England’s captain doubled over with pain, writhed on the ground and took a few minutes to get to his feet. This is a time when Australia needs to be lively and find a spark. His fifty came with a tenth boundary just before tea, not his most controlled shot as he steered a wide delivery from Mitchell Johnson behind point.
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Hazlewood maintained a full length for 22 overs, dismissing Ballance, Adam Lyth and Jos Buttler to be the pick of the bowlers.
It’s exactly what they needed, but in the wink of an eye, England was back on top when Ian Bell and Adam Lyth chose to turn the heat up. With untried leg-breaker Adil Rashid permanently in focus, the incumbent’s spot was speculated upon more than any other in England’s XI following recent performances that failed to live up to the expectation of those of a year ago.
It was another failure for Alastair Cook as he was dismissed by Starc in the seventh over.
Ex- Australian captain Ricky Ponting said Starc looked to be dealing with some pain.
“This type of cricket, Ashes cricket, anything is possible”, he told Sky Sports Ashes.
“He’s been limping around a little bit”.
Smith, now ranked as the world’s number one Test batman, got after Moeen Ali’s off-breaks with three fours in four balls, the first a classic drive from a batsman often described as “unorthodox”.
Coming in to face the Australians with three wickets down so early on the opening morning was a perilous situation, yet he did not try to batten down the hatches and wait for the storm to pass.
Warne took to Twitter to post his thoughts on what Australia needed to do to fightback and his prediction paints a pretty bleak picture for the tourists.
Still, nothing was going right for Johnson – who ended up with his worst Test figures of nought for 111 and was rewarded with his share of “interaction” from a partisan crowd.
Lyon was also plumb lbw to Mark Wood leaving Australia’s hopes of getting past 300 down to Brad Haddin. Haddin did well to toe end one scuttler to third man, but Anderson found prodigious movement both ways and it was not long before Haddin edged an outswinger to the wicketkeeper.
Australia lost five wickets for 44 runs before lunch on Friday for a first innings deficit of 122.
The 37-year-old Rogers has been superbly consistent in a run of 50-plus scores that began against India in Brisbane in December but he will kick himself as a century appeared there for the taking.
Stuart Broad avoids a bumper – just – on Day One.
I’m just glad I got two big wickets because both of them are very good players, so it was nice to get them out.
England will be looking to scalp the reaming wicket quickly and take some 1st innings lead.
Shane Watson, the last recognized batsman, was dispatched in the second over of the day, lbw to Broad for the sixth time.
“Records are made to be broken”, said spinner Nathan Lyon.
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MOEEN Ali had a day to remember as England made life hard for Australia on the second day of the first Investec Test at the SWALEC Stadium.
