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Joe Root took advantage of a dropped catch and a flat pitch to notch up a sterling century that steered England to a substantial total by stumps on Day 1 against Australia. You can follow live scores and a blog of the second day of this opening Ashes Test from 8:00pm (AEST).
All talks of playing an extra seamer vanished as soon as the grass on the pitch disappeared before the start of play at Cardiff.
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What that also meant was that England won the toss and decided to bat first on what looked like a docile pitch. Overhead conditions were cloudy which helped the ball to jag around but the Aussie bowlers sprayed the ball and failed to take advantage of the situation.
There was a 15-minute period in the first session where they went ahead by picking up Alastair Cook and Ian Bell, but once in-form Joe Root joined the steady Gary Ballance things began to tilt in favour of England.
At 3-43, Root was dropped by Brad Haddin off Mitchell Starc and he went on to construct one of the more telling recent centuries. After all, another wicket at that stage could have taken the wind off the English sails.
Ballance looked circumspect for long periods, refusing to move his front foot out too much, but the aggressive Root took the pressure off his partner’s shoulders.
Both survived till the lunch break and then motored along in the second session to leave the Aussie bowlers wicketless. As mentioned earlier, Australia were disadvantaged by the easy conditions but they did not help themselves by dishing out some pretty ordinary cricket.
Too many deliveries were drifted on to the pads and in a bid to compensate for that, the direction went too wide outside off. Ballance and Root were happy to let them go.
It took a full, in-swinging, near-yorker from Hazlewood to dislodge the stand, but there wasn’t much joy for the visitors even after that. Because Ballance was at least playing well within himself; new-comer Ben Stokes attacked from the very start.
Root and Stokes forged another stand, adding 84 for the fifth wicket and those came off just 112 deliveries. An exhausted Root fell soon after, edging it to the first slip while Stokes’ knock of 52 was ended by classic Starc delivery.
But despite the wicket of Jos Buttler at the fag end of the day’s play, England managed to garner 343 with some attacking stroke-play and a refusal to go into their shells.
Where that leaves England is with runs on the board and their first aim on day two will be to get close to a score of 400. The surface will play a huge part here and if there’s one brand of pitch on which the Aussies have struggled to bat is one that spins and is a slow one.
So far, it hasn’t spun but as the Test progresses, if the sun bakes down on it, it could become progressively more difficult to bat on. Which is when a first innings score of 400 could come in handy for the hosts.
On the other hand, Australia need to start batting quickly so that not only do they not have too many runs to chase down but the pitch also continues to play at its best. If the England bowlers can get some assistance from the cloud cover, the battle could get interesting – Australia had that cover for a long period but blew the advantage with their inability to bowl consistently.
Will England do better with the ball?
Follow the live scores and blog of the second day of this England vs Australia first Ashes Test match from 8:00pm AEST on Thursday and post your comments in the section below.
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