Andrew Flintoff’s injured ankle remains a serious worry, but things finally seem to be falling into place for England after a properly competitive second day at the SCG. Start another series for the Ashes next week, indeed, and there might be no need for Britain’s best-known entrepreneur to jump on the “Keep the urn in Australia” bandwagon that has been rolling for years.
If the England of Sydney had started in the same vein in Brisbane, they might have held on to MCC’s Ashes anyway.
It has all happened far too late, but Flintoff has found his batting form in this fifth Test; James Anderson is looking like a Test bowler again; Stephen Harmison is unrecognisable from the nervous wraith who opened the bowling at the Gabba; and Monty Panesar is in the team, bowling with enough enthusiasm and skill to hope for success in the fourth innings.
That Australia are not suffering from dead-rubber syndrome was evident from the way Mike Hussey got his head down with the sort of passion that typifies his team. Andrew Symonds, coming in at 155 for four as an evening shower blew in from the harbour, played with equal skill and conviction through a potentially awkward last session of 11 overs when the sun came out again.
It left the match nicely poised, but it also underlined one of the big differences between these teams: at No 7 and No 8 in their batting order, Australia have Adam Gilchrist, averaging 48 in Test cricket, and Shane Warne, averaging 17. England have Chris Read, averaging 20, and Sajid Mahmood, averaging nine.
England added only 57 yesterday for their last six wickets, 47 of them scored by Flintoff. It was the captain’s turn to be left with the tail and, well as he played, he could do no more to retain control of events than Kevin Pietersen or Paul Collingwood earlier in the series. A threatened lizard may jettison its tail; England all too often do the same.
Once the question of who captains England in their next Test, in May, has been resolved, a credible wicketkeeper-batsman will become the next priority for what has to be a reshaped or reinforced England selection committee. Read’s wicketkeeping sparkled later in the day, as it usually does, but, exposed to the new ball after only six overs yesterday, he was unable to justify a place at No 7 in the order. The stroke to which he got out, nibbling at a ball from Brett Lee outside his off stump, was that of a genuine tailender at this level.
The supporters of James Foster and Jon Batty are sharpening their quills. Matt Prior and Steven Davies will be the A team’s wicketkeepers in Bangladesh.
Had Collingwood been able to withstand excellent spells by Lee and Glenn McGrath when the new ball was taken at the start of the second morning, the weakness of the lower order would have been less significant. Having escaped a low chance to Justin Langer’s left at third slip off Lee’s fifth ball of the day, however, Collingwood added only two further runs before McGrath got him, caught behind off an outside edge.
Read’s edge three overs later gave Gilchrist the fourth of his five catches. Langer had missed three chances before the innings was over, all difficult and all at third slip, and Matthew Hayden caught Mahmood in the gully off a leading edge first ball.
These chances told everything about the movement off the seam on this thickly grassed pitch, not to mention the quality of the bowling from Lee, McGrath and Stuart Clark.
Although Harmison held on for 51 minutes in support of Flintoff before playing across a ball of full length, England were bowled out shortly before lunch for a total at least 50 short of their target. Flintoff was ninth out, making room to hit through extra cover, but he deserved a century. This was his best innings of the series. His feet moved well and his timing was perfect, especially when he followed a fierce force off the back foot with a crunching straight-driven four next ball off Lee.
Flintoff took the new ball soon after, but his bowling was less effective, at nearer 80mph than 90. Whether his ankle injury is going to stand up to an all-round role in the one-day matches is questionable. An early return home with Harmison, Matthew Hoggard and the others not involved remains a possibility.
Anderson swung the new ball in Hoggard’s absence and Harmison came back well from a first spell of four overs that cost 23. Langer was caught down the leg side, but Hayden helped a confident Ricky Ponting to lift Australia to 100 for one before cutting to second slip. The initiative passed fully to England only when Ponting hit Panesar hard to Anderson at mid-on and took his chance with the throw. Anderson picked up and hit the stumps directly for his third run-out of the tour.
Harmison, ever the enigma, responded with his best bowling of the trip either side of a shower that arrived immediately after he had defeated Michael Clarke with extra bounce. The response of Hussey and Symonds suggested that the first session of the third morning might decide the match.
If it is close, umpiring decisions will be crucial. Yesterday, Alim Dar rightly turned down an appeal by Warne for leg-before and warned the bowler to stop jumping on the pitch. Warne responded rudely by telling Dar to concentrate on getting things right at the other end.
Later, Panesar appeared to receive a talking-to from Billy Bowden after appealing for a catch behind when Hussey had made only three. Television replays proved nothing, but a lack of courtesy to umpires only increases the likelihood of mistakes and Warne’s disrespect for them continues until the end of his Test career to set a poor example to Panesar and to everyone else.
Growing pains
Flintoff missed the 2001 Ashes series with back pain and was unfit to play during the 2002-03 tour because of hernia trouble.
