Australia take stranglehold on first day of fourth Ashes Test

Headingley Carnegie (first day of five; England won toss): Australia, with six first-innings wickets in hand, are 94 runs ahead of England.
Throughout the summer, Andrew Strauss has been making bullish noises about his team’s ability to cope without their alpha males, Andrew Flintoff and Kevin Pietersen.
The hypothetical became a reality as England took to the field for the first time in nearly six years without either. The response was not so much a statement of independence as a cry for help, Australia bowling out England for their lowest Ashes total at Headingley in a hundred years and finishing the day in credit, if not quite yet in clover. Before the start, England were effectively five good days from regaining the Ashes. But so disastrously did things go for the first two sessions yesterday, from the early news of Flintoff’s withdrawal, to Matt Prior’s pre-match back spasm — which required a last-minute injection — to the thoroughly inept batting and bowling that, in its own way, was just as poor, that it will take a remarkable turnaround if England are to go to the Brit Oval on Thursday week with their lead intact.
This pantomime summer has seen Ricky Ponting cast as the ugly sister to Strauss’s Cinderella, booed every time he has appeared on stage. He was booed thunderously to the crease by a certain section of the crowd again, more a raspberry to interfering administrators than any hatred of Ponting, and was booed off the stage as well, but by the time he departed leg-before to Stuart Broad, his team were already 38 to the good.
Ponting played the innings of the day, even if he was helped by an England attack far more accommodating than the clowns on the Western Terrace. The bowling was short and often wide, as if to order, so that Ponting was able to showcase to his detractors the cutting and pulling at which he is just about the best in the business. He shared in a century partnership with Shane Watson, the fifty-and-out man, which consolidated his team’s earlier gains. A lead of 150 or more should prove enough.
In the wake of a first-innings batting performance so woeful that only two batsmen made double figures, questions will no doubt be asked about England’s team selection after Flintoff’s withdrawal. But those who argue for the extra batsman — selecting Jonathan Trott at the expense of Broad — will be aiming arrows at the wrong target. England were collectively awful yesterday, so much so that one player could hardly have made much difference, and Broad was the best bowler in the last session, snaring Mike Hussey leg-before as well as Ponting.
Once Prior had recovered, England made one change, Stephen Harmison replacing Flintoff. It was a show of faith in the five specialist batsmen, but they suffered a failure of nerve, technique and planning, all five caught in the arc between wicketkeeper and gully, four for single-figure scores, as Australia bowled the kind of full, probing length that was beyond England later.
Certainly this proved to be a decent toss to lose for Ponting, the ball swinging consistently in the morning and darting off a dry surface like a chased buck, but that is expected at this most capricious of grounds. Headingley demands craftsman-like disciplines — playing tightly around off stump, not driving anything other than halfvolleys, not chasing anything too wide — and these were ignored.
Credit, though, to Australia, who, by replacing Nathan Hauritz with Stuart Clark, got their selections spot on and set about consolidating the momentum they believed had come their way at Edgbaston with their best bowling performance of the summer.
Although Peter Siddle took five wickets, the first and the last four, Clark was central to Australia’s improvement. His absence until now has been a surprise because he has always seemed ideally suited to English conditions. There have been whispers that he has lost a little of his nip, but given the movement on offer, the premium was on accuracy, not pace. A ten-over spell of exquisite medium-pace swing and cut either side of lunch brought him four maidens, three wickets — Alastair Cook and Paul Collingwood pushing forward and Broad clipping to short square leg — and England just 18 runs. He applied the tourniquet that Australia have been missing throughout the summer.
Clark’s pressure from one end brought benefits at the other as England’s middle order was exposed again. Ravi Bopara, looking increasingly out of his depth at No 3, hung his bat out limply to Ben Hilfenhaus and was caught in the gully, while Ian Bell failed to get his glove out of the way of a ripsnorting bouncer from the improving Mitchell Johnson. Only Prior, stranded on 37, stood tall.
It was the most difficult day that Strauss has had as captain, with a fire alarm going off at the team hotel at an unsociable hour and the shenanigans surrounding Prior’s late fitness test. The key for captains who are opening batsmen is to be able to put the worries to one side when the first ball comes down. But there was so much going on before the start of play, so many decisions to make and such a short space of time once the toss had been put back by ten minutes, that it would have been near impossible.
So when Hilfenhaus bowled a perfect first ball — the kind that a left-hander dreads above all (full length and swinging back into the pads) — the surprise was not that Strauss missed it, but that Billy Bowden did not raise the crooked finger. It was plumb.
A mighty reprieve, then, but the captain’s mind was clearly elsewhere, and he wafted 16 balls later at a wide ball from Siddle, Marcus North pouching a stunner at slip. It was a bad start for Strauss on a day when his Ashes dreams may have turned to dust.
Scoreboard
England: First Innings*A J Strauss c North b Siddle 3A N Cook c Clarke b Clark 30R S Bopara c Hussey b Hilfenhaus 1I R Bell c Haddin b Johnson 8P D Collingwood c Ponting b Clark 0†M J Prior not out 37S C J Broad c Katich b Clark 3G P Swann c Clarke b Siddle 0S J Harmison c Haddin b Siddle 0J M Anderson c Haddin b Siddle 3G Onions c Katich b Siddle 0Extras (b 5, lb 8, w 1, nb 3) 17Total (33.5 overs) 102
Fall of wickets: 1-11, 2-16, 3-39, 4-42, 5-63, 6-72, 7-92, 8-98, 9-102.
Bowling: Hilfenhaus 7-0-20-1; Siddle 9.5-0-21-5; Johnson 7-0-30-1; Clark 10-4-18-3.
Australia: First InningsS R Watson lbw b Onions 51S M Katich c Bopara b Harmison 0*R T Ponting lbw b Broad 78M E K Hussey lbw b Broad 10M J Clarke not out 34M J North not out 7Extras (b 9, lb 3, w 2, nb 2) 16Total (4 wkts, 47 overs) 196
†B J Haddin, M G Johnson, S R Clark, P M Siddle and B W Hilfenhaus to bat.
Fall of wickets: 1-14, 2-133, 3-140, 4-151.
Bowling: Anderson 12-2-55-0; Harmison 13-3-55-1; Onions 11-2-45-1; Broad 11-4-29-2.
Umpires: Asad Rauf (Pakistan) and B F Bowden (New Zealand).
Source:The times