Super Smith has Australia on top

Steve Smith again looms as Australia's key figure in their push to build a daunting first-innings total after his deputy David Warner dominated the scoreboard and the scuttlebutt on the first day of the fourth Magellan Ashes Test in Melbourne.

For the first time in the series to date, Smith won a coin toss and was more excited than a nation full of children proved a day previously when he seized first use of a pitch that held fears solely for bowlers.

At day's end, Smith's unbeaten 65 had helped lift his team to a solid if sedate 3-244 and he will resume tomorrow morning with Shaun Marsh (31 not out) when the temperature is expected to push towards a century and the Australia skipper tipped to do likewise.

If recent history provides a reliable guide.

In keeping with its post-prandial place on the festive season calendar, Boxing Day at the MCG came to life slowly and, at times, barely seemed to be carrying a pulse at all.

But when it did burst into life, it crammed an afternoon's worth of talking points into a matter of moments when David Warner oscillated from anticipation to desolation, to exoneration and finally celebration in the space of two crazy deliveries.

The first of which brought about Warner's ‘dismissal' after he had crawled his way painstakingly from 90 to 99 and the sense of theatre built among the crowd of 88,172, only for his departure from the field in a fog of self-flagellation to be curtailed by the revelation the crucial delivery was illegitimate.

And what should have been an instant of unmitigated triumph for England's new cap Tom Curran as he snared a vital scalp as his maiden Test wicket instead became a future pub trivia question as Warner returned to the middle and reached his ton from the subsequent delivery.

Unleashing an unrestrained celebration and a verbal volley aimed at his crestfallen foe.

And although he was fairly dismissed shortly after for not many more (103), Warner's innings shone like a beacon on a pitch that became increasingly sluggish as the ball became older and softer and which is expected to appear even more moribund as the game progresses.

Which means Australia's first-day total might be worth 50 or more runs in excess of current face value, while England's bowling effort was as commendable as it was ultimately unproductive given the lack of assistance they could coax from the surface.

Even before the coin was tossed, consensus suggested the hay-coloured MCG track would prove as flat as the unsupped remnants of Christmas Day fizz while containing none if its inherent fun factor.

If that assessment needed ratification it came in the opening half hour when James Anderson and Stuart Broad – the most effective new-ball combination in the history of Test match cricket – failed to shift the ball from the straight.

Getting it past the bat seemed so unlikely that, before the inaugural drinks break was called, England captain Joe Root had deployed his fielders into the sort of defensive mode more often seen in a day's final hour than its first. 

The cordon of catchers traditionally positioned behind the wickets soon began to fan out in front of Australia's openers and the sight of a deep point, deep square leg and mid-on set halfway to the fence was redolent of the second phase of an ODI instead of a Test's opening morning.

The only discomfort, other than that among the England bowlers who must have sensed before taking the field that they might still be out there two days hence, came when they targeted Cameron Bancroft with a series of short-pitched deliveries.

The opener, who as a teenager had come to the attention of his current Western Australia coach Justin Langer due to the youngster's “dancing feet”, seemed to have been gifted a pair of concrete shoes as a Yuletide treat such was his battle to negotiate the rising ball.

Bancroft's survival came thanks to Root's refusal to install a fielder at short-leg until England's tactics became so glaringly obvious that the opener opted to habitually duck beneath the barrage rather than fend them off his face.

But his struggle was reflected in the lunchtime scoreboard which showed a refreshingly uninhibited (from the first three Tests) Warner unbeaten on 83 from 94 balls faced, while his subdued partner boasted 19 from just 20 deliveries fewer.

 

Come the second session, England's strategy became containment in the hope that they might frustrate their hosts into error.

Or lull them into a trance-like mis-stroke.

The ploy finally yielded a dividend half an hour after lunch when Bancroft's struggle was ended by a delivery from Chris Woakes that skidded on as it angled towards the stumps and the lbw decision was so self-evident the Australians opted not to review.

While the wicket had come against the run of play, the momentum had already begun to shift before Bancroft departed.

The ease with which Warner had helped himself to runs pre-lunch gave way to a dour stalemate as England's seamers – most notably Broad, whose wicketless run stretched back to the second Test in Adelaide – bowled increasingly wide of off stump to a packed off-side field.

Having reached the 90s in a tick beyond two hours, Warner then found himself becalmed on 96 for 17 minutes and his progress towards his first century of the series so ponderous that he was compelled to manufacture a way of reaching three figures.

A lapse that did, briefly, cost the left-hander his wicket when the attempted bunt through mid-wicket that had proved unsuccessful a ball earlier was revealed to be a folly next delivery as it produced a simple catch to mid-on.

When the MCG's giant video screen revealed that Curran's maiden Test wicket would be instead recorded in history as his inaugural no-ball, the roar that engulfed the ground enlivened the Australia vice-captain who responded by going on the attack.

Not so much with the bat, as it took him a further half-hour to advance his score from 99 to his eventual 103, but rather with his voice as he took aim at the hapless debutant in the aftermath of the mistake that brought the batter's reprieve.

And then England wicketkeeper Jonny Bairstow, who had injected himself into the discussion to defend his 22-year-old teammate only to become the target of Warner's vitriol.

But the opener's innings ended meekly as his head of steam once more dissipated and he edged a catch behind from an Anderson off-cutter that was landed perfectly and nipped away sufficiently to draw the error.

That breakthrough heralded England's best period of a day that had looked to have slipped from the tourists' grasp before they had made it to lunch, but which ended on more even terms as the pitch betrayed its true nature.

Like batters who came before and after, the usually silky Usman Khawaja was unable to find timing or rhythm throughout his stay of almost two hours which ended with 17 runs when his languid attempt at an off-side drive brought a thin edge.

That signalled Broad's first wicket in almost 70 overs, and nearly a calendar month of Test cricket and in much the same way that London buses supposedly arrive in clusters in between lengthy absences he felt he deserved a second with his next delivery.

Shaun Marsh was pinned on the crease by the first ball he faced and when umpire Ravi declined Broad's beseeching appeal the England captain called for the decision review process, which indicated less than half the ball was clipping the bails.

That, in turn, meant the Australian survived although the fact that delivery from England's tallest quick on day one of the Test wasn't clearing the stumps by some distance suggests this will again be a contest in which runs are hard earned on a slow pitch.

And where Smith again looms as the point of difference between the teams

Australia XI: Steve Smith (c), David Warner, Cameron Bancroft, Usman Khawaja, Shaun Marsh, Mitch Marsh, Tim Paine, Pat Cummins, Nathan Lyon, Josh Hazlewood, Jackson Bird.

England XI: Joe Root (c), Alastair Cook, Mark Stoneman, James Vince, Dawid Malan, Chris Woakes, Jonny Bairstow (wk), Moeen Ali, Tom Curran, Stuart Broad, James Anderson

2017-18 International Fixtures

Magellan Ashes Series

Australia Test squad: Steve Smith (c), David Warner (vc), Cameron Bancroft, Usman Khawaja, Peter Handscomb, Shaun Marsh, Mitchell Marsh, Tim Paine (wk), Mitchell Starc, Pat Cummins, Nathan Lyon, Josh Hazlewood, Jackson Bird.

England Test squad: Joe Root (c), James Anderson (vc), Moeen Ali, Jonny Bairstow, Jake Ball, Gary Ballance, Stuart Broad, Alastair Cook, Mason Crane, Tom Curran, Ben Foakes, Dawid Malan, Craig Overton, Ben Stokes, Mark Stoneman, James Vince, Chris Woakes.

First Test Australia won by 10 wickets. Scorecard

Second Test Australia won by 120 runs (Day-Night). Scorecard

Third Test Australia won by an innings and 41 runs. Scorecard

Fourth Test MCG, December 26-30. Tickets

Fifth Test SCG, January 4-8 (Pink Test). Tickets

Gillette ODI Series v England

First ODI MCG, January 14. Tickets

Second ODI Gabba, January 19. Tickets

Third ODI SCG, January 21. Tickets

Fourth ODI Adelaide Oval, January 26. Tickets

Fifth ODI Perth Stadium, January 28. Tickets

Prime Minister's XI

PM's XI v England Manuka Oval, February 2. Tickets

Gillette T20 trans-Tasman Tri-Series

First T20I Australia v NZ, SCG, February 3. Tickets

Second T20I – Australia v England, Blundstone Arena, February 7. Tickets

Third T20I – Australia v England, MCG, February 10. Tickets

Fourth T20I – NZ v England, Wellington, February 14

Fifth T20I – NZ v Australia, Eden Park, February 16

Sixth T20I – NZ v England, Seddon Park, February 18

Final – TBC, Eden Park, February 21

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