0ngesibetho kuqala eNgilani

Uthuthu ke luphinde lwaqhubeka kwakhona kwaye akukho kumangalisa okukhulu kude kube ngoku. I-Australia iphumelele i-toss kwaye yahlaselwa, I-England iphume nebhola kwaye yenza ubomi bube nzima kwi-avareji ephezulu yokujonga ukubetha kwe-Australia. Indoda yosuku ngaphandle kwamathandabuzo uStuart Broad, who should have now silenced all but the most loud-mouthed of his crit­ics.Aus­tralia closed on 273–8, a score unlikely to put much “score­board pres­sure” on Eng­land, and show­ing that they’ve not improved their bat­ting since the recent series that Eng­land won 3–0. All the talk before the series has been by Aus­trali­ans about how they were going to scare Eng­land and tar­get Broad. As an Eng­land sup­port­er it is nice to see a for­eign press doing what our own tabloids so often do — goad­ing the oppos­i­tion into a high­er per­form­ance. Broad respon­ded just as our oppon­ents do when the Brit­ish press tar­gets the oppos­i­tion — he demol­ished the Aus­trali­an bats­men, tak­ing 5 for 65. If the boo­ing has a sim­il­ar impact on his bat­ting we can prob­ably con­clude the series now.

As good as Eng­land were, Aus­tralia con­tin­ue to dis­ap­point. Their best bats­man, and cap­tain, still has­n’t learned how to deal with the short ball, a fail­ure which will cost him dear in this series if he isn’t quick to address it. Warner got him­self in and then out by play­ing like a 1‑day bats­man. Wat­son added to the mount­ing evid­ence that he’s a flat-track bully by get­ting him­self in, and then out for a poor 22. Smith con­trib­uted 31, not unreas­on­able for a dis­tinctly aver­age play­er but not a score that will turn many games. Bailey is new to the side and has­n’t yet shown he can offer much, but against an older ball on a bats­man’s wick­et he should have made the most of his oppor­tun­ity. Only Brad Had­din and Mitchell John­son offered much pro­longed res­ist­ance with the bat. Had­din is a qual­ity play­er — if Aus­tralia are to win a test, wuyekeni thotho, it will undoubtedly require a sig­ni­fic­ant con­tri­bu­tion from him. John­son is handy with the bat but is unlikely to make many half-cen­tur­ies in the series.

If Eng­land bat like they did the last time they vis­ited Aus­tralia they have every chance of win­ning by an innings, and win­ning the series com­fort­ably. If they bat like they did in the recent home Ashes series it will be anoth­er fairly close series with Eng­land likely to edge it over­all. Here’s to wak­ing up tomor­row to hear that Eng­land are 250 for 0.