Collingwood and lower order save smidgin of respect for England: Ashes T1 D5

England 435 and 9/252 (P Collingwood 74) drew with Australia 6/674 dec: Ashes T#1 D5 at Cardiff

Well it didn't turn out as I and most other commentators expected. England, more precisely numbers 5 to 11 inclusive, batted as if the series depended on their finding sufficient guts and determination to keep a good, though not world beating, Australian attack at bay.

Paul Collingwood's 74 (334 min/245b/13x4) was of course the platform around which the resistance rallied after Andrew Strauss, Kevin Pietersen and Matt Prior didn't trouble the scorers, or the Australian bowlers, very much.

At 5/70 England looked finished but somehow the remaining batters found some g & d: not in lavish quantities but collectively sufficient to - just - hold out. When Collingwood was ninth out out at 233 again it seemed all over but Jimmy Anderson (not surprisingly) and Monty Panesar (very surprisingly) stayed together for the remaining 11.3 overs. The Australians generally bowled well, if occasionally erratically, though one or two of them showed signs of tiredness in the final session: has Nathan Hauritz ever bowled 37 overs in an innings before, I wonder?

Enough for now. I stayed up until after 3am local time to watch the finish. England were outplayed for much of the match but, Test cricket being Test cricket, a draw is a legitimate result. In the post match euphoria England and their supporters will feel enervated and Australia dispirited, but as the Lords Test (which starts on Thursday) draws closer the realisation that this was a moral victory to Australia will surely grow.

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Aust biff 1/195 , England scratch 2/20 in short day's play: Ashes 09 T1 D4

England 435 and 2/20 trail Australia 6/674 dec (R Ponting 150, M North 125*, S Katich 122, B Haddin 121) by 219 runs with 8 second inns wickets in hand: Ashes T#1, D4 at Cardiff.

The forecast rain did not eventuate until tea, when it terminated play for the day. Marcus North's 125* and Brad Haddin's 121, were the high points of the two sessions but, without taking anything away from them, England's tactics, general lassitude (as if they were waiting for the rain to come) and blatant attempts to slow the game down backfired. This was particularly evident in the pre-lunch session where only 27 wicketless overs, 10 - the best 10 - by spinners were bowled for 98 runs.

Why Stuart Broad, the weakest of the frontline bowlers, opened the bowling instead of Andrew Flintoff (weary?) or a spinner, was beyond me. I couldn't see why a new ball was taken when Graeme Swann and Monty Panesar in tandem were getting some sharp spin. A few overs' delay would probably have made North work harder for his century and Haddin for his 50. Given the acceleration which accompanied, as it often does, the taking of the new ball, the achievement of those milestones would almost certainly have been deferred until after lunch.

As it was the lunch score of 5/557, the late arrival of the rain and England's dropping its collective bundle provided a perfect launching pad for Haddin to gallop to a hundred in the afternoon. He was out, caught by Ravi Bopara in the outfield off Paul Collingwood's medium pace (which looked worth more than 9 of the 181 overs bowled) for a devastating 121 (151b/11x4, 3x6). Marcus North remained not out 125 (232b/13x4) as Australia posted its highest total against England for a long, long time.

Mentally shattered (check the TV footage and pictures if you require corroboration) and with only a draw to play for, England faltered against the rested Australian attack. On the radio Geoffrey Boycott wrote off Mitchell Johnson's first over as "tripe", though he did have a good word for Ben Hilfenhaus, before each of them struck: Alastair Cook lbw Johnson 6 and Ravi Bopara (unluckily) judged lbw Hilfenhaus 1.

Assuming there are no further weather interruptions, England need to bat for 98 overs to save the match. Not bloomin' likely.

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Good Australian batting+ foul Cardiff weather= draw? Ashes 09 T1 D3

Australia 5/479 (139 ov, R Ponting 150, S Katich 122, M Clarke 83, M North 54*) lead England 435 by 44 runs with 5 1st inns wickets in hand: Ashes Test #1 Day 3 at Cardiff.

England's 15 minutes or thereabouts of sunshine came before lunch as Australia slipped from 1/299 to 4/331. Simon Katich was lbw to Jimmy Anderson for a worthy if tad fortunate 122/261b/12x4, Ricky Ponting played on to Monty Panesar for a topnotch 150/224b/14x4, 1x6, and Michael Hussey was caught behind off Anderson for a scrappy 3.

Thereafter it was all Australia. Michael Clarke and Marcus North took the total past England's before rain intervened. When play resumed with the ground floodlights on (a first for England the UK) they extended their partnership to 143 before the vice-captain succumbed to Stuart Broad for a classy 83/145b/9x4, 1x6.

TV pictures show that the pitch appears to have deteriorated since the match began yet you wouldn't know that from the way England bowled.

With Cardiff now comfortably supplanting Manchester as the wettest Test venue in the UK (1,061 v 810 mm ave annual rainfall) and an unpromising forecast it looks as if a draw is now even more the likeliest result. If that happens and given the dominance of bat over ball in this match we may be condemned to several highscoring draws in the rest of this series.

I hope not, despite the quality batting from Ponting and others which, if you haven't already seen, look out for on TV or online eg here.

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Katich-Ponting partnership keeps Australia in game: Ashes 09 T1D2

Australia 1/249 (71 ov, S Katich 104*, R Ponting 100*) trail England 435 on first inns by 186 runs with 9 wkts in hand : Ashes Test #1 Day 2 at Cardiff

As a spectacle the match remained attractive during the first session as the English lower order, led by Graeme Swann's 47/40b/ 6x4, thumped the Australian bowlers for another 99 runs from only 101 balls.

On a pitch where the ball occasionally removed divots 435 looked pretty good.

When Australia batted Phillip Hughes kept the momentum going with 36/54b/ 5x4 in what we now recognise as his unique style. Neither James Anderson nor Stuart Broad could exploit Hughes' weakness against well directed short bowling as Steve Harmison had done in the England Lions game. Andrew Flintoff at second change (why didn't he open the bowling?) lifted the team with a fiery spell which removed Hughes and would have done the same to Simon Katich but for a dropped return catch.

Thereafter Katich gradually overcame his early scratchiness and Ricky Ponting, who was in pretty good touch from the outset, restored the match as a contest. Their unbroken 189/ 56ov 2nd wicket partnership made the England attack look increasingly bland. Both men reached their centuries just before stumps, when Katich was 104*/219b/8x4 and Ponting 100*/155b/8x4.

Given the uncertainty about the wicket (and perhaps the weather) Australia will need many more runs to minimise the risk of defeat. Victory may be unlikely but after Adelaide 2006-07 not impossible. For the moment a draw looks the likeliest outcome, but if you can watch the first couple of sessions of Day 3, and not just to watch Ponting, if he stays in, in top form.

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England have better of day's play... just: Ashes09 T1 D1

England 7/336 (90ov, K Pietersen 69, P Collingwood 64, M Prior 56) v Australia:
Ashes Test #1 Day 1 at Cardiff

7/336 looks a reasonable score on a pitch with a bit of turn and uneven bounce, though Kevin Pietersen was out to a stupid shot when he looked well on the way to a century (having been treated leniently by the umpires earlier).

Questions

1. Why did Australia omit Stuart Clark?

He's the most experienced bowler in the squad and the pitch looked well suited to his bowling style.

2. Why did Australia include Nathan Hauritz?

Sure, he got Pietersen out (from his widest delivery) and extracted some slow turn but as the TV pitch map showed he generally bowled too short. I agree with the caustic piece, written before play began, by Patrick Smith in today's Australian .

3. Why did England include Monty Panesar instead of Graeme Onions?

Apart from England's warm up match last week how long is it since Panesar has shown any form? I thought Onions bowled soundly ( without Harmison's sharp edge) for the Lions, and well, albeit in favourable early season conditions, in the West Indies Tests.

4. Why did Pietersen play that shot?

Plenty of others, including the man himself, will have their five cents or pence worth about this.

5. Why didn't Marcus North bowl?

A few days ago he was Australia's no1 spinner. He didn't bowl particularly well in the Lions match but then neither did Hauritz or any of the acknowledged part-timers. Is he now no 4 in the spin bowling order?

6. Will the pitch improve or slowly deteriorate?

I can't say. The general opinion among experts seems to be that it'll turn more as the match proceeds.

Electronic media coverage

Both SBS and Fox Sports relayed the UK Sky TV coverage, supplemented by expert comments from the studio (SBS) and the ground (Fox). I jumped between the two and listened for a while to ABC radio's coverage. The SBS picture is a little better than the Fox one (at least on my set), yet I think it was SBS who cut to an ad during a replay at the end of one over.

Why isn't, as happens with other teams touring England, eg New Zealand, at least one of the Aussie commentators integrated into the Sky commentary team? During the tea interval Fox's Messrs Border, Julian and Blewett struggled to compete with Tom Jones belting it out over the ground PA system.

One day to go

The build up to the Ashes continues. In today's Australian, for example, there is a glossy supplement and articles by Ricky Ponting "We've put on our Test match faces", Mike Atherton (via The Times) and, in less serious vein, the BBC's Australian Correspondent Nick Bryant "The baggy green goes metrosexual":

In this new celebritocracy, Clarke and Lara Bingle are obviously cast as Posh and Becks; Brett Lee is celebrated as much for his Bollywood melodies as his chin music; and Johnson achieves almost as much fame as the torso of the "Men of Cricket" calendar as the tormentor of visiting batsmen. After being sent home from England in disgrace, Andrew Symonds meets the televisual requirements of the age by seeking prime-time, public redemption: a soft-focus confessional on 60Minutes.

Atherton is close, though not as close as Ponting, to the action, so his views, many of which he'd expressed during his TV commentary stints during the England Lions match at Worcester, are particularly interesting. He describes what he sees as Australia's lack of "aura" or "presence" but in the end can't bring himself to conclude that England are favourites. Equals yes, but not favourites:

It is the lack of aura generally that stood out watching the Australians go about their business in Worcester. They have always been among the most down to earth, likeable and approachable of cricketers off the field. It was good to see some of them walking back to their hotel last week carrying their backpacks and not a security guard in sight, for instance - something from which England's more starry-eyed and precious bunch could learn.

But along with that bloke-next-door image there has always been, in the past decade, a heavy sprinkling of cricketing stardust. Sit a table away from Warne and Glenn McGrath at breakfast, and you knew that there were two players with more than a thousand Test wickets munching through their toast; or if you happened to be next to Justin Langer and Matthew Hayden, there were 53 Test centuries staring back at you. It takes the edge off their approachability.

That aura, that presence, is just not there now - indeed, there are a few who could easily walk down any high street in England and not be recognised. England, then, walks on to the field in Cardiff as equals, in their own minds and everyone else's. That is a big change.

Australia are a workmanlike side: fit, professional, battle-hardened, as all Australian cricketers are, but workmanlike nonetheless. It is a team typified, perhaps, by the likes of Marcus North, Simon Katich, Brad Haddin and Peter Siddle, good cricketers all but none of whom would have made any Australia team between 1993 and 2001 and all of whom have yet to prove their Ashes mettle.

Ashes history points to Australia - even in England where they have won more Tests than the home side. Whatever the outcome, though, another wonderful narrative, full of great characters, great deeds and great drama, is about to unfold.

Australia bat Lions out of game as umpire's back strikes

Australia 358 and 4/438 dec (M North 191*, M Clarke 80, M Hussey 62 ret hurt) drew with England Lions 352 and 4/162: Tour match Day 4 at Worcester.

Scorecard


A not unpredictable result.

Postives for Australia which emerged from the match:

# Batting of Mike Hussey, Marcus North and Michael Clarke

# Brett Lee's bowling

Continuing concerns:

# Spin bowling: I thought Simon Katich looked the best of the three who bowled in the Lions' second innings

# Phillip Hughes opening the batting

# Brad Haddin's wicketkeeping.

Photos

1. Umpire Evans collapsing at what turned out to be the end of the match: note Australians first to help him.

2. Nasser Hussain during a tea interval masterclass doing an unacknowledged imitation of Victor Trumper.