CRICKET/Ashes Series, First Test:All things considered, and there were quite a few of those, England played with commendable spirit while under the cosh for almost the entire first day of the series. Australia came out of their corner punching madly, with Justin Langer hitting 82 with such abandon he could scarce wipe the grin from his face such larks was it, and with a bit of luck England might have been able to make some headway.
In fact, in trying conditions they managed to take three wickets before tea, two to Andrew Flintoff and one to Ashley Giles, reinstated to the side at the expense of the people's champion, Monty Panesar.
That, though, was as good as it got. For the last five hours they had to cope with Ricky Ponting who, having won a toss his counterpart would dearly love to have called right, compiled a century of the highest class, his 32nd in Tests. That places him alongside Steve Waugh and behind only Sachin Tendulkar's 35, and Sunil Gavaskar and Brian Lara on 34.
The Australia captain made 137 not out, with 16 fours. He was solidity itself in defence, an object lesson in footwork, and merciless through midwicket, his great strength. But he pulled emphatically too, drove down the ground, and plundered through the off side off the back foot.
James Anderson sneaked a couple past him, once all but bowling him through the gate, and Flintoff thundered in and left him groping.
On a first-day pitch, though, that is being picky. Only once, on 72, when Giles tempted him to sweep and saw the ball straighten on to his pads, could he have been dismissed. Umpire Billy Bowden scratched his nose, shook his head and gave him the benefit of what little doubt there was.
By then Ponting had embarked on a fourth-wicket partnership with Michael Hussey that brought the last 148 of Australia's 346 for three, just 18 runs fewer and one wicket more than Australia had managed on that awful first day in Brisbane four years ago.
Somehow this did not seem remotely in that league. Hussey, for his part, had moved smoothly and chancelessly to 63, although to general surprise and some English consternation he was thrice beaten by sharply turning off-breaks from Kevin Pietersen, the seventh and last bowler tried by Flintoff in a quest to make a further breakthrough.
Much talk before the match centred around the pitch, reputed to be the last relic of Australian surfaces of legend that had pace and carry. Even Perth, they say, has, like Tigger, lost its bounce. Maybe too much was made of it. On the eve of the game, Adam Gilchrist reported it as drier than usual. Later Ponting surmised it was juicier than many in previous years. This lived down to expectation, however, offering good carry to Geraint Jones only when the pacemen bent their backs.
More importantly, until the old ball began to reverse a shade later on, there had been neither swing with the new ball for Matthew Hoggard and Anderson, nor seam movement for Flintoff and Steve Harmison. It is said the lush outfield will stop England gaining the sort of advantage they had at home during the last series, where reverse swing was a key.
It was, it must be said, a trying day for Harmison. The hope had been that he would terrorise the Australians with velocity and steepling lift. Later in the day, with the old ball - Flintoff denied him the second new ball, taken six overs before stumps - he put in some worthy work.
The start, though, will go down as the most bizarre in Ashes history. For 10 minutes before play, Harmison had warmed up on the outfield with the bowling coach, Kevin Shine, sending ball after ball over a single sawn-down stump. Some hopes.
Given the first over, just as at Lord's two summers ago, he roared in to Langer from the Stanley Street end, and sent the opening shot of the series straight to his captain standing at second slip, who, expecting it perhaps, caught it with wonderful sang-froid and lobbed it back. If he had watched the edge of the bat rather than the ball it might have kneecapped him and it needed a heart of stone not to laugh.
Quite why an international bowler can fail to keep the ball within the same postal district as the pitch is a mystery. Technical, say some; mental, cry others. Whatever, he was abysmal.
Flintoff by contrast was superb, allowing himself half a dozen bursts during the day, none of them longer than four overs, but each one menacing.
Matthew Hayden, a grafting curmudgeon now compared with the bully of yore, had no answer, drawn into pushing at a ball angled only slightly across him and edging to second slip. Later, shortly after lunch, Langer, with a century there for the taking, slapped a ball barely short of a length to Pietersen at cover point.
The wicket of Damien Martyn, who was gleefully caught by Paul Collingwood at slip as he cut at Giles, can be considered a bonus.
Guardian Service
