The Ashes Diary (5 page)

We just got back from dinner in the hotel restaurant. There was a significant little encounter. We’d come in from our team meeting and were sitting there minding our own business when in walked Kevin Pietersen, Matt Prior, James Anderson and Jonathan Trott. It was the first time we’ve had face-to-face contact with any of the England Test players, and was one of those ‘moments’ you always have at the start of a series. I sensed a bit of awkwardness on both sides. We’d just been talking about them in our meeting. They looked uncomfortable, walking past all of us.

It was good for me to take note of our boys’ faces. I don’t think anyone was intimidated, that’s for sure. That first encounter is a noteworthy little part of an Ashes tour, which I find fascinating.

Monday 8 July.
Nottingham. Afternoon.

We had another good training session, and I had a bat. All the players have now been told individually if they’re in the eleven, but we’re not announcing it until the toss of the coin on Wednesday. In the meantime, the players will have time to get their heads around playing in an Ashes Test match.

Darren and I are both big fans of inviting past players into the team group to talk to us about cricket and give us a sense of the great tradition we’re inheriting. As Don Bradman said, we’re all just custodians of this wonderful game. With that in mind, we’ve invited Glenn McGrath to come in on Wednesday and present the baggy green to a player making a debut.

That debutant will be Ashton Agar. I told Ashton he would be batting at number eleven. We all know he’s a better batsman than that, but as a 19-year-old coming in for his First Test, I don’t want to put him under any added pressure, and besides, I’d be risking being put in a headlock by asking any of the fast bowlers to bat at number eleven. I joked to Ash in the nets, ‘Hey, a number eleven has never made a Test hundred. You never know!’

It’s tough on Nathan Lyon, who took nine wickets in our last Test match in India. Fortunately I don’t have to sit down with him and explain the decision as a selector. Instead, we had a chat where I assured him he is still an important member of the squad, and I’m sure he’ll be playing a big part in this tour.

The whole England team trained after us today. During the crossover period, they sat in the same lunch room as us, at a separate long table having their meal while we had ours. Like that moment in the hotel restaurant, it’s one of those signposts to the opening of the series. Two full teams, in their training gear, in the one room. It’s finally happening!

There’s what I would call an atmosphere of professional respect, rather than either familiarity or hostility, between the teams. I’m polite to all of the Englishmen, and will say g’day to anyone. James Anderson is the one who prefers not to talk to me. I didn’t read his book, but from what I heard, he had a crack at me. That’s fine. He’s a fast bowler, and if I was his captain I’d want to see a bit of mongrel in him too. I doubt it’s personal, though, because we don’t know each other. If you have longevity in the game you must be a decent person, because if you’re not, you get thrown out. I don’t have any personal problems with any of the English players.

At any rate, I’m a whole lot more focused on us than I am on the English.

Monday 8 July.
Nottingham. Evening.

Tonight we had our last team meeting before the Test match. Darren ran the meeting, and then I announced the eleven to the whole squad. For the guys involved, if they want any of their family to come over, they can then get that organised. Ashton Agar has already arranged for his parents and his two younger brothers to get on the first available flight from Melbourne.

I made it clear that aside from telling immediate family, we wanted to keep the identity of the final eleven in-house. We’re not telling the media. I had a quick chat with Ashton, not saying much apart from wishing him all the best and telling him that if he keeps playing the way he has been, he can’t fail.

All the guys are fully fit. We did have a little bit of a late scare with Phillip Hughes hurting his calf after training, so we’ll check on that tomorrow. Meanwhile, the selectors have decided David Warner is going to fly to Africa to join an Australia A team there, to get some match practice. They want to retain the option of picking him later in the series, if necessary, so he needs time in the middle.

Tuesday 9 July.
Nottingham. Evening.

Today was another beautiful sunny, warm day; I don’t know what they mean when they slag off English weather! Only joking. We had an optional training session, for guys to put a finishing touch to their preparation if they want it. Everyone went except the Test fast bowlers – Pattinson, Starc and Siddle – who know they’ve got a hard five days ahead of them. Phillip Hughes saw the physio about his calf, but they’re both happy and there’s no problem.

For me, the day before a Test match is about going through a final set of routines. I went to the dressing room and set up my gear: shirts on hangers, pads on the seat, bats lined up, all the rest of my stuff organised the way I always have it. Each person has his own ways.

I have a few nerves in my system, so I had a bat today to work them out. Nothing too severe – in fact I think I’m probably a fraction less nervous than at this stage on previous tours. I’ve played a lot of Test cricket and am as excited as I’ve ever been. I just want to go out and play the way I have for the last few years.

In the two pre-match press conferences, with the Australian media yesterday and the all-in today, I’ve been asked whether this series is the make-or-break of my captaincy. I absolutely reject that. I have three main objectives over the next 18 months: winning the Ashes here, retaining the Ashes at home, and winning the World Cup on home soil. That’s the next stage in my captaincy, and that’s what I’m focused on. I don’t think you can judge anyone on five Test matches, which are just a slice of that overall career. I’d like to think that I won’t become a ‘good’ or ‘bad’ captain based on our result here. I’m accountable for our performances and have been all along, and will be as long as I’m in the job. That goes over a long period, not just one series. Don’t get me wrong – I am desperate to win this series.

To be honest, my own place in history as a captain is the last thing on my mind. I’m thinking about the coming game and our whole team. All the boys are in a really good place. We’re prepared as well as we could be, and I’m proud of how the guys have conducted themselves in training and in the games. There’s an excitement in the camp. It’s not a scared excitement – I’ve seen that before – but a good excitement, a sense of eagerness for whatever challenges come our way. This is an Ashes series. I’m ready. We’re ready.

It feels like the night before Christmas.

4

THE FIRST TEST MATCH

Wednesday 10 July.
Nottingham.

Well, that was an interesting day to say the least: 14 wickets on what looked like a very flat and dry wicket! Probably entertaining for the crowd, but not exactly a proud day for the batsmen on both sides.

Before play, we had Glenn McGrath on the field to present Ashton Agar with his cap. Glenn made a nice speech, the theme of which was ‘Never, ever give up’. It was good for all of us to hear that. The game isn’t over until the last ball is bowled. Ashton himself got pretty emotional, as you’d expect, but I was also delighted to see how much pleasure all the boys took from the occasion. Almost everyone in the squad has played a Test match, so we know how Ashton feels – though none of us was 19 years old when we got our Test caps! It’s great to see a young kid so excited, and he gave a shot of energy to all of us.

Kumar Dharmasena, the former Sri Lankan off-spinner who’s one of our umpires this week, asked me, when he saw the line-up, how good a bowler Ashton is. I said, ‘He’s good, but he’s an even better batsman.’

I had to assess the conditions before the toss. As at most English venues, you have to look up, not down. The pitch was dry and flat, as we knew, but a cool change had come in overnight and the sky was overcast. This usually means the ball is going to swing about early. But they’ve been saying that Trent Bridge doesn’t produce as much swing as it used to, and we didn’t know how long the cloud would stay. That, with the dryness of the wicket, suggested to me that it was still a bat-first situation.

It was academic in the end, as I called incorrectly. There’s quite a funny story to the toss. Alastair Cook came out with what I think was his favourite one-pound coin. All through the tour, Chris Rogers has been claiming that English pound coins are heavier on the tails side than the heads – just a tiny bit, but enough to make a difference. I guess this is the kind of experience you get after years in county cricket! Jimmy Pattinson has been running trials with three coins, and reckons he’s found proof that they come up heads more often. I’ve been saying, ‘You’re dreaming!’ – but when Alastair tossed the coin I called heads just in case. It fell tails-up. Alastair said he’d bat. I didn’t really mind, as I thought batting would be very challenging in the first session.

The aim was to bowl full and let the ball swing. I gave Patto and Mitchell Starc six overs each at Cook and Root. Patto bowled from the Pavilion end and Starcy from the Radcliffe Road end, because there was a cross-breeze blowing that helped Patto’s outswing and Mitch’s inswing. There had been so much excitement in the build-up, though, that the nerves of actually being on the field were affecting everyone, batsmen and bowlers alike. The outcome was that we bowled too much on both sides of the wicket and didn’t make the English openers play enough balls.

In the ninth over, it was a ball that didn’t swing that gave us our first wicket. We know Cook’s least favoured shot is the off drive, and we’ve had some success over the years pitching it full outside his off stump and getting him to play a shot he’s not fully comfortable with. He’s very good at waiting and frustrating you into bowling short, and he just eats up anything at waist height that he can pull or cut. We kept bowling it full, and eventually he lost the waiting game, flashing at one that kept going across him. It was great to break the ice.

Jonathan Trott looked in fine touch from the first ball. The floodlights were on it was so dark, but he seemed untroubled by the swing. I brought Ash Agar into the game in the 16th over, wanting to get him involved early to help his nerves. I set a pretty defensive field for him. His first ball to Trott was a loose full toss, and I was hoping that the batsmen would try to go after him and destroy his confidence before he got started, and play a false shot. To Ash’s credit, he was the first bowler to throw Trott out of sync. There was a leading edge and a few misses, which sent Trott back into his shell a bit.

Peter Siddle had been short on wickets in the lead-up games, but he’s the fifth-ranked Test bowler in the world and I know what he can do. His first spell, from the Pavilion end, was a bit inconsistent and I took him off after four overs. I switched him to the Radcliffe Road end, hoping it might suit him better. I’d like to say it was a stroke of captaincy genius, but my true feeling was just that any change might help. His first ball from that end tailed away from Root and yorked him. Sidds can be unstoppable once he gets a head of steam, and we were all around him, revving him up.

I took Sidds off after a short spell to give Starcy a bowl. We felt that he could frustrate Kevin Pietersen by bowling a fourth or fifth stump line. But Starcy wasn’t at his best in that spell, and Pietersen and Trott got through to lunch.

If it had been a hot and sunny day, we’d have been happy with 2/94. But with the amount of movement our bowlers were getting under the heavy cloud, I felt we could have got more wickets. The young bowlers, playing their first Ashes Test, were understandably excited, and maybe nerves had affected them. In any case, we wanted a bit more consistency now, just plugging away in the right areas and letting the ball do the work.

Watto is the ideal bowler for that job, and he brought in a measure of control. He tightened things up, and then Sidds, coming back at the Radcliffe Road end, went wide on the crease and bowled Trott – the big breakthrough, as we felt he was seeing the ball better than any of the others.

Sidds doesn’t think he bowled his best today, and says he got lucky, but he really led the attack from that point. He took five wickets in the space of eight or nine overs and got us a very pleasing result in the end. Starcy and Patto chipped in with some late wickets, and we got England out for 215, which at the start of the day we would definitely have been happy to take.

There was still a fair bit going on with the ball, though, in the air and off the track. On the upside for us, Stuart Broad had taken a knock on the right shoulder or upper arm while he was batting, and the new ball was taken by Anderson and Finn. Nobody wants to see someone injured, but if England is going to be down a bowler, we’ll look to exploit that. I remember how Patto’s injury in Adelaide changed the course of our Test match against South Africa, and we’d like to grind England down here the way the Proteas did to us.

Watto and Chris Rogers started out with great intent. Watto cracked three boundaries in no time, and looked very happy at the top of the order, as he has all tour. Chris was compact and safe. I was hoping to settle in and watch some good batting for the rest of the afternoon when Watto went for another big drive and nicked Finn to slip.

A ball later, I was walking out there, wearing a vest in the cool weather. Ed Cowan had caught some sort of stomach bug from his young daughter Romy, and had spent a lot of the day off the field. He said he was fine to bat, but he played an out-of-character shot on the first ball and edged Finn.

The crowd was singing as I walked out, but not for me. I love how English crowds get involved, and they’d been fairly quiet through the day. Not now.

Finn’s hat-trick ball was a good one, and I was lucky to miss it. Anderson was on at the other end, and looked full of energy, but his first ball I hit right out of the middle in front of square leg. Unfortunately for me, it went nowhere, hitting the close-in fieldsman instead. I felt good having got one in the sweet spot, but as usual, nervy about getting off the mark.

I felt okay for the next ten minutes or so, until Anderson bowled a very good ball that moved away late and just clipped the outside half of my off stump. Bowlers are drilled in aiming at the top of off stump, and if they can do it with some away movement, they’ll get most batsmen. I suppose someone might have cover-driven that ball for four. I should have taken a bigger stride forward in defence, and then I’d have had it covered. One thing I do know, though, is that the way things are going, I’ll get a second chance in this Test match.

After getting out, I watched from the balcony. Batting was tough going. Chris Rogers really impressed me, and was very unlucky to be given out LBW to a ball that you’d have to say could have missed the leg stump. In this series, Hawk-Eye only has to show part of the ball hitting the stump and, if the onfield umpire has given it out, the third umpire will confirm that decision. That’s a big weight to place on an imprecise tool, but that’s the way it is, and it’s the same for both teams. I felt sorry for Chris though, as he was batting with great assurance, which was fantastic to see after his five years out of the team.

England bowled well in the conditions, wasting far fewer balls than we had. But Steve Smith and Phillip Hughes looked good and got us through to stumps – a small victory, but not meaningless. I’m hoping the sun comes out tomorrow, and am confident Steve and Phillip and the other guys can grind out some runs and bat for most of the day.

Thursday 11 July.
Nottingham.

What an unbelievable day. I’ve never seen anything like it in over 90 Test matches, or in any other cricket. People who saw this will never forget it. Our job is to come here and win back the Ashes, but sometimes you have to step back and recognise that whatever the result, you can offer people memories that will have them falling in love with cricket for life. Today was one of those days.

The best news, when I woke up, was that the sun was out. I was very excited at the thought of the batting getting much easier on a flat wicket. Before the start of play, I talked to the boys and said this was a great opportunity to bat all day and build a big lead.

It looked so good for the first hour. Hughesy was playing the ball right under his nose. Knowing how much he loves some width outside his off stump, the English bowlers tried to cramp him by bowling at his body, but Hughesy is a better player than when they last saw him, and he handled it pretty comfortably. Steve Smith was in great nick. He’d taken on Graeme Swann yesterday, hitting him straight for six, and he used his quick footwork to get down and attack him. I thought he clearly won that battle. He came down and cover-drove a beautiful four to bring up his 50, and I thought we were on our way to a strong position.

Unfortunately, Smithy was the big wicket. He edged a drive, and it was about that time that Anderson started to get the ball reversing, so the new batsmen were exposed to that. Hadds got a big spinning ball from Swann – not the type you want to get early in your innings – and our three pace bowlers, who are all good lower-order batsmen, nicked balls from Anderson that they could just as easily have played and missed.

From 4/108, we were 9/117. So in walked the 19-year-old. He just went out with no fear, backed himself and played his shots. It was a joy to watch, and the dressing room became a euphoric place. A last-wicket stand always frustrates the fielding team and gives extra joy to those in the dressing room, but this was a stand with a difference. We all knew Ash could bat, having seen him in the nets and the lead-up games, and he’d played some handy innings at number eight for Western Australia. I left him down at number eleven for two reasons. One, the three guys above him are all accomplished lower-order batsmen in their own right. Sidds scored a pair of 50s in our last Test in India, top-scoring, and made a first-class century on the Australia A tour. Starcy made 99 in India. Patto’s Test average is in the 30s, and he has always impressed with his technique and application. So it’s not like we have a genuine number eleven. The second reason was that I knew how nervous Ash would be and didn’t want to put him under too much pressure.

Well, he was under pressure now, and yet he seemed the least nervous person in Trent Bridge. He got away with a stumping appeal early on, but the replay showed that his toe was making a shadow on the crease, and you couldn’t be certain if he was on the crease or behind it. The third umpire correctly gave the batsman the benefit of the doubt.

Ash then swung and kept on swinging away, particularly on the pull shot. But he wasn’t slogging either. He was playing every ball on its merits and showed good defensive skills among the flashing boundaries, dropping the dangerous balls at his feet.

That’s not to forget Hughesy, who played an outstanding knock. He rotated the strike and hung in there with Ash. He deserves a lot of credit for a partnership that surpassed 151 – the world record in Test cricket for the last pair. The English obviously didn’t know how good Ash was, and they looked confused for a while. At a certain point, it wasn’t clear whether they were trying to keep Hughesy or Ash off strike.

At lunch, we were excited. I didn’t say much to Ash, other than that I was so pleased with the way he was playing. I went to Hughesy and said, ‘Back Ashton, he’s a good player, you don’t have to protect him from the strike.’

After the break, Ash and Hughesy batted even better. Ash played a whippy on drive off Anderson, and a clip off his toes off Broad. It was sensational batting, and Ash kept on smiling throughout it all like he was having a hit with his little brothers on the beach.

We got very nervous when Ash was in the 90s. We’ve had the running joke all week about a number eleven never making a century before. The boys were all sitting in the same seat they’d been in, not daring to move. Broad came on, after not doing much bowling at all, and decided to bowl bouncer after bouncer. This used to be not allowed against tail-enders, but to be fair, Ash had by now proved he was no typical tail-ender. Broad got one up and hit him on the arm, but Ash didn’t seem bothered. The tactic was to prey on his nerves, if he had any, and try to get him playing an awkward shot against a ball rising above his head.

Then we had our hearts broken. Broad took forever to do up his shoelaces and arrange his field. Then Kevin Pietersen ambled over to have a chat. It was obvious gamesmanship – something we’ve all either done, or had done to us. Eventually Broad got around to bowling the ball, another short one. Ash absolutely creamed his pull shot – hit it too well, in fact, and was caught by Swann diving in at deep mid-wicket. I was watching from the doorway, and when I saw Swann jump up with the ball I had to pull back, about to explode. We were all shattered for Ash. He’d worked so hard and deserved a hundred. But as we know, it’s never easy to make a Test century. I’m pretty sure Ashton Agar will get to 98 a few more times in his career, and he’ll learn from this.