Debutant Usman Khawaja briefly lit up a gloomy first day of the fifth Ashes Test yesterday, but Australia’s batting frailties and rain returned later in the day to leave the hosts wobbling on 134-4 at the close of play.
Despite their hopes of regaining the Ashes having gone, Australia could still square the series with a victory this week, but England just about edged the weather-disrupted day with some stifling bowling and key wickets.
Khawaja, the first Muslim to play for Australia, opened his first Test innings with a stunning salvo, but ended it after scoring 37 with a looping top-edged sweep off Graeme Swann, which Jonathan Trott gathered at square leg just as the rain returned.
PHOTO: AFP
Mike Hussey, so often Australia’s savior in this series, was still at the crease on 12 with Brad Haddin about to join him when play was stopped for the day.
Haddin’s elevation above Steve Smith in the batting order was one of the first manifestations of the captaincy of Michael Clarke, who took charge of his country’s Test side for the first time in place of the injured Ricky Ponting.
Clarke was Bresnan’s second victim, dismissed when he clipped the ball straight at James Anderson in the gully for just four after the first rain delay, which had swallowed up the tea break.
The 29-year-old, greeted with cheers from his home crowd and boos from the English contingent when he walked out to bat, was clearly furious with himself for another failure in a series where he has averaged just 19 in eight innings.
Khawaja came in straight after a lunch break precipitated by the fall of opener Phillip Hughes, who wasted a good morning’s work with a sloppy shot to be caught at slip by Paul Collingwood off the bowling of Chris Tremlett for 31.
Pakistan-born Khawaja, the first Australian to debut at No. 3 since Justin Langer in 1993, had been forced to wait for his chance, but grasped it with both hands when it came courtesy of Ponting’s injury.
Watched by his parents and an expectant nation, he sent the first ball he faced racing away for two runs before summoning up a beautiful pull shot at chest height to dispatch the second for four.
Eight balls into his Test career, he had made 15 and, although he then settled into the more conservative pace of his teammates, the 43,561 crowd at the Sydney Cricket Ground was buzzing.
Opener Shane Watson had epitomized the cautious approach, waiting 89 deliveries for his first boundary and taking more than three hours to score 45 before he hit a Bresnan ball he should have left and was caught in the slips by Andrew Strauss.
The England skipper had decided to stick with the team that retained the Ashes with an innings and 157 run victory in Melbourne last week and his bowlers repaid his faith in them.
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