There was a thoroughly organised, integrated and cohesive team effort in the field after tea in the First Test at Sophia Gardens today. Unfortunately for England, it involved the deployment of the covers. Fortunately for England, it was in response to rain that has cast Saturday’s play into doubt, shortening the time available for Australia to prosecute an impressive and growing advantage.
Australia accreted 230 runs in the sixty-eight overs played, notwithstanding a two-hour weather interruption and an interlude of ten and a half overs containing three wickets for 32. One of those wickets was Simon Katich, tripping over a full pitch from Anderson for 122; another was captain Ricky Ponting, dragging Panesar on for 150; the third was the out-of-sorts Michael Hussey, after the false promise of a big innings at Worcester, and having been struck a glancing blow on his helmet by Flintoff. In the context of this innings, it constituted a veritable avalanche.
All told, there has been about an hour of committed, aggressive, genuinely dangerous English bowling in this match. Unfortunately they have been in the field for five and a half sessions, and between times have looked desperately pedestrian. Where Hilfenhaus in particular obtained consistent swing and Siddle impressive bounce, England has laboured in search of both. The sharp turn Hauritz achieved on Thursday morning must have been due to the curvature of the earth, because Graeme Swann and Monty Panesar have been patiently picked off without disturbance—Swann too full, Panesar too short.
England can point to an almost blameless catching record, the one chance to go down being a difficult return to Flintoff when Katich was 10. All that can be inferred from this, however, is the general sense of Australian control pervading play since an hour after lunch yesterday, prolonged today by Michael Clarke and Marcus North in a partnership of 143 runs from forty-two overs; the latter was still in possession at stumps on 54.
Clarke, made to fumble round his front pad four years ago like a man groping for a keyhole in the dark, seemed to be seeing the ball especially early today, for he had time to spare, choosing his strokes with precision and discrimination. Where even Ponting and Katich had been content to play the slower bowlers from the crease, Clarke came down the track with youthful relish, confident he would come to no harm. A fine straight six off Panesar was almost as good as a lip-smacking pull shot for four off Flintoff.
Australia’s vice-captain has been a strangely anonymous figure on this tour for someone with a fiancée and a financial profile such as his. The structure of the trip has had something to do with this. Like his captain, Clarke has no love for Twenty20, at which he averages a modest 17 and strikes at a positively lethargic 106 per 100 balls. His 83 from 145 balls today, however, seemed like a breath of Clarke at his bonny best, now a little further back than commonly imagined. To the end of last year’s series in the Caribbean, Clarke’s Test runs had been accumulated at 56 per 100 balls; since then, under the pressure of increasing adversity, his scoring rate has dropped to 47. It does not seem much, but it is a reflection of the harder times for Australia over the past year, and Clarke’s growing sense of responsibility for counteracting them.
Today we saw again the cocky, smiley Clarke, pleased with a form of cricket he is at home with, and the freedom of 3 for 325 when he came in. When he pulled the boundary that confirmed Australia’s lead, one half expected him to take a little jump and click his heels like Danny Kaye. He has made a good start on putting to rights a curious disparity between his record in Australia, where he averages 58, and in other climes, where he averages 40. England may yet test a technique seemingly susceptible to the moving ball—although first they will have to move it.
North cut some capers against Panesar when sweeping out of the rough, but otherwise looked exactly as one would expect a batsman who has experience with five counties behind him: utterly at home and awake to everything. He made 219 here five years ago for Durham when there were probably fewer people in the crowd than there are in the media centre this week. A tall, thick-set figure, he looks like the obstacle he is threatening to become in this series.
Another obstacle to both teams has been standing at the Cathedral End these three days, there being considerable grounds for griping about the burden of proof required for an lbw by umpire Billy Doctrove, inscrutable to the degree that one almost wishes to place a glass slide over his mouth. His name makes it sound like he could inspire his own sect, the Doctrovians, dedicated to clamping down on all expressions of bowling pleasure—a sort of umpiring branch of the Plymouth Brethren.
In his defence, Doctrove gave way sufficiently to adjudge Clarke caught at the wicket—a good decision, from the merest of gloves, during the twenty-five-minute resumption after the rain. But he resumed his killjoy ways by proceeding to offer the batsmen the light despite the agency of floodlights, in use for the first time in a Test match in the United Kingdom.
As the players adjourned for the last time, a group below the media centre rendered perhaps the drunkest chorus of ‘Bread of Heaven’ ever attempted, making up for in gusto what it lacked in accuracy. England’s attack should be made of such stuff.