A Touch of First Night Nerves?

Watching Steve Harmison bowl his first ball early this morning reminded me of David Beckham waiting to take the penalty against Argentina in Japan in 2002. Harmison seemed to be hyper-ventilating to begin with, then he was unsure of where he had placed his marker on the Gabba turf and then he bowled the widest opening ball in test history.

I'm pretty sure that had this not been an Ashes series then Freddy would have allowed him a little bit longer but you can't give the Australian batsman a start like they were given this morning, best mate or not. It's not surprising our bowlers seemed a little short on confidence given the fact that all of them have missed a fair bit of cricket since the Oval in 2005, but everything since that day has been geared towards this series and now is not the time for the faint hearted or limp of wrist.

The only area I thought we did better than our hosts was in the singing of the respective national anthems where our one English representative sang better than the four Aussie ladies, the occassion even got to Ian Botham who stopped at the wrong flag pole during the pre-match ceremony.

Whatever the outcome of the test, the first day went to the hosts who should reach at least a score of between 550 and 600 thereby batting England out of the match. Given the fact that the pitch is already starting to show signs of wear and tear I reckon I'll be having my breakfast on Saturday watching the best spin bowler ever to play test cricket doing his thing.