Free The Ashes Diary by Michael Clarke Page A

and my balance was good as I kept out the dangerous balls. Broad slipped down the leg side a couple of times and I wasn’t quick enough to get my bat on them, but leg byes were as good as runs. I then hit a solid on drive, again to the fieldsman, but in such a way that I got the sense I was going to have a good day.
    In the 43rd over, after I’d been with Chris for half an hour, Anderson hit him on the body. Two balls later, Anderson got him. He bowled one with a scrambled seam, and Chris chipped the ball to mid-wicket.
    It was a blow, but I have full confidence in the rest of our batsmen. Steve Smith and Phil Hughes batted positively in the first innings and were seeing the ball well. Steve is a fidgety partner, but I don’t mind that. My nervous energy is always high early in my innings, and being with a guy who’s on a similar wavelength doesn’t bother me.
    The runs weren’t coming easily, though. Broad gave me one on my thigh that I was able to turn away fine for a boundary. Against Anderson, Smithy chased some wide full outswingers and hit them beautifully. The English fielders oohed and aahed, but I told Steve to keep watching the ball and backing himself.
    Swann came on for Broad, and while I was getting ready to face him he stopped the play to move his fieldsmen around in a painstaking kind of way. This is often just a ploy to disrupt your concentration and make you play at the other team’s tempo. My response is to think, ‘No, you’re going to play at my tempo.’ So when he was finally ready, I stepped off to the side of the wicket to take off my helmet and wipe the sweat off my forehead and out of my eyes. It actually was pretty tropical. I never thought Nottingham could feel like Sydney in summer!
    With the slowness of the wicket, it was hard forcing the pace against either the seamers or the spinners. The bounce and spin were varying and they were drying us up, waiting for us to play a false shot. I’d been keeping Swann out for a few overs when he bowled a looping full toss, knee-high, outside my off stump. I swung at it too hard and under-edged it towards mid-wicket.
    It was difficult to find any rhythm. I played some off drives against Anderson and then Finn, but both squirted away behind point – safely, but not where I’d wanted. Patience, patience.
    We got to the halfway point in the chase, 3/156, a little milestone. Then Broad came on from the Radcliffe Road end to replace Finn. He bowled me a fullish ball that wobbled a bit outside my off stump and went through a touch low. I played forward, and thought I felt my bat brush my pad on the way through. The English went up in a huge, excited appeal, but I wasn’t worried. First, I wasn’t sure if it had carried to Matt Prior, and second, I didn’t think I’d hit it.
    The umpires conferred on the carry – a worrying sign, because if I hadn’t hit it the carry wouldn’t matter. They referred it to the third umpire, and we waited. I spoke to Smithy, who said he hadn’t seen or heard a nick.
    While we waited, Kevin Pietersen challenged me. ‘I thought you were a walker.’ I turned around and said, ‘I’m not walking because I didn’t think I hit it.’
    I still wasn’t worried, even when third umpire Marais Erasmus sent down the message that it had carried to Prior, and Aleem Dar gave me out. I immediately referred it for the edge. We watched on the big screen, and I felt good – there was no white mark on my edge on Hot Spot. But the English had got a message from their dressing room, and they were beginning to jump about and celebrate. Soon enough, the third umpire upheld Dar’s decision, and I was off. Pietersen sent me on my way with some choice words.
    Back in the dressing room, the television showed there was the finest of marks against my edge. The third umpire has a monitor that is very high-definition, much more than the big screen we watch on the field, so that explained why we hadn’t seen it from the middle. Nothing I