By Scyld Berry in Adelaide
ALEC Stewart's team had a fine chance to quieten the Australian contempt for English cricket - nothing of course will ever silence it - and they blew their opportunity completely. In fact England would not have reached 187 without some generous offerings from two spin-bowlers who are making their debut for South Australia, one of them 18 years old.
Australia win their Test matches by making huge first-innings totals and by steadily burying their opponents under the mountain. To save their skins, and keep the Ashes smouldering, England have to match Australia in this respect, not make molehills as they did yesterday.
Eradicating soft dismissals is the first step towards England scoring those large first innings, but against South Australia four of the six specialist batsmen got themselves out. ``The boys have held their hands up and said they can and must do better,'' admitted the coach David Lloyd. ``There were no great terrors in the pitch, the shot-selection was poor.''
By far the most worrying of the failures was that of Mark Butcher, who has lost all his bubble since the blow to his face and 10 stitches at Perth.
The first ball at Butcher on his return, from Jason Gillespie, landed in exactly the same place, around leg stump, only to rise so sluggishly that Butcher had plenty of time to pat it down. But for his 23 remaining balls he was hesitant, slow, ponderous, before failing to withdraw his bat and edging a catch behind.
As Butcher has only three possible innings to go before the first Test, Lloyd and Graham Gooch have a big job to do in building him up again. The remaining state game will be in Cairns, ``a top ground'' according to the old fast bowler Jeff Thomson, though it will be new to England. The full Queensland side, however, will be gunning for England next weekend, unlike South Australia and Western Australia, who have lacked half their regulars, mostly in the bowling and middle order.
If Butcher's confidence is shot to pieces, England have little room to manoeuvre. For one thing there is not enough time to fly out a reserve opening batsman and prepare him before the series; for another, there isn't one worth flying out, who wouldn't have his technique dissected by Glenn McGrath. The only alternative if Butcher does not rally is for Stewart to abandon wicketkeeping and open.
Mike Atherton was one of the two batsmen who did not get himself out: a good catch off a firm clip did. The short-leg fielder was standing in front of square, so slow was the pitch by Australian standards, but it was green and patchy in the first session, when the loss of two wickets would have been acceptable.
It may have been a cunning plan by Greg Chappell, now South Australia's coach, to suggest in the morning paper that England had to be much more positive to hold, let alone beat, Australia. Stewart threw his bat at a wide ball which the left-handed Mark Harrity slanted across him; Graham Thorpe was never over the ball which he thick-edged to gully. Being positive can mean leaving the ball alone, and defending with certainty, not just driving at almost everything.
So after 75 minutes England were 22 for four and their last pair of batsmen were at the wicket, with Dominic Cork next, followed by such luminaries of the blade as Peter Such and Angus Fraser, whose current nickname is Astro as he has made so many noughts. In the series against South Africa, England's top four wickets averaged 200 runs, and their last six wickets 76 runs, so this was a time for the lower order to return the favour.
For two hours either side of lunch Nasser Hussain and Mark Ramprakash tenaciously manned the last ditch, and began to promise that first-innings total. By early afternoon the wind had replaced cloud with the brightest of sunlight, evaporating damp and the little seam movement. The old ground was ready for Jack Russell's easel, except for the three floodlights still standing: the fourth was so retractable that in March it suddenly crumbled to rubble.
Then Evan Arnold, the debutant wrist-spinner, drifted a leg-break from off to leg and took the edge of Ramprakash's bat, which was not quite as straight as it might have been. From nowhere a spinner had taken a wicket, which England could only admire. Next over, the dam having burst, Hussain chose not to consolidate but counter-attack, driving almost to point then starting to sweep, once riskily, then a second time at a full toss a yard outside off stump. In the most bizarre dismissal he top-edged through to the keeper.
The seventh-wicket partnership between Dominic Cork and Alex Tudor, while very welcome, was not in truth one of the great fightbacks. Greg Blewett, whose father Bob led South Australia to victory over England 20 years ago, waited and waited until well after tea before he brought back Gillespie and Harrity.
Cork drove the off-breaks of 18-year-old Andrew Crook over extra-cover and took 12 runs from one over, Tudor 11 from another. Although he was dropped twice, Tudor played some pedigree shots in between times, then delivered a couple of balls which bounced sharply and climbed past the outside edge, as no one else in the England party can quite do. Tudor's time may have to come earlier than expected if England's hopes should continue to crumble, one by one, to rubble.
Australia opener Matthew Elliott pressed his claims for a Test recall with his second century of the match to steer Victoria to a 10-wicket Sheffield Shield win over New South Wales.
Day 2: Blewett takes his time to tighten screws
By Christopher Martin-Jenkins
ALL developments in Australian sport this weekend paled in comparison with Shane Warne's impressive return to big-time cricket in yesterday's one-day match between Victoria and New South Wales at the MCG.
Resuming as captain of his home state, his figures of 8-1-23-1 in a tight limited-overs match, not to mention a robust 23 with the bat, proved his readiness for greater things. He dropped the ball on to a length from his first ball, turned the leg-break significantly, was not afraid to bowl the googly and, all in all, bowled beautifully.
As if that were not a sufficient tightening of the psychological screws on England, however, Greg Blewett duly made his 20th first-class hundred at the Adelaide Oval and his fourth against England. Batting without blemish until the edge past a diving slip off Angus Fraser which took him to his landmark, he played throughout with patience, rectitude and the air of a man who expected nothing less.
His 143 was his second big hundred in three first-class games this season; yet he has no chance of being in Australia's team for the first Test. Nor, apparently, has Warne, although the estimate by Allan Border, one of the Test selectors, that he would not return until Boxing Day can probably now be altered to the third Test here, starting on Dec 11.
Blewett has no such gilded path back after his failures against spin in India earlier this year but without a wrist spinner and despite an excellent spell of flighty off-spin by Peter Such, England gave him no trouble until, looking for quicker runs after tea, he drew back and was bowled by a Mark Ramprakash off-break which turned an encouragingly long way.
From the start of the second day, however, England had been bowling on an Adelaide pitch of biblical purity. While the ball was moving about - albeit never extravagantly - batting was not so easy on the first morning, which made Alec Stewart's decision to bat less than the formality it would usually have been here. Jason Gillespie and Mark Harrity bowled superbly with the new ball, there were too many loose strokes and some brilliant catches and England were soon 22 for four.
By contrast, the conditions yesterday were as near to cricketing bliss as any batsman could imagine. On a cool but sunny day like this, the beauty of the view to the hills remains untouched by time. Even the new floodlights cannot spoil it. They have proved an expensive investment. The world's first retractable light represented a bright idea which turned sour when one of them retracted uninvited while two men were working on the tower. Neither was killed but there were hospital bills to pay and the argument over who was liable remains unresolved.
It will be surprising, too, if there is any positive resolution of this match. Certainly, England will have to bat very poorly a second time to lose it, despite a first-innings failure relieved only by another cooly determined innings by Nasser Hussain, a sprightly and attractive one by Dominic Cork and valuable supporting performances by Ramprakash (until, ominously, he was caught at slip off a leg-break) and Alex Tudor.
Although Tudor could not take a wicket in his steady but rather cautious spell with the first new ball on Saturday evening, no one let the side down as England fought back with encouraging spirit and a commendably disciplined bowling effort all round yesterday. Tudor was not given another bowl until after lunch but Cork and Dean Headley set an accurate trend which Fraser and Such embellished.
Such looked half a class better than Robert Croft in Perth and a much better bet if the selectors do not alter their intention to play a spinner in Brisbane. After a brief spell at the River Torrens end, during which Blewett twice twinkled up the pitch to drive him back over the top, he bowled a long spell either side of lunch from the Cathedral end with the breeze helping him to drift the ball away from the right handers. Figures of none for 24 from 17 overs demonstrated his control.
No one bowled better with the second new ball than Cork, who is having a good match all round. When he plays like this, ebullient but not theatrical, lively but under control, he is an asset to any team. With Fraser also finding his rhythm - his first wicket finally came from his 48th over of the tour as he deviated a ball off the seam to strike Nathan Adcock's front pad in front - two more essentials have fallen into place. Runs from Mark Butcher today and a better batting performance all round would bring the team closer to a state of proper preparedness for the Test series.
Australia's team for the first match will be announced a week today. It is possible that a place or two will be altered to suit a series against England in home conditions, as opposed to one against Pakistan away, but the probable XI for Brisbane, assuming the selectors are indeed prepared to wait for Warne's full recovery, is, in batting order: Taylor, Slater, Langer, M Waugh, S Waugh, Lehmann, Healy, MacGill, Fleming, Kasprowicz and McGrath.
If so, the reserve XI is chillingly good: Elliott, Hayden, Blewett, Ponting, Law, Bevan, Gilchrist, Reiffel, Miller, Gillespie and Bichel. Add to those names the mighty one of Warne himself and up-and-coming young thrusters like Andrew Symonds, and it is obvious how vastly greater is Australia's room for manoeuvre.
Day 3: England suffer nightmares on dream wicket
By Christopher Martin-Jenkins
ONE or two Australians are beginning to wonder if there is not some cunning plan to lull them into a false sense of security. How else could one explain the fact that Adelaide's chief sporting bookmaker would offer only a cautious 4-1 against the Ashes changing hands a few minutes after England, 138 runs behind on first innings against South Australia, had subsided to 80 for four shortly after tea yesterday on a pitch which, slow as it was, remained the stuff of batsmen's dreams?
It was certainly not a pitch on which 10 wickets should have fallen in a day of clear, warm weather and Graham Thorpe and Mark Ramprakash put things into a slightly truer perspective with an untroubled partnership of 69 for the fifth wicket over the last 25 overs of the day. It still left England with a perilously slender lead of 11 runs as the fourth day began.
Once again the early batting failed, despite a confident and mainly convincing 53 by Mike Atherton, including six crisp fours. This time, however, it was less bad batting than bad luck which created a crisis as three wickets fell in 15 balls when the ship seemed to be back on an even keel following Mark Butcher's third disappointing innings of the tour. His dismissal by Jason Gillespie after adding only five to his first innings two, and Alec Stewart's first pair in any match for England, left two of the batsmen on whom the side are relying for Test runs dangerously short of practice in the middle.
The captain's fall to his fifth ball (he faced only 11 in both innings for what is only the second pair of his career) occurred when he padded up to a ball just outside his off stump from Greg Blewett. If it was a marginal decision he would, nevertheless, have played it comfortably with the bat on a pitch like this, perhaps 49 times out of 50. Only an over before, Nasser Hussain had shown his uncanny ability for attracting balls which keep low - nothing else had done so all match - and in the next one, the 39th, Mark Harrity deflected a firm drive by Graham Thorpe on to the bowler's stumps an instant before Atherton, backing up, had replaced his bat.
Atherton was given out by the third umpire, apparently, not because the replay was conclusive (it was not) but because he walked towards the pavilion once the umpire on the field, Steve Davis, had confirmed that Harrity's hand had touched the ball. All a little freakish but these things happen, especially to England.
Once again, therefore, there were consolations in adversity, starting with another steady performance by the bowlers in a morning session which saw South Australia losing their last five wickets for 63. Alex Tudor was ill-suited by the pitch but he got a few balls past the outside edge in all his spells and has not done badly in his first game. When he makes the Test side, he will certainly not let them down in the field: he is quick to the ball and an accurate, strong thrower.
His opening spell of four overs cost him another 20 runs without reward, however, and it was not until Dominic Cork joined Angus Fraser, already looking more like the bowler of robotic reliability to which all are accustomed, that the attempt to force the pace foundered against line and length bowling from both ends which would have satisfied F S Trueman. Thorpe picked up two catches at first slip off Fraser, the second low to the ground off a ball which shaped nicely away from the right-handed Jeff Vaughan after a painstaking innings lasting more than four hours.
Cork hustled out two more batsmen with balls which nipped into the front pad around the popping crease and although Jason Gillespie looked capable of batting all afternoon, Harrity turned out to be as poor a batsman as there can be in contemporary first-class cricket. Peter Such should have had him stumped by Stewart before an attempted flap to leg resulted in a brilliant one-handed catch by a diving Hussain.
The vice-captain had a little longer to wait before he was batting again but, for the fourth time in four, England could not put a decent opening stand together. Butcher did not play badly against some speedy and also intelligent fast left-arm bowling by Harrity and admirably accurate support by Gillespie but was still feeling his way with extreme caution when he played on to the latter, attempting a shot which fell halfway between a back-foot force and a square cut. It was a shame indeed for Butcher, who could have asked for no friendlier pitch on which to regain some confidence after ducking into the ball at Perth.
Atherton had already square-driven and hooked Harrity with encouraging precision when his partner was out and he now dominated a second-wicket partnership of 46 with Hussain until the triple whammy which left Thorpe and Ramprakash with another game to try to save.
Day 4: Thorpe leads Ramprakash to a record partnership
By Christopher Martin-Jenkins
JUST as it was foolish to exaggerate the extent of the shortcomings of England's performances until the remarkable events at the Adelaide Oval yesterday, so it would be unwise to read too much into what turned out to be an epic partnership between Graham Thorpe and Mark Ramprakash.
The fact remains that they compiled the highest partnership scored by any pair of batsmen on any tour of Australia by any national team. They batted all of the final day together until rain intervened and extended their stand for the fifth wicket, worth 69 overnight, to 377.
Thorpe, assisted by some fielding lapses as he raced to his second hundred in 89 balls with four sixes and 21 fours, made his career-best 223 - his third double-hundred and his first for an England team - despite having a stomach upset.
Ramprakash, only too well aware, he said, that he was not yet an automatic selection in the Test team, made his first hundred against Australian opposition.
When these two last played a substantial partnership together, it was in the Barbados Test, last March, when they came together at 56 for four and added 205.
Yesterday there were fewer than 1,000 spectators in the ground (though 9,500 watched the four days) as Thorpe, pale, unshaven and fortified by immodium, resumed the struggle on a pitch now completely dead and with never a sign of the one ball of very low bounce which had done for Nasser Hussain on Monday.
The first objective was to bat the 16 overs with the new ball; the second, to get through the period which was obviously going to decide whether South Australia could force a victory. Greg Blewett took the new ball as soon as it was available after 80 overs, when England, at 190 for four, were 52 ahead. Jason Gillespie, menacing and eccentric, again bowled with pace to a full length on a remorseless off-stump line, which not only allowed no liberties but demanded that virtually every ball must be played, whether to left-hander or right. His first four overs with the new ball were maidens, before Thorpe was able to chop down on a shorter ball and cut it to the third-man boundary.
The cricket was played throughout in sultry weather with rain threatening, but it would have been a shame indeed for the two stern-faced heroes had they been robbed of the chance to capitalise on their earnest groundwork. England's 200 took 89 overs, but once lunch was reached at 229 for four, Thorpe 76, Ramprakash 61, it was if shackles had been cast away.
Thorpe, especially, played like a butterfly emerging from his chrysalis. As always playing the ball from under his nose, he reeled off four quick boundaries to reach his first hundred in 252 minutes, with only nine fours. Under the weather or not, both men continued to run their singles busily and by the time they had finished, they had made full use of the longest straight boundaries in the world, taking the overall count of all-run fours to 11 in the match.
Once the two inexperienced spinners came on for long spells, however, it was the boundaries which began to multiply. Andrew Crook remained tidy enough for an 18-year-old off-spinner playing his first senior match, but Thorpe took a particular fancy to the unsubtle, flighted leg-breaks of Evan Arnold and four times thumped him with pull-drives into the new seats in front of the Victor Richardson gates.
He was dropped at mid-on when 146, off Arnold, and again when 193 off Blewett, who, much earlier in the day, had come closest to dismissing the immaculate Ramprakash when a fierce cut flew through the upstretched fingers of the only slip fielder.
Ramprakash's hundred arrived 10 overs after Thorpe's with a beautiful straight drive along the ground played from well down the pitch to Arnold for his 14th four. He, too, was able to relax now but, like Ken Barrington in the late 1950s, he has turned from being a batsman notable for his flair into a methodical one who is difficult to dislodge.
At tea, Alec Stewart was intending to declare, but not until Thorpe had passed by one his previous highest first-class score against Glamorgan in 1997 did the umpires decide that the drizzle had become strong enough to call a halt. Shortly before, Gillespie, who had resorted to occasional contortions of his face or body as he ran in to try to put the batsman off, dropped Thorpe off his own bowling. Australians can also make mistakes under pressure.
Apart from Gillespie and Mark Harrity, the record stand was achieved against a modest attack but it has boosted the morale of the touring team with only the match against Queensland in Cairns this weekend before the first Test in Brisbane begins on Friday week.
Thorpe said later that his back is still inclined to stiffen after the surgery to correct disc trouble last season. ``This was my first really long innings since the operation and I'm not looking too far ahead at the moment. It was difficult coming from a fast wicket in Perth to a slow one here but it's been good getting used to the conditions and we'll try to progress our performances now throughout the series.''
Ramprakash said that there had been no thought of records until late in the day. ``The first session was quite hard work but we got more relaxed as we went on. We've not played well in this game but we've shown now that we'll be hard to beat. I've played nine Tests in a row now but on this tour I've felt pressure that places are all open again. It's healthy that there's competition. You have to make the most of every opportunity which comes along.''
South Australian attacks better than this one have been plundered in the past, not least when Colin Cowdrey (on his way to his highest score of 307) and Tom Graveney put on 344 here in 1962-63 or when C A G 'Jack' Russell shared a stand of 368 with Wilfred Rhodes in 1920-21. But this was an effort the worthier for the tense circumstances in which it began and England made the long journey north today in good spirits.
Highest Partnerships By Touring Teams In Australia 377* G P Thorpe & M R Ramprakash (Adelaide, Eng v S Aus, 1998-99) 368 W Rhodes & C A G Russell (Adelaide, MCC v S Aus, 1920-21) 344 M C Cowdrey & T W Graveney (Adelaide, MCC v S Aus, 1962-63) 341 E J Barlow & R G Pollock (Adelaide, S Africa v Aus, 1964-65) 333 W R Hammond & E H Hendren (Sydney, MCC v NSW, 1928-29) 323 J B Hobbs & W Rhodes (Melbourne, Eng v Aus, 1911-12) 323 E H Hendren & J W H T Douglas (Melbourne, MCC v Vic, 1920-21) 318 G A Falkner & A W Nourse (Sydney, S Africa v NSW, 1910-11) 314 A C MacLaren & T W Hayward (Sydney, MacLaren XI v NSW, 1901-02) 295 C J Barnett & A E Fagg (Brisbane, MCC v Q'land, 1936-37)