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A slow track, three half-centuries for Australia plus five wickets and three dropped catches for England made for an exciting precursor to what could follow on the Day 2 of the second Ashes Test match in Adelaide. Join us for live updates from 11.00am AEDT.
The Adelaide Oval track is usually a flat one in the first half of the Test match and it slowly progresses to assist bowlers towards days four and five.
Batting on the first couple of days is generally easy and for batsmen who get in, it works as an average-propeller.
Not this one. Australia tried their best through David Warner, George Bailey and for a brief while, Brad Haddin to up the scoring but it only resulted in some ugly stroke-play and the rate failed to jump beyond the three-run mark.
The reason I talk about the run-rate is to underline the nature of the track which, on the first day, had nothing in it for either the batsmen or the bowlers.
Both were needed to work hard in their respective trades and by the time it was stumps, both had reasons to believe they were in a decent position but could have done better.
Take the case of Australia. They lost five wickets but four of them were to aggressive strokes and at least three to those which could have been avoided on this kind of a wicket.
England did well to maintain the pressure by not allowing Australia to run away with the game and a few of those wickets were a direct consequence of that.
And yet, they could have gotten rid of at least two more batsmen – having dropped both Michael Clarke and Brad Haddin.
Even George Bailey was missed and he went on to score a half-century before finally getting out – incidentally to a brilliant catch.
So what does the day two hold for the two teams then?
Australia will be looking to inch towards the 400-run mark, a score that should push them towards the region of the unassailable.
This, despite the cognizance of the fact that two times in the previous decade, a score of more than 500 in the first innings has resulted in a defeat – 400 on this track, however, will require some getting.
And they have the batsmen to get there. Captain Clarke’s on 48 and he usually isn’t one to miss out on starts.
Haddin has looked iffy in his short stay at the crease but having survived until the close of play should have cleared up his head on how to play on this track, while likes of Mitchell Johnson and Peter Siddle can look to hang around if not score runs.
From the English point of view, the ball is reasonably new to try and extract any early morning swing but if that does not work, the spinners could be in action pretty quickly.
Alastair Cook could look to bowl a speedster from one end and a spinner from the other, a tactic often used in the first couple of days of a Test played in the sub-continent.
Getting wickets will remain Cook’s priority but if they are not available for cheap, then the plan B would be to throttle the scoring, dry up the runs and squeeze the batsmen into making mistakes like they did on the first day.
A fascinating day of Test cricket lies ahead of us on Friday and you can follow the live score of this second Ashes between Australia and England from 11.00am AEDT and post your comments below.
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