Leg Side Filth

With a first day wicket so flat it looked like the proverbial road to nowhere, this 1st Test instead proved a considerably bumpier affair for the team that found itself on the losing side.

Because yes, in spite of the bore-fest of the first four days, some superb batting performances notwithstanding, this encounter that looked like dribbling to a stale, bloodless, rain-diluted draw ended up anything but.

The moral of this story seems to be, if you are an England fan and you wish to attend the Cardiff Test – only go on Day 5. The first four days will be shit. The last day will be awesome.

In the run-up to the Test the brickbats in the press were reserved for Sri Lanka’s bowlers, but it was the batting that ended up being steamrollered by England yesterday.

A first innings total of 400; England reply with 496 declared (big runs for Cook, humongous runs for England’s Bradman, Jonathan Trott, and a handy ton for Ian Bell) and Sri Lanka all out for 82: more wickets than you could shake a damp umbrella at – all of them in fact, courtesy of Messrs Tremlett, Swann and Broad and the whole thing wrapped up in 24.4 overs, albeit after another late start due to this horrible bloody weather that seems to be paying us all back for the temerity of enjoying an unseasonably early spring.

How much did this bring back memories of this same ground against different opposition in 2009, and how badly must Sri Lanka have hankered after their own Jimmy and Monty double-act?

The bowling by England was too good. Swann made use of the rough outside off-stump that had given Rangana Herath some encouragement, and England team-sheets should now come pre-printed with Chris Tremlett’s name on them as standard. The old days where the latter’s perceived lack of bottle was questioned seem now to be part of some ridiculous alternate reality.

Jonathan Trott continues to astound. I’ve made no secret of the fact I’m a big fan of the bloke, because one of the great things about cricket is that it can provide a happy hunting ground for the oddest of talented eccentrics, and Jonathan Trott surely numbers among them.

Aside from all his scratching and muttering at the crease, and his OCD dressing room habits, there is also something amusingly Hakkinen-esque about his interviews. The great Formula One champion Mika Hakkinen was famed for his laconic utterances and his deadpan statements of obvious fact, all with a barely raised eyebrow that put paid to accusations of a lack of humour or intelligence.

When Trott (unbeaten on 125 on his way to an eventual 203) was asked at the end of the third day what England had to do to win this match, he responded, deadpan: “Score more runs than they do”.

And that is what England did, to the tune of an innings and 14 runs worth.

And that with three bowlers. Jimmy Anderson has been ruled out of the Lord’s Test with a grade one side strain and Jade Dernbach, most likely due to his performance in the Lions match, has been drafted in to the squad – though I’d be very surprised if Steven Finn was not an automatic inclusion in the XI come Friday morning.

There’s been a degree of agitation about the prospect of yet another South African born player pulling on an England shirt – which some folks really need to get over – but it’s another man of South African origin and erstwhile our brightest star who is the real source of concern.

We are talking about Kevin – again. This is the 19th time in Tests he has fallen victim to a left-arm spinner and denying there is a problem will not make it go away. It is real and it is messing with his head and there is going to have to be a drastic resetting of his entire approach if he is going to fix it.

Even before Herath got him, as he tried wildly to chop the ball to the off side with the result that it rebounded from pad onto bat, his footwork had all the assuredness of a stricken animal scrabbling for purchase on the blood-slick floor of an abattoir before the slaughterman puts it mercifully out of its misery. It was truly painful to watch, with a messy, protracted denouement: the on-field decision of not out was overturned on review with the aid of hotspot, which showed a clear mark on the pad together with a side-on view that showed ball hitting back leg before bat.

Pietersen’s mind seems now so scrambled that even the most innocuous left-arm trundler must seem like the devil incarnate. Perhaps he needs to heed Jonathan Trott’s advice – to keep it simple – because these demons need exorcising, and pronto.

What a bizarre Test this has been. Seems I was a bit previous in writing off this match, but then I get the feeling I wasn’t the only one. I like it when cricket proves me wrong. I like it when Test cricket proves me wrong.

To Lord’s!

Chris Tremlett admitted to having a few nerves prior to bowling his first ball in a Test match for three years.

6 deliveries later, after softening Phil Hughes up with a couple of short balls, he had the newly-recalled 22-year-old playing all round a fuller delivery that removed the bail from his off stump. Australia were 2-1, after all of ten minutes.

Tremlett says he felt better after that.

From then on, the nerviness was to be all Australia’s.

There’s something immensely satisfying in seeing a talented player come back from the wilderness. Clashes of personalities; changes in coach, selectors or both; a bad or erroneous first impression that sticks: there are many reasons why players are discarded, or not given a chance at all to prove their mettle in the international arena. Often, talent is not enough.

Chris Tremlett arrived at Surrey in January on the back of three years in the international wilderness and a decade at Hampshire dogged increasingly by injury, staleness and a low, slow Rose Bowl wicket that gave his height and pace no assistance.

He has also had to put up with criticisms of not being hard enough, of not getting in the batsman’s face, of being too nice by half. “Gentle giant” is a term that gets applied to him a lot. So, until he moved to Surrey, was the nickname Goober, bestowed on him by then-teammate Dimitri Mascarenhas in reference to what was perceived as lumbering, dorkish timidity.

Shane Warne seems to have run out of patience with him at Hampshire, and while Tremlett admits the move to Surrey was necessary to help him mature and take him out of his comfort zone, it would seem that the man-management of a bowler good enough to take the wickets of India’s galacticos back in 2007 went awry somewhere down the line.

England bowling coach David Saker says he kept close track of the rumblings coming out of Surrey: the swiftly-increasing momentum of Tremlett’s renaissance. Entrusted by manager Chris Adams with leading Surrey’s attack and with a blanket ban on the use of that Hampshire nickname, Tremlett repaid his new county with 48 wickets, including a ferocious 4-32 in a county match against Sussex in August on a green Guildford wicket.

Today, he completed his journey back as the pick of the England bowlers with 3-63 to help limit Australia to a below-par total of 268. Bowling with menace and aggression, his consistently tight line and length did for Michael Clarke and Steve Smith, both batsmen wafting weakly outside off stump and edging fuller deliveries to keeper and first slip respectively.

Andrew Strauss’s decision to bowl first and make the most of the seaming conditions, as well as to play Tremlett, are signs of a new aggressive England.

Belated tail-end biffing from Johnson, Siddle and Hilfenhaus aside, only Mike Hussey and Brad Haddin once again made anything like respectable scores. By the end of the day the WACA pitch had flattened out considerably under the broiling Perth sun, and England will be looking to bat Australia out of the game and retain the urn.

Chris Tremlett may find it harder to take wickets the second time around, but surely after what he has done today he deserves an extended run in this England side.

At 6ft 7 inches he is most certainly a giant, but today Australia found him anything but gentle.

The wicket looks green but it will probably be a road; Chris Tremlett will play but then again so might Tim Bresnan; Australia are looking to the future through Beer goggles, and Andrew Strauss is warning that this Perth Test is going to be no pushover.

Meanwhile, Kevin Pietersen has been caught doing 21kph over the speed limit in Shane Warne’s Lamborghini, and Shane Warne’s been caught doing Liz Hurley.

And if it’s a free piece of official Australia cricket kit you’re after, then Nathan Hauritz is your man, and he might perhaps even throw in a book about Viv Richards if you’re lucky.

IT’S ALL HAPPENING, as Bill Lawry would no doubt scream in his more excitable moments – of which there have been many – but the truth is no one seems quite sure how this 3rd Test will go, with “caution” seeming to be the most favoured approach, if you’re Andrew Strauss anyway.

“If Australia were wounded in Adelaide and have a point to prove, they will be much harder to beat and we have to be ready.”

History would suggest Strauss is right not to be over-confident. England’s last victory at the WACA was in 1978-9 against a team weakened by the lure of Kerry Packer’s World Series. Their last 5 Tests here against Australia have resulted in defeat, they have failed to score 300 nine times out of ten, and have never bowled Australia out twice.

Against the Australia of four years ago, at this ground you wouldn’t give England a hope in hell.

The Australia of 2010 is a wounded animal, but wounded animals are unpredictable and have the tendency to rip your face off.

Nevertheless, Australian selection for this Test has been confusing, and not even Ponting seems to know what his final eleven will be, stating that he will want to take one final look at the wicket before he decides.

Michael Beer, a grade cricketer until two months ago, looks unlikely to play, which makes his inclusion rather puzzling. One can only assume the fact he is a left arm spinner who took Kevin Pietersen’s wicket in the tour game against Western Australia has something to do with it, as KP’s then-perceived weakness against left-armers seemed the sole reason for the selection of the now discarded Xavier Doherty. Doherty did succeed in his mission, albeit not until Pietersen had wracked up an imperious 227 runs.

Beer is now the tenth spinner called up since Shane Warne’s retirement, and even Beer’s predecessor Doherty has admitted, “I am sure the selectors are not quite sure who the next person is”. They certainly seem unable to offer any convincing rationale for this latest selection.

It all leaves one feeling rather sorry for Nathan Hauritz, spotted the other day giving away his Australia kit in front of his house with the explanation, “I don’t play for them anymore.” (Note: may not be exactly what happened.)

While this may be cricket’s equivalent of throwing one’s toys out of the pram, Hauritz, known to be an emotional sort, has a point in feeling aggrieved. He recently took 5 wickets at the WACA and scored a maiden first-class hundred at Sydney, yet the message being sent to him by the selectors seems very much to be one of complete and final rejection.

As far as Australia’s other likely men go, recalled pace enigma Mitchell Johnson could be a handful if the Fremantle Doctor gets up a head of steam, and Phillip Hughes has vowed to go all Sehwag on England if they attack him with any short stuff. Good luck with that.

For England, press reports seem to have been swinging back and forth between proclaiming Tremlett, Bresnan, and then back to Tremlett as Stuart Broad’s likely replacement.

While this pitch might not offer the bounce and carry of WACA decks of old, England would be crazy to decide on the safe option of Bresnan.

Chris Tremlett last played Test cricket for England in the India series of 2007. I saw him take 3 wickets in a losing cause on the last day at Trent Bridge when India had only 73 runs to make and he was magnificent. The notion of him being “timid” or “not aggressive enough” has always seemed to me spurious bullshit. The fact he took the wickets of Laxman, Tendulkar and Dravid during that series should suggest that his talent is beyond question, and his appetite for a fight as well.

If he shares the new ball with Jimmy Anderson in a Test that could retain the Ashes for England, he will get another chance to silence the doubters.