- Live updates from Cardiff as the first Ashes Test gets underway
- Interactive: a history of the Ashes in charts
- The moment of truth: can new England survive Australia onslaught?
- Email john.ashdown@theguardian.com or Tweet @John_Ashdown
16th over: England 43-3 (Ballance 16, Root 0) With the spinner’s work done,Clarke brings Hazelwood straight back into the attack. Ballance plays out a watchful maiden.
England aren’t the only ones taking a bit of a shoeing this morning:
Terrible test pitch from what I've seen so far. Very good captaincy by Clarke getting the spinner on so early.
15th over: England 43-3 (Ballance 16, Root 0) Root inside edges onto his pads from his first delivery and is dropped by Haddin from the next! It would’ve been a stunning catch had he held on – he was going one way then had to leap the other and was at full stretch – but the ball squirmed from his grasp. It’s a terrific over from Starc – much more in tune with what we expected from him.
What a ball from Mitchell Starc. Bell can’t get bat close to a huge inswinging yorker and is trapped in front. It might even have been swinging too much, but the finger goes up and he opts not to review.
14th over: England 43-2 (Ballance 16, Bell 1) That aggression from Cook against Lyon didn’t really pay off then:
Nathan Lyon to Alastair Cook . . . . . . . . . . . . . W
Lyon continues after the refreshments and he’s done for the England captain! Cook looks to slash through point, but succeeds only in edging through to Haddin.
13th over: England 42-1 (Ballance 16, Cook 20) Starc returns and his radar is still off – a juicy full toss allows Ballance to drive confidently through the covers for four. And that’s drinks.
12th over: England 36-1 (Ballance 10, Cook 20) Lyon continues and there’s another dance down the track from Cook. It’s so incongruous it’s a bit hard to believe that it’s not some sort of optical illusion or hallucination. Everyone else can see those dancing yellow badgers as well, right?
Plenty of intent from Cook, then, but no runs again – a couple of forceful drives pick out fielders in the off side.
11th over: England 36-1 (Ballance 10, Cook 20) Johnson tries a couple of short balls at Ballance, but they’re not particularly well directed. And as such they don’t really work as the set-up for the full one, which duly comes next. A nudge into the leg side brings him a couple more, then there’s a slightly-too-close-for-comfort leave from the last.
10th over: England 34-1 (Ballance 8, Cook 20) Interesting move from Clarke: here comes Nathan Lyon. “Woar! She’s turned and bounced!” yelps Brad Haddin as the first fails to do either. Cook dances down the track – dances down the track!– at the third and almost drives to the man at short mid off. Who are you and what have you done with Alastair Cook? The remainder is much more standard, Cook fending from the crease. A maiden.
9th over: England 34-1 (Ballance 8, Cook 20) Another streaky boundary for Cook, this time he leaves a leave too late and is a touch fortunate to see the ball skitter low through the slips. Johnson is finding a bit of away swing to the left-hander and he’s up over 90mph, but Cook can cope comfortably whenever he drops a touch short. He does just that with the penultimate ball of the over and the England captain pulls coolly for a single.
8th over: England 29-1 (Ballance 8, Cook 15) Four! But a seriously streaky one for Cook – a very fine inside edge saving him from an lbw shout and skipping away to the fine leg boundary. Another decent over from Hazlewood.
7th over: England 22-1 (Ballance 6, Cook 10) Ballance’s feet are planted in his crease as Johnson begins a new over, and he French-crickets the ball away from in front of his pad. That’s a worrying sign. From the next, the feet barely move again other than to get up on tippy-toes to fend away a bouncer. A single from the next must come as a relief for the England No3 but he’s quickly back on strike, Cook (who, whisper it, looks to be settling nicely) nudging into the leg side for one more. Still, he survives.
6th over: England 20-1 (Ballance 5, Cook 9) Hazlewood bangs one in short. Though ‘bangs’ is probably the wrong word. ‘Plops’ might be more appropriate given the pace of this pitch. Cook gleefully pulls away for four, the sort of shot he can play in his sleep. A couple of balls later, though, he’s tempted into a little jab outside off and the ball beats the bat.
5th over: England 16-1 (Ballance 5, Cook 5) Michael Clarke has seen enough and Mitchell Johnson replaces Mitchell Starc. No venom from Australia’s fast-bowling super-predator here though. Five runs from the over.
4th over: England 11-1 (Ballance 4, Cook 1) A reprieve for Ballance , who gets off the mark with an edge that flies wide of the slips but not quite wide enough for gully. The ball trundles away for four, but that was far from convincing. Hazlewood has hit his straps here.
3rd over: England 7-1 (Ballance 0, Cook 1) Starc sends down a maiden at Cook – too wide of off stump.
2nd over: England 7-1 (Ballance 0, Cook 1) That was the final ball of the over. Fair to say this wouldn’t have been the out-of-nick Gary Ballance’s dream scenario this morning.
Josh Hazlewood takes the new ball at the other end and both batsmen get off the mark, Cook with a push into the off, Lyth with something rather squirtier through the gully region. And as the young bowler strays onto Lyth’s pads we get the first boundary of the series – the Yorkshire opener clipping economically to square leg for four. But next ball he’s gone! Hazlewood squares him up and the balls flies off the face to gully, where Warner takes a superb low catch. First blood to Australia.
1st over: England 0-0 (Lyth 0, Cook 0) As Mitchell Starc crouches at the end of his run, Adam Lyth takes his guard and prepares to face his first ball in Ashes cricket. Low bounce, the lowest of low bounce, troubles him on a couple of occasions but that’s not an over to thrill either batsman or bowler.
“Can we please stop this time zone nonsense?” writes Ant Pease “I’ve got friends watching this in Los Angeles. Play doesn’t start there for another eight hours and all we’re doing is spoiling it for them.”
Right, here we go then. Mitchell Starc has the ball in his hand. And we’re about to get underway …
“I’m in tropical Australia and 8.5 hours ahead,” writes Tim in Darwin. “England slumped to 110 for 4 and recovered to 280 for 8. Hazlewood took 4-35.”
Fireworks, we’ve had fireworks too. Well, a bit of limp pyro anyway. Play will start at 11.15am BST.
Anthems, handshakes, flags, carpet, choirs … and all that out of the way, we’re going to get some cricket. And almost certainly, because this is the way of these things, some rain.
THIS IS INSANE.
Bread of Heaven and a giant Welsh flag being spun in a circle. Quite why it needed to be bone dry for all this is beyond me.
“I’m in Romania (two hours ahead) and can confirm that Neil Emms is correct: the tea break will coincide with the Tour stage’s conclusion here too,” writes Simon Edmond. “Mike Wood and Berlin are not the only lucky ones. PS It’s the lunch break already here. England are 80-2.”
Can anyone in Tahiti fill us in on the score at stumps?
It’s stopped raining but this is the current scene:
The covers are now off but we’re not going to start on time … because we’ve got to have some singing.
There’s been no word on a delayed start … yet. But the covers are well and truly on.
In the meantime … “Regarding Mike Wood’s email about the cricket tea break coinciding with the end of the Tour De France stage because he lives in Germany where there is a one hour time difference,” writes Neil Emms. “Am I mad or would the two coincide regardless of if you are in Berlin or in the pacific islands?”
“In terms of the big sports day, it’s also the biggest day of the year for Australian Rugby League fans: State of Origin is kicking off at about the same time as the Ashes.,” writes Zach from Queensland. Yep – and you can follow that live right here with Paul Connolly in our Australian office.
Stat!
The team who has won the toss in the first Test of the series has won the last five Ashes series. #Ashes
Enter this competition to win a unique prize– the chance for you and your team to play a real Twenty20 match at the historic Kia Oval.
Bah! It’s raining again folks.
Raaaaaiiiiiinnn. #Ashes
“Living in Germany and having a one hour difference, we have the beautiful happenstance of the tea break coinciding exactly with the last 50km or so of the Tour De France, allowing you to flip over and catch the best bits,” writes Mike Wood in Berlin. “Beautiful stuff. Unfortunately now they’ve embargoed TMS abroad, some of us have had to resort to somewhat underhand methods to get our cricket fix …” There’s nothing underhand about the OBO!
On Sky Ian Ward, sporting a pair of extraordinarily white shorts and supping a cuppa, is currently interviewing Ben Stokes in Ben Stokes’ garage. Lovely stuff.
“So much sport today,” writes Peter Harmer. “What are the chances Andy Murray can finish his match off in the 40 minutes over lunch? It would really simplify my viewing choices today.”
It’s one of the great days in the sporting calendar no doubt about it. Everything louder than everything else.
England:Cook, Lyth, Ballance, Bell, Root, Stokes, Buttler, Ali, Broad, Wood, Anderson.
http://www.theguardian.com/sport/gallery/2015/jul/07/australia-ashes-squad-in-pictures
Tails is the call from Michael Clarke … and it’s heads. And Alastair Cook says England are going to have a bat.
Emails!
“A cold winter’s night in Melbourne. A glass of red in hand. Here we go again. Please, please, please be more 2013/14 than 2013” – Chris Reilly.
Some light pre-match reading perhaps?
The next month or so will show just how far the vibrant new England have come: whether the cultural transformation infused in the team (and through it, the cricket-following public) during the first part of the summer is a permanent marking or whether it will be washed away under a pace-bowling onslaught.
For these final few hours, then, the 2015 Ashes remains unwritten. By the time some get around to reading this the contest will already be under way, and we will know what the first morning brought. Whether the opening delivery was sent straight to a startled second slip, was spanked past point for four, or left alone to fly by wide of off-stump. Nothing in cricket, few things in sport, are as storied as the Ashes.
The first day of a first Ashes Test is something special and both sets of players, young or old, must embrace it. Sure, the intensity is like no other game you will play, but breathe it in. Ride that wave. Because the training is out of the way, the team meetings have been held, the plans are in place and finally all the talk in the media is replaced by the real thing: the cricket.
The good news: it’s the Ashes! The bad news: um, this:
covers on, brollies up
So where are we? No, really, where the hell are we? A couple of months ago it seemed fairly simple to point a metaphorical telescope into the cricketing skies and see where everyone stood, how all the stars aligned. But now? Post-New Zealand? Post epoch-creating Exciting England? Does anyone really know anymore.
Ashes series are not necessarily forks in the road but waymarkers telling us where the road goes from here. In this the English trajectory is fairly clear – crucially, rock bottom (on this particular cycle) is in the past. In many ways it’s worth viewing the 2013 home series as the ground zero – a Australia team in a mess only narrowly (if we’re honest) beaten by an England side on the downslope from the peak of its powers and reliant on a couple of key men in bubbles of exceptional form. The series back in Austraila proved the point.
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