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Subject: Aussies inexperienced and over
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royal28 18.07.09 - 07:03am
BRAD Haddin has admitted that an inexperienced Australian team was overawed by playing at Lord's on the opening day of the second Test.
With just three players in the team having been on an Ashes tour before and none of the bowlers ever playing an Ashes Test, Australias attack had a terrible case of stage fright.
SCOREBOARD: Full results from day one
So did Haddin, who let through 15 byes.
England raced to 0-196 before Australia fought back well to have England 6-364 at stumps on the back of an unbeaten 161 from captain Andrew Strauss.
It was a pretty poor start. Maybe the occasion got to a few of us, Haddin said.
I thought I tensed up a bit in that morning session.
Maybe the whole occasion of Lords got too big for a few of us.
I thought late in the day we got into a rhythm and started to build a bit more pressure and started to relax a bit more into our work.
It was pleasing to get six wickets in the end.
Johnson, who has been wonderful as Australias spearhead over the past year was terrible coming off an inconsistent first Test in Cardiff. He had 0-53 from eight overs at lunch before finishing with 2-107 from 19 overs.
Strauss had some sympathy for Johnsons plight.
It is always a fast scoring ground Lord's so if you are slightly off, you are going to go, Strauss said.
Mitchell Johnson was struggling with the slope a little bit early and when you get a situation like that it is important you take advantage of it.
He is quite a hard bowler to pick up. He is one of those guys that, when he gives you loose ba11s, it is quite important you go at them.
We are able to do that today. From then on he was always struggling to rein it back in and that's always a pretty nice position to be in as a batting side.
It just looked like he wasn't getting it in the areas he wanted to.
In Test cricket if you feel a guy is a little bit down then it is important that you take advantage of that.
Mitchell Johnson has bowled a hell of a lot of good overs recently so we expect him to come back pretty strongly from this.
But on any given day if you feel there is a bowler giving you opportunities, you have got to take them.
Haddin was encouraged with how Johnson began swinging the ball in the final session.
With Mitch, late in the day, we saw him bring the ball back into the right hander, which is very good sign.
With a bit of luck hes got everything back in order and where he wants it to be.
Haddin doubted that Hauritz would be able to bowl today after suffering a dislocation of the middle finger on his bowling hand dropping a hot caught and bowled off Strauss when he was 52.
Well see how he pulls up in the morning but with a bit of luck we can get through the first innings without needing Nathan and give him a day or so off to let it calm down a bit, Haddin said.
Marcus North filled in capably, bowling 16.3 overs of off-spin for figures of 0-59. *
