| England vs Austrailia, 4th Ashes Test, Headingley 16th-20th August 2001 Day 1 |
| Firstly the two teams: England: Austrailia: M. Atherton M. Hayden M. Trescothick M. Slater M. Butcher R. Ponting N. Hussain (c) M. Waugh M. Ramprakash D. Martyn U. Afzaal S. Katich A. Stewart (w) A. Gilchrist (c)(w) A. Tudor S. Warne A. Caddick B. Lee D. Gough J. Gillespie A. Mullally G. McGrath Both teams had new captains for this test. Fearless and often fingerless Nasser Hussain returned for England, while Adam Gilchrist took over in Steve Waugh's absence. The first event of the test was the meaningless toss, Austrailia again winning it, and Gilchrist choosing to bat. Headingley has always had a reptuation for being very bowler-friendly pitch, which is true even against Austrailia, as statistics show they only average 514 in the first innings in the last 20 years at Headingley. Gough and Caddick came out pumped up, and sent the ball down the pitch quickly, for the two Aussie openers to despatch to the boundary even quicker. Hayden was dismissed for 15, lbw to Caddick, as Austrailia became 39-1. Slater soon followed in the same fashion for 21, and at 42-2, Austrailia looked in a little trouble. Ponting seemed out of form, and Waugh was kept quiet. Until Mullally came into the attack. Ponting then looked in fine touch as he punished bad ball after bad ball off Mullally and Tudor, while Waugh looked equally comfortable at the other end. Ponting was finally dismissed for a quickfire 144 by Tudor, reducing Austrailia to 263-3. Waugh was finally dismissed by Cadddick for 72 a few overs later, leaving Austrailia on 288-4. Day 2 Austrailia continued their dominance in the morning. The debutant Katich only scored 15 before leaving a ball by Gough, quite an unusual concept to a ball aimed at the stumps. However, he'd not needed to score quickly as Martyn was more than compensating, racing away like Ponting had the day before. Austrailia were now 355-5. Gilchrist recorded his lowest score in the series, 19, before giving a chance to Trescothick in the slips off Gough's bowling. Trescothick obliged, leaving Austrailia on 396-6. Warne followed after lunch, nicking Gough through to Stewart for 0 , and Brett Lee followed for an equally good score, edging a rare decent Mullally ball to Ramprakash in the slips, leaving Austrailia on 422-8. Gillespie added 5 of his own runs, and Martyn was finally dismissed for 118 off 135 balls, Austrailia finally dismissed for 447 just before tea. England knew they had a mountain to climb just to avoid the follow-on considering the way they had batted previously in this series. Atherton was looking in good form before getting a good ball from McGrath with his score on 22, England losing their first wicket for 50. Trescothick followed 20 minutes later, top-edging McGrath to Gilchrist while trying to pull him, being caught for 37 with England on 67-2. Hussain came to the crease, and both him and Butcher looked in good-enough form. Hussain took his time when he first came in, having had little match practise and not timing the ball too well at first. But with time he improved, and when he was finally dismissed for 46, lbw to McGrath from a ball which stayed terribly low, he was starting to look in good form. Butcher then had a temporary rush of blood, taking on Brett Lee's throwing arm from about 5 metres, and not surprisingly losing. Butcher dismissed for 47, England on 158-4. Afzaal got a start, but was dismissed by McGrath for 14. Back to the homepage To Days 3-5 |