Patience was the great virtue for Australia on the first day. Aside from a brief cameo from Kevin Pietersen, who did his utmost to break the shackles, and a little freedom from Jonathan Trott, Australia’s bowlers pinned England down and suffocated them.
By the close of play it was Michael Clarke’s side who sat the happiest, although England will have the chance to come back strongly with the ball.
It was attritional stuff as Australia tried to wear England down – a strategy not unfamiliar to the home side – and England’s batsmen tried for the most part to do the same.
The result was a display of gritty cricket, resolute at times, excruciating at others, 21 overs slipped by without a boundary and Jonny Bairstow went 41 deliveries, more than an hour, without a run.
As the Australian tourniquet was applied some aberrations were induced: neither Alastair Cook, Ian Bell, Bairstow nor Stuart Broad will be happy with the nature of their demise.
England will resume their first innings on 238 for nine, with Jimmy Anderson, Frank Woolley incarnate, hitting four fours in four balls to end the day.
Good swing
Cloud cover early on implied there might be some good swing for Ryan Harris and Jackson Bird, who had replaced Mitchell Starc in Australia's XI, but while it required care, it was no more devastating than movement off the seam.
So all four Australian seamers settled for line and length (scarcely anything short all day, which was admirable), with the ball just sticking in the pitch a little, making timing difficult. Hardly a ball was there to hit off the back foot.
Wickets, though, came from the unexpected quarter of Nathan Lyon.
So while Shane Watson removed Joe Root after the first drinks of the day, Hot Spot doing its job for once in showing an edge where Tony Hill had failed to detect one, and much later Jackson Bird forced a rare misjudgment from Cook and Siddle found an old-fashioned break-back to account for Prior, Lyon started to achieve the sort of reward Australia have been craving from a spinner.
It still remains a mystery how Lyon was not chosen ahead of Ashton Agar. He bowls with good control, rhythm and spin and once he got rid of Pietersen, who from his first ball was determined to blast him out of the attack, was generally in command.
Unusually, he chose to operate from round the wicket, to left- and right-hander alike, the former being the usual strategy, the latter generally only if there is big turn.
It is something to which he resorted when Pietersen and Bell went after him at Old Trafford and maybe he gains some protection from cramping the right-hander.
Attempted sweep
It also gives him an angle across, which accounted for Pietersen, while the ability to pitch in line and gain enough turn did for Bairstow as he missed an attempted sweep. Four for 42 from 20 overs represents an excellent day's work for him.
Apart from Pietersen’s brief flourish, the only fluency in the innings came from Trott, who more than anyone managed to work out the pace of the pitch, hit seven fours in his 49 and generally looked comfortable until he tried to flick Lyon off his hip, succeeding only to turning it on to his pad and from there to backward short-leg.
His second-wicket stand of 73 with Cook proved to be the batting high point of the day.
Cook had set out his stall in the first over of the match by flagging all six deliveries from Harris through to Brad Haddin and proceeded to exercise excellent judgment outside his off-stump. It took 17 deliveries for him to get off the mark.
Challenged him
For almost four hours, the Australians challenged him strongly, removing his favourite back-foot forcing shot from the equation. Resilience is one thing, but there has to be progress too. He did manage five boundaries, none more sumptuous than the cover drive off Watson that took him into the forties, and he reached a diligent half-century from 153 balls.
Finally he cracked. Twelve more scoreless deliveries went by before he padded up once too often, misjudging the line of one from Bird and was stone dead in front.
Guardian Service
