Identikit Cricket

'Jimmy Savile' in full flow on Day 1

Perth Day 1: Australia 268 all out, England 29 for 0

England confounded my 'smart money' tip by selecting Chris Tremlett, not Tim Bresnan, to replace Stuart Broad. Possibly this was on the basis that the "better than his Dad" chant could be applied equally to him, given that his father Tim also played county cricket but never represented England. Or more likely it was because the 6' 7" (2.01m) Tremlett stands a whole foot higher than Australia's recalled opening batsman Phil Hughes and would therefore look really scary when running into bowl.

Apart from that, my prediction for the opening day of the 3rd Test proved pretty accurate. Andrew Strauss duly won an important toss and invited Australia to have first use of a bouncy pitch. I expected the Aussies to put up more of a fight this time and so it (sort of) proved. Here they took 45 minutes to lose their first three wickets compared to the 14 minutes they managed in Adelaide.


Australia in trouble again at 69 for 5


But here in Perth it got much worse before it got better. Shortly after lunch Australia slumped to 69 for 5, with the selection of Tremlett proving to be an inspired one as he contributed 3 wickets in two excellent spells. Yesterday's fielding practice also paid off, with Paul Collingwood taking an absolute blinder to catch Ponting (nothing seems to be going right for Ricky), then Strauss and later Swann snaffling sharp chances at slip.

From there things finally started to look up for Australia as usual suspects Hussey and Haddin again showed much more grit than their top order colleagues to give the home score a veneer of respectability. The surprise package was Mitchell Johnson, who batted astonishingly well to top score with 62, and the tail later wagged to good effect to drag Australia's total up to 268. England may well feel this was an opportunity missed to dismiss their opponents for under 200 but despite this the Australian score again looks below par, as emphasised by the largely untroubled progress of openers Cook and Strauss to 29 without loss by the close.

The bizarre thing is that today's play was virtually identical to the opening day at Adelaide - Australia bat first, the top order collapses, Hussey and Haddin partially recover the situation, then all out for a score which appears far too low. Even more oddly, the score today was almost exactly the same as the first day's score in Brisbane - only in reverse (England 260 all out, Australia 25-0). And there's me thinking that one of the joys of cricket is its unpredictability.

If this really is Identikit Cricket, then tomorrow's outcome should be easy to predict - a large England total which overtakes Australia's by around 80-100 runs by close of play. So that's what I'm going for. However, I still think it will be tougher going for England than in Adelaide and there will be a clatter of wickets at some point in the day.