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Joe Root is hard enough to dismiss the first time. Giving him a life on zero is criminal. Keeper Brad Haddin owes Australia massively after allowing Root to gallop to 134 on day one of the Ashes overnight.
Fortunate to be in the Australian XI after four consecutive poor Test series, Haddin is trading off his experience and normally tidy glovework.
FIRST ASHES TEST – FULL SCOREBOARD
His keeping skills deserted him early in yesterday’s first session when Root offered an outside edge from a full Mitchell Starc delivery.
Despite the ball pitching well outside off stump, Haddin was moving towards the leg side as the ball flicked Root’s bat, leaving him wrong footed.
Former champion Australian gloveman Ian Healy noted that Haddin had looked out of sorts behind the stumps and that when he dropped Root he had been “very unsteady in his footwork, he wasn’t low and set”.
Had the veteran claimed the catch, England’s innings would have been in tatters at 4-43.
Then there’s the mental fillip that dismissing England’s best batsman would have offered to Starc, a noted confidence player who looked tentative for much of the day.
Haddin was also the culprit on Australia’s last tour of England when Root made 180 in the second Test at Lord’s.
Root had scrounged his way to eight when he edged a Shane Watson delivery and offered a regulation catch to Haddin’s right. The keeper watched as it floated between he and first slip Michael Clarke, who then shot him the dirtiest of glares.
This time, Haddin’s blunder cost Australia 134 runs as Root went on to complete a fluent and entertaining ton. Of course, it would be unfair to focus solely on Haddin’s mistake. Even with the turfed chance, at 3-43 the scoreline flattered the Australian attack.
They wasted the new ball, as England’s quicks have so often in their recent Tests. The Dukes ball was swinging and the pitch was offering variable bounce – conditions demanded the bowlers target the stumps relentlessly.
Yet Hawkeye showed that in Australia’s first 13 overs, only six deliveries would have struck the stumps. That statistic should embarrass the tourists.
This problem wasn’t restricted to the early part of the day either – for much of it the trajectory and direction of Australia’s pacemen were incorrect.
England’s first drop Gary Ballance was flummoxed by New Zealand’s full lengths in the recent series. Yet Starc, Mitchell Johnson and Josh Hazlewood did not follow this successful blueprint.
All too often Ballance was allowed to play off the back foot, which he relishes. When finally he came unstuck, after a 153-run partnership, it was from exactly the type of delivery the visiting quicks had neglected.
Caught on the crease, as he so often is against full deliveries, Ballance was pinned in front of the stumps by Hazlewood.
Australia’s most dependable paceman had recalibrated his typically trustworthy radar after earlier having sprayed the ball around like a Mitch. For the first half of the day, Hazlewood looked patently nervous, failing to complete his action.
Meanwhile, for large parts of the day, Starc and Johnson operated with the kind of waywardness which seems to have dissuaded the selectors from pairing them in a Test XI at times in the past.
Starc’s length was reasonable but his line was so unpredictable that he left Haddin lurching in all directions.
Johnson laboured in particular against Root, who played him better than any Englishman as he ran rampant in the last Ashes. A greatly more accomplished batsman now than then, Root appeared at ease against Australia’s most experienced bowler.
Johnson was kind to his foe by offering Root the sort of width which widens his eyes.
Leading into the series, a common narrative was that Australia’s pace battery would be a constant threat while spinner Nathan Lyon would be vulnerable after being collared in the warm-up games.
As it happened, it was Lyon who was comfortably the most composed and clinical of the Australians. The lack of pace and bounce in the Cardiff deck prompted Lyon to bowl slightly flatter, using flighted deliveries as a changeup.
Early in the last session, after 61 overs of play, Starc and Johnson had gone at 4.3 and 4.7 runs per over respectively. Lyon’s figures read: 12 overs, 1 for 24. As the only bowler who had offered his side consistent control, he arguably had been underused.
His removal of Cook was a pivotal moment, for the England captain had been greedy with the blade in recent Tests.
It continued Lyon’s good record against Cook, who has been out trying to cut the spinner three times in his past 10 innings against Australia.
As the day drew to a close, England were in a solid position at 7-343, albeit on an unresponsive deck which will test the temperament of bowlers on both sides.
As well as Root played, the Australians would have been annoyed not only that he escaped a duck but that thereafter he and his teammates were offered far too much latitude.