England Cooking a healthy lead

Openers put on record stand as Australia toil on fourth day of first Ashes Test.

BRISBANE: England are on course to salvage the opening Ashes Test after a dominant batting display to overturn a massive innings-deficit into a mounting lead on the fourth day at the Gabba.

England surged back after Saturday’s fruitless third day to trail by 221 runs and hit the front on the back of a ground record stand between Andrew Strauss and Alastair Cook. At close, the Ashes holders were 309 for one with Cook unbeaten on 132 and Jonathan Trott on 54 to hold an overall lead of 88 runs.

The opening combined for the highest English partnership for any wicket at the Gabba of 188 runs and also registered the first century opening stand by an English pair in Australia since 1991. The England captain scored his 19th Test hundred and fourth against Australia off 224 balls with 15 fours.

Quite a turnaround

England had dramatically turned things around to have an outside chance of being the only team who could win on the final day today. “We can’t look too far ahead at this stage,” said Strauss. “At this stage we need to push on and make sure that we can get into a decent position on the final day.”

England’s cause was abetted by three dropped catches. Wicketless Mitchell Johnson added to the misery by putting down Strauss just before lunch when the England captain was on 69, Cook was dropped on 103 in a tough tumbling chance by Peter Siddle then it was Trott who was given a life on 34 courtesy Michael Clarke.

‘Australia struggling to sustain pressure’

Australia have a problem sustaining pressure on opposition batsmen, Shane Watson admitted after his side let slip a huge lead against England.

“I think it came down to not sustaining pressure for long enough and we weren’t able to do that for the whole day,” said Watson.  “We did it for little periods of time but unfortunately we couldn’t execute for long enough to really build the pressure on them.”

Australia came into the fourth day on the back of a record-breaking 307-run partnership between Mike Hussey and Haddin on Saturday but were unable to capitalise on their strong position.

“It’s disappointing because of how well Hussey and Haddin batted to get us into a position but unfortunately it’s something we really haven’t been able to do for a period of time, which is to sustain pressure. That’s something that we are continuing to work on as a group because we know how important it is on flat wickets and we know there are going to be some flat wickets for the rest of the summer.”

Published in The Express Tribune, November 29^th, 2010.