Rahul Bajaj

Birmingham: Australia got off to a confident start in the third Ashes test at Edgbaston as rain took away a large chunk of the day. Shane Watson, who came into the team in place of Philip Hughes, made a fluent half century and looked completely at ease ending the day at 62*. His knock included 10 boundaries. Ricky Ponting was there with him on 17 with Simon Katich being the only man dismissed for a well made 46. Australia ended Day 1 at 126 for 1.

The start of the match was delayed by almost six hours. It finally got underway with 30 overs to be bowled on the first day. Australia won the toss and elected to bat this time. Clearly the ghosts of the 2005 Edgbaston test were still clear in their minds when they had made the mistake of winning the toss and bowling first on the same ground and England posted more than 400 runs on the 1^st day itself.

Australia made two changes to their side with Shane Watson playing in place of the left handed opener Philip Hughes. But unfortunately for Australia, their wicket-keeper batsman, Brad Haddin was ruled out of the test match due to a finger injury sustained during the practice. Haddin was named in the eleven at the time of the toss and subsequently Australia had to ask for permission from England to replace him with Graham Manou and the hosts agreed. England, on the other hand, made just the one expected change with Ian Bell coming in for Kevin Pietersen.

Katich and Watson got Australia off to a flying start on a day which saw the English bowlers being all over the place. They just didn’t look like a team which has come off the back of a big win in the previous match and the Australian openers made full use of it. Both of them played attacking cricket. The only scare for Watson came when he almost played on a delivery from Flintoff but other than that the England bowlers never really troubled the openers until Graeme Swann was introduced.

Swann accounted for Katich in the 19^th over when Katich missed an arm ball which hit Katich right in front of the stumps and Aleem Dar raised the finger. Katich made a 48 ball 46 with 9 boundaries. But Watson continued to play aggressively in the company of his skipper Ricky Ponting and reached his fifty of 89 balls just before the close of play.

Australia ended the day at 126 for 1 with Watson on 62 and Ponting on 17.

Brief Scores:

Australia 126 for 1 (Watson 62*, Ponting 17*, Katich 48; Swann 1-4)

Tagged with: Ashes, Australia, Brad Haddin, England, Graeme Swann, Graham Manou, Ian Bell, Kevin Pietersen, Philip Hughes, Ricky Ponting, Shane Watson, Simon Katich

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