The day started wonderfully for Australia and they must have felt then that they were well in the match. They took a wicket with the first ball when the exemplary Ryan Harris moved one up the slope which Tim Bresnan edged behind.
Things started to go slightly awry after the removal shortly after of Jimmy Anderson when, by common consent, England were still around 100 runs short of what they might have expected given the blissful conditions. For the third time in the series, the tenth wicket pair made a nonsense of their status.
Swann and Stuart Broad sensibly went for their shots, hitting through the line and driving jauntily away to add 48 from 40 balls. It was annoying for Australia, as these late flurries inevitably are, but hardly a portent of what was to come.
Indeed, their opening pair, Shane Watson and Chris Rogers started with such assurance that they looked determined to keep England in the field until tomorrow. The catalyst for all that followed came in the last over before lunch when Watson was lbw to a ball from Tim Bresnan which moved in at him and beat him as he played across his front pad.
Instead of accepting the verdict, Watson decided to review it. To general expectation the replay showed that the ball was indeed hitting the stumps about halfway up. Watson had to go.
The gravity of his appeal became truly apparent only when Chris Rogers received a waist high full toss from Swann, the ball slipping from the bowler’s hand. Rogers, eyes doubtless on stalks at this tasty morsel, swung across the line, missed and was hit in the groin.
Umpire Marais Erasmus upheld England’s appeal and Rogers, probably realising that Watson, had already used up one of the two reviews, turned and went. Replays showed the ball was missing leg stump by several inches.
The mood was now set. Phil Hughes, coming in at four when he had done well at six at Trent Bridge, flailed wildly outside the off stump and reviewed the decision for a catch behind when the wretchedness of such an ill-conceived shot alone should have persuaded to keep his counsel. Usman Khawaja, the new number three, having been dropped at slip off Swann, launched into a drive and was caught high at mid-off.
Then, Steve Smith, in at six instead of five, was sharply held by Ian Bell at short leg, Michael Clarke, returning to the relative comfort of number five, was lbw to a peach of from Broad, going with the slope.
But nothing embodied the mess more than Ashton Agar’s dismissal. When Brad Hadding nudged a ball to square leg, Agar set off fir a run in which his partner showed not the slightest interest. Agar kept coming. Matt Prior scurried across and threw the ball to the bowler’s end where Jimmy Anderson whipped off the bails.
Twenty years ago on this ground, Australa made 632 for 4 in their first innings. The top three all made hundreds, the number four 99 and the next man in another fifty. To play in the shadow of a side that has achieved so much is difficult for lesser players but this was a limp approach to the playing of Test cricket which undermined a valiant bowling effort, not least by Harris who became the 22 Australian to take five wickets in an innings in an Ashes match at Lord’s.
All that was left for Australia to do was to restore some dignity. This they managed with distinction in the evening sunshine. Peter Siddle steamed in as usual from the Pavilion End and induced both Alastair Cook and Jonathan Trott to play on to their stumps with rather wooden shots. Kevin Pietersen played a bizarrely loose drive to point and no day could have made a more trenchant statement about the general state of Test batsmanship.
