Clarke and North bat England out of First Ashes Test
The third day of the First Ashes Test in Cardiff went the same way as the second, with Michael Clarke and Marcus North building the second strong partnership of the innings to almost rule out an English victory at 479/5 in reply to England’s 435.
Ricky Ponting and Simon Katich began the day on three figures each with Australia 1/249, but both fell to the second new ball in the morning session. Katich (122) was caught LBW by an excellent inswinging yorker by James Anderson, as the new Duke ball did show significant movement through the air despite doing precisely nothing off the pitch.
Michael Hussey (3) continued his poor run of recent form with a relatively tame nick through to keeper Matt Prior from Andrew Flintoff. Ricky Ponting (150) passed 11,000 Test runs during a highly controlled innings but edged a Monty Panesar spinner onto his stumps just before lunch with a tired cut shot.
With the ball aging and the pitch offering nothing, the middle session belonged to Clarke and North, with English captain Andrew Strauss setting a packed off-side field to Clarke with two close covers to no effect. The spinners, Panesar and Graeme Swann, both struggled with their length, with Swann offering many full tosses and Panesar serving up multiple long hops. Neither batsman gave a chance before a two-hour rain delay spanning the tea break brought a halt to proceedings.
Clarke (83) hit yet another beautiful cover boundary in the first over after resumption, but he did eventually fall caught behind to Prior off Stuart Broad down the leg side. North (54 not out) was joined by Brad Haddin (4*) and they survived until a second interruption ended the day’s play.
Australia will probably have to add another 200 runs to build a total that they can use to win the game, in the hope that they can force England to bat last on the fifth day. The pitch has not shown much signs of deteriorating so far but the rain may help that process along, especially with further showers forecast for the fourth day.
