
ReplyDeletethanks,
cheers :P
Of course I know Hilf is a 100% Aussie - would be slightly hypocritical for me to call out Australia with KP and Trott batting 3 and 4...
ReplyDeleteAnd will stick the Podbean link up on the pod posts - although their all linked to on the Podcast tab on the top of the page :)
I do apologise for that awful piece of grammar - of course I meant "they're"
ReplyDelete