Having made the point that the difference between the two sides in this Ashes series comes down to Ian Bell it’s worth making again on the back of a better than par performance on Day One of The Oval Test.
It could, of course, have gone drastically wrong, and at 1-11 with Warner heading back to the pavilion it was hard to avoid the suspicion that the nuts were dangerously loose and we were once again in a position where the wheels could fall off.
Watson’s 176 meant they didn’t, even after Rogers went fairly cheaply (23) and Clarke got himself into trouble against the short ball and ended up bowled Anderson, 7. Throw in 66 not from Smith and 18 from nightwatchman Siddle and you’d have to be fairly upbeat about Australia’s prospects.
I’ve been muttering about the injustices of a score line that reads 3-0, but would respectfully suggest the following antidote to any Australian supporter confronted with a gloating Pom.
Give him a chance to deliver his serve, fix him with a beady eye and inquire:
Take out Bell. How good would you be looking then?
Pause, then before he can get a reply in, hit him with:
Actually, take out Bell and Broad and where’d you be then? More than likely four-nil down against a side that’s playing well short of a hundred per cent.
That last point might be stretching it a tad, but this series has been a lot closer than the score line suggests, and much of the difference, once you remove Bell from the calculations, comes down to Broad, who is rapidly becoming a major pain in the you know where.
Which, of course, brings us back to the eternal subject of The Niggle.
Prior to the start of play there was much being made of Uncle Fester’s response to Mr Broad’s remarks about That Catch That Wasn’t.
Lehmann’s suggestion that Australian crowds should give the blond English dude who looks like he could pick up a gig in the remake of Brideshead Revisited (thanks for that one, Jimbo) a constant stream of sledge was being regarded as unsporting (or something) from the Pommie-phile commentariat, largely on the basis of what a few lagered-up occupants of Bay 13 might happen to deliver.