Mike Hussey found some overdue form before next week’s Ashes opener in Cardiff as Marcus North and the rest of the middle order crumbled around him at Worcester.

Hussey (82no) had led Australia to 6-215 at tea on the opening day against the England Lions at New Road with Mitchell Johnson (10) also unbeaten.

North (1) continued his lean trot, getting off mark with a French cut before edging a ball from Graham Onions back onto his stumps in the next delivery to hand him tour scores of 1, 11 and 1 to date.

The worrying aspect for the Australian camp is the reserve batsman is the injured Shane Watson.

Opener Simon Katich earlier set himself up for Ashes redemption by scoring a fluent 95 as he and Hussey pulled Australia from 2-24 to lift the total to 2-169 midway through the opening day.

Katich, who endured a forgettable 2005 Ashes campaign that threatened to end his Test career, calmly negotiated the opening spells of English Test quicks Steve Harmison and Onions before branching out in the second session.

After lunch, he rocketed along from 55 to 95 in 40 minutes, including four boundaries smacked off one of his Ashes tormentors in Harmison before top-edging a hook shot in sight of his hundred.

Hussey brought up his fifty by pushing Harmison off his pads for two in a knock that could have major significance for next week’s opening Test in Cardiff.

Hussey raised his bat to the crowd and his teammates and his innings suggested that his low returns in the Test arena may be coming to an end.

In his opening spell Harmison showed he can still shake up Australian batsmen by roughing up Phillip Hughes (7) by taking 1-6 off six overs.

The giant paceman, who so memorably terrorised the Australian batsmen at Lord’s in the Ashes opener in 2005, had his opening ball bounce off the young opener’s helmet.

He later delivered another brute of a ball that Hughes could only fend to slips.

Selectors lost faith in the inconsistent Harmison during this year’s tour of the Caribbean and the notoriously bad traveller has responded on home soil by collecting 31 wickets at 19.96 in seven first class matches before play on Wednesday.

After removing Hughes, Harmison had Ricky Ponting (1) looking a little edgy before Onions found the edge of the skipper’s bat with a ball that left him.

Katich had a life on 37 with leg slip Onions failing to grab a hot chance off Sajid Mahmood’s bowling.

The ball went straight down to Onions at fine leg for Harmison’s second scalp of the innings.

Michael Clarke (4), the out of touch Marcus North (1) and Brad Haddin (7) all fell in quick succession as Australia’s middle order crumbled, losing 4-32.

It could have been 5-32 but paceman Mahmood missed a difficult return catch with Hussey on 75.

© AAP 2012

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