4th Ashes Test: England vs Australia @ Headingley
2-0 up and looking comfortable, but I was not about to take our lead for granted. Headingley has seen some amazing low scoring games in the past and could well be the ground where the Aussies show us what they are really made of. We had won convincingly yet again and there was no chance of me changing a winning formula. Rashid still held his place over Swann and would be looking for a strong performance in front of his home crowd.
Unfortunately, run machine and leading scorer Ravi Bopara was forced out due to injury, meaning Ian Bell would take his place at number three. Cook and Pietersen had largely been failures with the bat so far and would need a strong performance to keep their place if Bell could score runs at three.
England: Strauss (c), Cook, Bell, Pietersen, Collingwood, Ambrose (wk), Flintoff, Broad, Rashid, Anderson, Onions.
Australia: Rogers, Warner, Ponting (c), M.Hussey, Haddin (wk), Clarke, D.Hussey, Lee, Hauritz, Tait, Hilfenhaus.
1st Innings:
Australia 257 (Haddin 84, Clarke 45, Onions 4/74, Anderson 4/83) ? 87 overs.
For the fourth consecutive match the Aussies batted first, however, this time we won the toss and put them in. Once again we got an excellent start, removing Warner for 2 and the completely hopeless Ponting for 3 the very next over. Rogers got to yet another start but fell in the thirties with the score 52/3, and 5 runs later M.Hussey joined him back in the pavilion. Clarke and Haddin held off the rampant seamers for almost 20 overs. Clarke fell 5 short of a fifty as Broad clean bowled the Aussie vice captain on 45. Haddin reached his half century from 97 balls but he continued to lose partners at the other end, this time D.Hussey wrongly padding up to a straight delivery from Rashid on 23. Lee looked comfortable at the crease and managed to form a 79 run partnership with the wicket keeper-batsman until Onions returned to uproot his off stump for 84. The Aussie tail capitulated as Lee (37) and Tait (0) both went in the same Anderson over. Onions finished the innings off with the score at 257, catching Hauritz plumb in front.
2nd Innings:
England 334 (Cook 129, Bell 56, Hauritz 4/89, Tait 3/78) ? 115.4 overs.
We had a tricky little session to bat out before Lunch of 7 overs but Strauss could only make it through 5.5 of those as he played all around a straight ball from Tait and was adjudged to be leg before by the umpire. After the break Cook and Bell knuckled down, with the latter of the two reaching fifty before the end of play on day two. However, in the first over of day three bell was bowled by Tait for 56. Cook went onto fifty and Pietersen made a solid 32 before he was undone by good spin bowling from Hauritz. Tea came with Cook just one away from his first hundred of the series, and he reached it in the first over of the evening session. The final session saw us score 89 runs from 25 overs but for the loss of 4 wickets as Collingwood, Ambrose, Cook and Flintoff all headed back to the pavilion before the end of play. Rashid and Broad put on a slow scoring partnership of 21 but once Rashid was dismissed by opposite number Hauritz the innings ended quickly. We had once again come out of the first half of the game with a lead.
3rd Innings:
Australia 171 (M.Hussey 39, Haddin 39, Rashid 5/21) ? 55.4 overs.
A steady start by the openers saw Anderson replaced by Flintoff with immediate effect. First Flintoff trapped Warner lbw for 24 and two overs later got through Rogers? defences to reduce them to 38/2. Onions continued from the other end and finished off his spell with the prized wicket of struggling Ponting. M.Hussey and Haddin provided strong resistance for the 4th wicket but it was Rashid?s turn to rip through the middle order. Haddin was bowled through the gate on 39, Clarke caught at midwicket by Pietersen and M.Hussey stumped by Ambrose also on 39 having tracked the young Yorkshire spinner. D.Hussey managed to survive for 58 minutes before part-time medium pacer Collingwood got the ball to nip back and trap him lbw for 17. The next three wickets fell for just a further two runs as Rashid picked up Hauritz and Tait in the same over before Collingwood ended the innings dismissing Hilfenhaus for a golden duck. A superb display of bowling had left us needing just 95 runs to regain the Ashes.
4th Innings:
England 96/2 (Pietersen 25*, Bell 24*, Cook 23, Strauss 19) ? 31 overs.
Chasing such a small total we never looked in difficulty. Strauss and Cook began watchfully and when the pair fell in the 17th and 18th overs it only sped up the wait for victory. Both Bell and Pietersen pushed along at a strike rate in the sixties to reach the target early on day five. We had won the Ashes, and with a game to spare. Could we now make it a whitewash at The Oval?
England 3-0 Australia after four Tests.
End of Part V.
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Part VI: Can we make it an unbeaten and unrivalled Ashes series?
