Australia endure forgettable day one

After he emerged wicketless at Lord’s for the first time in 64 Tests, it didn’t take long for the credibility as well as the credentials of England’s greatest Test wicket-taker, James Anderson – the most successful bowler the famous ground has known – to be queried.

Sir Ian Botham, the man Anderson surpassed earlier this year to claim that crown, revealed today that he had been stopped in the street post-Lord’s by England fans asking what had suddenly gone awry with their most potent spearhead.

Anderson's six wickets (Aus only)

Australia selector and ex-Test batsman Mark Waugh waded in, suggesting England’s attack was bereft of energy in their huge second Test defeat and that “James Anderson just didn’t look interested to me”.

Anderson, who turns 33 today (Thursday), was acutely interested from ball one when presented with the sort of ‘English’ pitch at Edgbaston that he, his captain Alastair Cook and even Cook’s rival skipper Michael Clarke had been yearning for from the opening day of this Ashes series.

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Anderson acknowledges the applause // Getty Images

When Anderson went from his first wicketless Test in six years to his best Ashes bowling figures (6-47), Clarke and his team were left rueing what it was they had wished for after the captain won the toss and chose to bat.

Quick Single: Lethal Anderson swinging in the rain

And those who doubted Anderson’s ability to dismember opposition batting teams in conditions that suit him – which Trent Bridge, the venue for the next Test of this series, has historically proved – were sat back in their seats with a clinical display of seam bowling.

If it was the pitch, with a covering of grass but dry and even a little cracked beneath that mat of cover, that was to blame for Australia’s insipid innings of 136, then clearly that advantage was whisked away beneath the cover of the hover tent that made regular appearances in the middle on a rain-dotted day.

Watch: All 10 Australian wickets (Aus only)

Because by the time England got to bat on it at 4pm on a cold, grey Midlands summer day, the wicket that had seamed unplayable – to the extent that three Australia batsmen perished trying not to – had been replaced by a surface on which England’s batsmen skipped along at a run a ball.

If it was the thick, low cloud that made Anderson, Steven Finn (who made the pair of vital early incisions in his first Test in more than two years) and Stuart Broad so lethal that England only employed three bowlers, then it was replaced somehow by thinner, higher stuff when the home team batted.

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Ian Bell returned to form with 53 // Getty Images

The balance of Ashes power that has oscillated wildly since the fluctuating fortunes of day one in Cardiff rests heavily with England, who ended the opening day in Birmingham three runs in arrears with Yorkshiremen Joe Root (13no) and Jonny Bairstow (1no) at the crease and six other batsmen to follow.

Not since the reign of Queen Victoria have Australia won a Test match in England with such an inadequate first innings score in the book, and an examination of how they squandered the dominance they established at Lord’s less than a fortnight ago will not make for amusing reading.

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Rogers was outstanding with 52 // Getty Images

Only opener Chris Rogers, whose place in the starting line-up was as clouded as the weather up until match morning, showed the acumen and application to deal with conditions that provided help for the bowlers off the surface more so than through the heavy air.

Watch: Rogers posts gritty fifty (Aus only)

Australia had much of their bowlers’ capacity to humble England in a tick over 37 overs on a flat, slow pitch at Lord’s last Sunday week.

Yet they were shot out in two fewer deliveries today when confronted by a track that provided the sort of bounce both teams had spent the past month searching for.

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England fans celebrate Clarke's wicket // Getty Images

While the free-fall of wickets peaked in the 85 minutes immediately after lunch when seven Australia batsmen came and went with an output of just 64 runs between them, the terminal damage had been inflicted in an opening session punctuated by 30 minutes of rain and three notable failures.

David Warner, brimming from his first century of the tour against Derbyshire a week earlier, Lord’s double century-maker Steve Smith and Clarke were all undone by deliveries of impeccable length that were given the chance to do just enough off the supportive surface.

The latter two came via the towering reach of Finn, brought into the XI to replace fellow seamer Mark Wood who is carrying a left ankle injury, whose additional height and 90mph pace had Smith pushing with an uncertainty so foreign to him across two days at Lord’s.

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Finn celebrates the big wicket of Smith // Getty Images

And had Clarke, who maintains he is in good batting touch despite the presence of one 50-plus score on his imposing Test record over the past year, looking anything but as he played over and around and ultimately stumbled past a ball that smashed into the base of his stumps.

“It’s very clear looking at him (Clarke) batting at the moment that he’s searching for something,” former England skipper and opener Michael Atherton said on Sky-TV’s coverage after Clarke’s unsuccessful pursuit of a score above 10.

“Searching for confidence, searching for form.”

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Clarke heads back to the pavilion // Getty Images

The muddled state of the Australian batsmen’s thinking was best illustrated by the rash of dismissals after lunch when Anderson, egged on by a roaringly jingoistic crowd that sounded far greater than the sum of its 25,000 parts, messed with their minds.

Watch: All 10 Australian wickets (Aus only)

Hitting a probing length with his “wobble ball” that does less than Mitchell Starc’s whooping swing but more than Josh Hazlewood’s metronomic seam, Anderson exposed a similar frailty in Australia’s top-order competence in true English conditions as they have exhibited in those of the subcontinent.

It led Adam Voges, whose county experience had him looking as comfortable as anyone bar Rogers, to play at then withdraw from a ball that shaped in but held its line and caught the toe of his receding bat en route to Jos Buttler.

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Anderson removes Voges // Getty Images

Which seemingly led Mitchell Marsh to play with much greater intent when he came to the wicket to replace his WA teammate, but flashed so hard and so wide at a delivery that could have sailed harmlessly by that he fell in the same fashion.

That, in turn, brought Peter Nevill into his first batting crisis as a Test player which he opted to try and quell by only playing at the balls he absolutely needed to, though he realised the in-dipper from Anderson that clattered into his stumps unchallenged should actually have fitted into that category.

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Nevill is clean bowled // Getty Images

Through all this carnage, which by that point yielded a perilous scoreline of 6-86 (light years from the 566 Australia amassed in sunshine at Lord’s), Rogers stood resolute and unshakeable despite fears earlier in the week that he would be rendered incapable of doing either.

Tested with short balls that he confidently ducked or occasionally counter-punched at, his skill in playing the ball so late it almost nestles in his right trouser pocket at the point of contact proved not only effective but productive as England pushed ever more fielders into catching positions.

Rogers' gritty fifty (Aus only)

The left-hander’s only concern was the constant parade of punters, stewards and the situationally maladroit in the space notionally quarantined behind the bowler’s arm, a repeated infraction that he and others find understandably infuriating.

It was equally justifiable therefore that he should seek to review the lbw shout that resulted in his downfall on 52 given he was the only Australian to give the slightest indication he was able to hang around and post a score along the way.

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Cook looked in excellent touch // Getty Images

Just how tough an assignment that was then became far clearer than the Midlands sky as Alastair Cook (34 from 48 balls) and Ian Bell (53 from 56 in his return to the pivotal number three berth) showed in a productive final session that crowned a dominant day for England.

Had it not been for three smart catches – two of them chest marks by Voges, the second of which at short leg defied belief as it wedged into his cowering pose – Australia’s position could have been considerably more dire given the ineffectiveness of their pace attack in conditions they had craved.

Watch: Voges takes freakish no-look catch

As it stands, Australia might not have surrendered the Ashes on a wasteful day, but they certainly relinquished the grip they had played so doggedly to maintain in a Lord’s Test that now seems a season – in meteorological if not sporting terms – ago.

Australia: David Warner, Chris Rogers, Steve Smith, Michael Clarke (c), Adam Voges, Mitchell Marsh, Peter Nevill, Mitchell Johnson, Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood, Nathan Lyon.

England: Alastair Cook (c), Adam Lyth, Ian Bell, Joe Root, Jonny Bairstow, Ben Stokes, Jos Buttler, Moeen Ali, Stuart Broad, Steve Finn, James Anderson.

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