Equality at Lords

Meeting the Queen at Lords

It's hard to imagine that an Australian cricket team has ever arrived on English soil in a more broken state than the 2013 team. Flogged at their last outing, with a batting lineup that had only one world class player and enthusiastic triers at best to send down the Dukes and yet playing was only part of the problem. Off the field, their spirit had been scattered into component parts: jigsaw pieces which had somehow dropped from the box, destined for the vacuum cleaner.

Whilst part of the Test team bounded through the Celtic countries squashing ants, the rest added further misery and disharmony to their burden in the Champions Trophy.

Until ... Darren Lehmann. Two weeks after Mark Taylor was re-elected to the Cricket Australia board, Mickey Arthur was sent to play with his lawyers, Michael Clarke allowed to play with his team and Lehmann started playing with the teams heads. Reshaping perhaps. Releasing them from constraints placed there by inferior psycho babble and plugging connections back into the simplicity of being men who play cricket - men in Baggy Green caps who play cricket - and introducing them to heroes who have done it before.

There is a long way to go on this journey for Test players who don't know yet what they are talking about but at least they are starting to say the right things. Hopeless has morphed into hopeful.

Australia made two changes to their beaten first Test team and despite losing the toss, made the most of their chances to put the skids under an English batting order which has been touted for its superiority over the visitors. Ed Cowan was replaced by Usman Khawaja, whose career debut was in the last Test of the previous Ashes series, replacing an injured Ricky Ponting. Since then, he has played only five additional Tests, always as a replacement and never demanding a permanent berth with performances convincing enough. At the toss, Michael Clarke was definite that this was Khawaja's week and he would be grabbing the number three spot and making it his own.

The other change was the addition of Ryan Harris in place of the erratic Mitchell Starc. The left hander might  bowl five unplayable balls per day which might get you wickets but the rest are a mixed bag and a lack of control won't beat this England side. Consistent pressure is the secret to victory over England. Harris swings the ball away from where he places it on off stump and despite being a yard slower - an old term commensurate with my own experience - he can still grunt a ball around your ears quicker than you'd like.

Steve Waugh living
Qasimodo's dream

Steve Waugh, the former Australia captain, had the honour of ringing the bell in the member's stand, the tradition that marks the players entering the field of play to start the Test. In commentary, Shane Warne, who had some harsh comments to make in the Sydney Morning Herald about the negative nature of Waugh's leadership, drew the comment of the morning from former England opening batsmen, David "Bumble" Lloyd.

"Steve Waugh rang the bell this morning here at Lords Bumble," said Warne.

"Probably sledged it first," was the reply.

There were moments of lightness, banter and physical bumping between Darren Lehmann and Michael Clarke as they waited on Her Majesty. One couldn't imagine the same with the former coach. Its only one reason to be glad he is gone. There are four million others.

Harris had 2 wickets
in his first five overs

The first hour of a perfect morning on a tame first day pitch on what is traditionally the best place to bat in England, was nothing but disaster for the home side. Harris struck twice in his opening five overs and when his opening partner, James Pattinson, was wayward with his first few overs, Clarke quickly replaced him with the enigmatic Shane Watson. It took him just two balls to bend one back at Alastair Cook's pads and send the England captain back to the sheds, so plumb that there he never considered a review. Harris' double strike in the next over removed Joe Root and Kevin Pietersen. Pietersen was done by one that moved away and clipped the outside edge on its way to Brad Haddin but it was Root, again involved in a DRS controversy, who had officials shaking their heads. Depending on your opinion, the ball struck the bat first or the pad first but according to Tony Hill, it was the pad. It was such a line-ball decision that no one would have argued either way.

A delayed drinks owing to a pre-match visit by Queen Elizabeth, saw England 3-42 but the second hours belonged to Jonathan Trott and Ian Bell. The Australians bowled well but were met with stubborn resistance. Despite regularly bending the ball away outside off stump, as lunch approached, deliveries started to veer to a middle and leg stump line and like any good Test batsman, they feasted. Pattinson was often short outside off stump and the dry outfield, especially on the downhill side, sped the ball to the boundary.

Regardless, it was Australia's session.

Things changed after lunch. 61 was added in the first hour, despite the loss of Trott, who again appeared to through away a confident start and all the children sitting at his feet whilst he told the stories. There were eleven boundaries in his 58 and until he lifted Harris with the laziest, well-timed turn off from above his waist to Khawaja at deep midwicket, a century looked his destiny.

Siddle accuses the popping crease

The next hour was better for Australia. Jonny Bairstow, batting with storm clouds gathering over his future and suitable replacements scoring good county runs, still couldn't play the ball to where it came from and was across the line. He issues a further invitation to demise by not watching the ball all the way to the blade in the way that his batting partner Bell does with great vigilance. Ultimately, he was bowled again, playing across a Peter Siddle full delivery angling in at his off stump, as Bairstow tried to place it through midwicket. Replays showed his eyes elsewhere. Unfortunately for Siddle, they also showed his front foot elsewhere and although there were blades of grass in the decision, the third umpire called recalled Bairstow correctly and fairly.

Siddle, for all his effort and reliability, still hasn't learnt from prior mistakes which have also cost him Test scalps. If his heel had behaved, 5-168 three overs from tea and biscuits might have changed the course of this day.

As it was, Bairstow and Bell batted deep into the last session, adding 144, until Clarke pulled an angora from his cap, wanting no doubt to use all his tricks before calling on the new ball. Steve Smith, the very essence of the part-timer, fulfilled an English tradition at the home of same - the English fallibility to leg spin bowling. These days, Smith is restricted to goaded references and harsh treatment in the Australian nets, many believing Lehmann more potent but he removed Bell, caught at slip by Clarke, Bairstow, hitting a lazy full toss back to the bowler and Matt Prior with an ordinary ball short of a length that should have been hit severely but was top edged to Brad Haddin.

It was a spell to dine out on from a bloke who is embarrassed to bowl but for a second time in the day, Clarke had produced a hunch which ripped through England.

Ian Bell's hundred was different to Trent Bridge, with more strokes and many of

Ian Bell made superb 109

them wonderful drives through the off side. It was his third in three successive Ashes Tests, a feat only performed by Jack Hobbs, Wally Hammond and Stuart Broad's old man, Chris. Two of those were great batsmen. Bell, after his mediocre start against Warne and McGrath years ago, stands on the threshold of greatness himself. His strokes have always been worthy but his temperament, exposed as a young man, is the difference. Perhaps these ten Ashes Tests, home and away, might tell us more. If so, he's doing a good job of convincing doubters.

Jimmy Anderson came in as night watchman to protect England's No 9, Stuart Broad. Its a practice that should be legislated against just on the grounds of its stupidity. The new ball was taken for the last two overs, Harris nearly finding Tim Bresnan's edge but Pattinson against wasteful.

If England didn't realise this series would be a contest after Trent Bridge, the first day at Lords will be a sharp reminder they will be required to play good cricket for the next six weeks. Given Australia's entree into this series, that more than most citizens of the great southern land could have expected.