Free Ashes 2011 by Gideon Haigh

been more appropriate.
    For members of England's cricket community, though, a little barminess is never misplaced. Just like the last time, a strategic withdrawal is what this opening of the Ashes is proving to be, England having retreated so far for 101 overs and sustained only a single casualty. At stumps, having been outplayed for two and a half of the first three days, they led by 88 runs with a day to play. The effort was undergirded by Andrew Strauss and Alastair Cook's partnership of 188 in 398 balls, England's biggest in Ashes cricket at the Gabba for any wicket, although Cook's fluent two-hour century stand with Jonathan Trott was little less crucial, putting distance between the visitors and their hosts once England had erased their arrears.
    The tension and hurry of the first day seemed long ago. In the first innings, Siddle felt close to wickets so constantly that he almost added a cradling of his head to the end of his regular follow-through. Today there was as little encouragement for the bowlers as there was lateral movement, save when a ball every so often hit one of the cracks marking the pitch darkly like fading operation scars on a pale abdomen.
    Siddle's eighth over was Australia's best of the pre-lunch session. Strauss cover-drove a fullish ball for four to raise England's hundred in two and a half hours, but inside-edged the next to fine leg, then was hit on the gloves protecting his clavicle; he looked momentarily nonplussed. A quarter-hour later, he came down the pitch to Doherty and miscued as the ball hit the rough, but Johnson, advancing overexcitedly, floored the catch.
    The moment passed. The pair buckled down anew, constructing their partnership as painstakingly and collaboratively as English journalists construct their expenses. Strauss looked less like a batsman avoiding a pair than one coming off back-to-back warm-up hundreds, neat and economical in everything he did, even in the perfunctory retracing of his guard between deliveries. Getting out to Marcus North will have annoyed him, but he is not the best batsman to do that, Sachin Tendulkar having contrived it eight weeks ago.
    Compared to the callow youth of 2006–07 and the limited and somewhat vulnerable figure of last year, Cook was a revelation, accumulating invisibly but invincibly. In addition to his usual repertoire of cuts and nudges, he displayed a pull shot almost as powerful and fluent as Hussey's the day before, and even the occasional unostentatious cover drive. Four years ago in Perth, he marred his only previous Ashes hundred by falling late in the day. Here his concentration was cast iron to the last ball, and his fitness irreproachable.
    Bowling circumstances today were not unfavourable. It was warm but not hot; with plenty of runs to play with, there was ample scope for attack. But conditions were very different to those that pertained a year ago when Hilfenhaus won the man-of-the-match award against West Indies. Today he seemed to lack some variety, a bouncer, or an extra turn of speed. In fact, according to Channel Nine's patented Gator Tracker, with which they monitor players' vital signs during the match, Hilfenhaus's heart rate varies more than his pace. At one stage, he was so grooved at 84mph that it was like he had slipped into cruise control.
    Johnson was the gravest disappointment, his arm reaching Malinga-like lowness, with the result that, at his natural length, most deliveries were reaching England's batsmen, who tend to hang back anyway, at a comfortable waist height. There was ample geeing-up for him. After one over, no fewer than seven team-mates ran past to ruffle his hair, pat his backside or maybe compliment him on his moustache. But he is wicketless so far here, and has taken three for 328 since his successful first innings in Mohali.
    Watson, by contrast, was probably underbowled, despite his qualities as perhaps Australia's most consistent and certainly luckiest bowler of the last year. And it was