Hussain puts match out of Australia’s reach

EDGBASTON, June 6: Nasser Hussain, the elegant England right-hander played a TOP class innings to put the first Test at Edgbaston out of Au...

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EDGBASTON, June 6: Nasser Hussain, the elegant England right-hander played a TOP class innings to put the first Test at Edgbaston out of Australia’s reach.

Hussain was flawless on the first day and continued in that vein to bring up his first double century with three fours in one over from Shane Warne. He was dominant but watchful throughout his innings and with Graham Thorpe established a superiority over the Australian bowlers during a two hundred and eighty eight run partnership.

This pair played so well that it made Australia’s collapse on the first morning appear suicidal. However, there was a big difference between the way the England and Australian bowlers operated.

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Australia’s batting woes have been well documented on this tour and this has tended to obscure the fact that there are problems with the bowling. Apart from the injuries to Jason Gillespie and Andrew Bichel, the lack of penetration provided by the faster bowlers on a pitch that England used well, must be adding to Australia’s mounting headaches.

Glenn McGrath is bowling well, but he is his own worst enemy. On the second morning he bowled an extremely good first few overs, but then got frustrated at his lack of success and tended to bowl short too often.

In addition, McGrath makes his displeasure quite obvious to the batsmen and this sends them a message of some comfort. The less a batsman knows about the way a bowler is feeling the better.

To be fair to McGrath he has had to shoulder a heavy workload in recent times because of the unbalanced teams Australia have been fielding. This can lead to a shortening of the fuse. However, Glenn will need to unearth some patience on this tour, as Australia will be relying heavily on him and Shane Warne to bowl out the opposition.

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For his part Warne has been the epitome of patience at Edgbaston, but he has found the pitch a little too slow for his liking.

He has also run into a left-hander in Thorpe who has read and played him extremely well. Warne never met the great Australian leg-spinner Bill O’Reilly, but he probably agrees with `Tiger’, who once said, “all left-handers should be shot at birth.”

The fact that the Australians were unable to split the Thorpe, Hussain partnership for nearly five hours has a deeper meaning than just the match-winning connotations. So supreme was their liaison that the Australian bowlers were almost ground into submission and this will cause some psychological scarring for the rest of the series.

Nevertheless, there was one ray of sunshine for Australia and that came with the bowling of Michael Kasprowicz. The strongly built swing bowler was called on to do a lot of work with the injury to Gillespie and it may well be the making of the young man. He bowled sensibly, swinging the ball out to the right-handers, occasionally using the off-cuter for variation and maintaining good pace in an extended spell of eleven overs. Michael is a good athlete having represented Australian Rugby at schools levels. That experience has stood him in good stead.

Scoreboard

AUSTRALIA (1st innings): 118

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ENGLAND (1st innings): (overnight 200-3): Mark Butcher c Healy b Kasprowicz 8, Michael Atherton c Healy b McGrath 2, Alec Stewart c Elliott b Gillespie 18, Nasser Hussain c Healy b Warne 207, Graham Thorpe c Bevan b McGrath 138, John Crawley c Healy b Kasprowicz 1, Mark Ealham not out 32, Robert Croft not out 18; Extras: 25; Total: (for 6 wkts in 129.1 overs) 449

Fall of wickets: 1-8, 2-16, 3-50, 4-338, 5-345, 6-416

Bowling: McGrath 32-8-107-2, Kasprowicz 34.1-7-94-2, Gillespie 10-1-48-1, Warne 35-8-110-1, Bevan 6-0-34-0, S Waugh 12-2-45-0