Run out

PL on batting's decline

The marks on the cell wall tell me it’s been 131 days since Australia’s men played a Test match, and another 86 will pass before they take on Bangladesh in Darwin.

A few weeks back, dead-eyed and desperate for something that didn’t involve the vulgarities of the shorter forms, I found myself sitting up for a few nights, tuned into the highlights of the 2006-07 Ashes. It helped deal with the emptiness within; it also further drove home just how much scores have declined and conditions have changed in Australia since then.

While not that long ago, it was, to borrow a phrase from Harold Pinter, clearly another time.

Runs flowed from the get-go.

In Brisbane on the first day, Ricky Ponting’s shadow grew longer and his tally higher, on the way to an eventual 196. Michael Hussey and Justin Langer scored 80s and Michal Clark a half-century, before Stuart Clark tonked James Anderson for consecutive sixes on the way to his highest Test score (39), fellow quick Brett Lee was 43no when Australia declared at 9-603. Statement made. Langer got his century in Australia’s dash and bash second innings (RR 4.47). Paul Collingwood was stumped on 96, attempting to bash Shane Warne over his head to reach the milestone in England’s second innings and the visitors lost by a whopping 277 runs.

Where 19 wickets fell on the first day of the 2006-07 series, just three fell on that first day of that memorable series.

At Adelaide in the second Test, England declared its first innings closed at 6-551 thanks mostly to a double century from Collingwood and a 157 from Kevin Pietersen that ended only when Ponting ran the flamboyant visitor out. The batting conditions were so good on that first day in Adelaide that Shane Warne was forced to bowl one of the most defensive lines of his career, pitching constantly and frustratingly outside of KP’s leg stump. Centuries from Ponting and Clarke kept Australia in a game that they would go on to win when the wicket began to crumble, and England’s batsmen self-destructed (Pietersen b Warne, attempted sweep, for 2).

Just 18 wickets fell on the first four days of that match, before things came to life on the fifth day.

First innings were a little tougher for the third Test at the WACA, but Australia polevaulted ahead with a match-winning 5-527d in their second innings, Michael Hussey, Matthew Hayden, and Michael Clarke setting the platform for Adam Gilchrist’s phenomenal 57-ball hundred.

And on it went with batters filling their boots and bowlers cursing their blistered feet.