Will rain save Australia from a humiliating defeat in the Adelaide Test? Does the host nation deserve to be saved after a miserable performance over the first three days?
From over No. 1 on day one to stumps on day three, the visitors have held all the aces, out-bowling, out-batting, out-catching and even out-runouting Ricky Ponting’s men.
Look at the contrasts: Australia lost 2 wickets for 0 runs, and 3 for 2; Simon Katich making a diamond duck (getting run-out for a duck without facing a ball) and the next ball, skipper Ponting getting a golden duck.
England lost 2-176 and were 3-452 before Paul Collingwood was dismissed; the heroes being Alastair Cook (148) and Kevin Pietersen’s (unbeaten) 213 as they lead the fatigued Aussies by 306 runs with 6 wickets intact.
Will England declare the first thing in the morning or await Pietersen’s 250?
So far in the series Cook (225.00) and Pieterson (256.00) have double century batting average, Ian Bell averages 117.00 and Jonathan Trott 80.66.
What’s wrong with the Australian attack?
Surely, Cook, Pietersen and Trott are not Vivian Richards, Brian Lara and Sachin Tendulkar. More disappointing has been Australian fielding; dropped catches, poor throwing. This is all so un-Australian!
The only saving grace for the home team in the series so far has been Peter Siddle’s hat-trick in Brisbane and centuries by Mike Hussey and Brad Haddin, adding 307 for the 6th wicket in Brisbane. Hussey also played a gutsy innings of 93 in Adelaide.
About time Marcus North plays a long innings today, else it will be curtains to his Test career.
As the rain brought some joy to the spectators in Adelaide yesterday I did some oddball research. Ponting playing his 150th Test scored a duck. What’s new? Steve Waugh had also made a duck in his 150th Test.
Katich joined an exclusive duo of Australian batsmen run out without facing a ball for a diamond duck when he was left high and dry by Shane Watson four balls into the game. This is how the Laurel-Hardy fiasco transpired.
Watson survived an lbw appeal but took off for a risky single without consulting Katich and Trott’s superb direct hit from square leg left Katich a couple of metres short. He was so angry at his dismissal that almost two hours later he was still seen stewing as he sat on his own below the dressing room.
Scorers recording balls-faced when batting is a relatively modern measurement, but in the past 40 years only two other Australians have had so little to do before being dismissed. According to Cricinfo, Rodney Hogg was run out in the 1981 Edgbaston Test without facing a ball against England.
And in the second innings of the 1984 Port-of-Spain Test against the West Indies, the Australian opener Wayne Phillips was run out for a duck without facing a ball.
Two diamond ducks were registered in the February 1932 Adelaide Test against South Africa. Australia’s Alan Kippax and Hugh Thurlow were run out for nought without facing a ball. Sadly, this was fast bowler Thurlow’s only Test. What a debut and swan song for him, out for a duck without facing a delivery, taking no wickets after bowling 39 overs (0-53 and 0-33) and no catch. Thurlow’s getting run out cost Don Bradman a triple century as he remained 299 not out!
So Katich, you are in good company. Just as England’s captain Andrew Strauss followed his first innings duck in last week’s Brisbane Test with a century in the second, so can you.
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The Aussie needed every centimetre of his height and reach to reel that one in!
