Game On

Third Ashes Test Starts With Bang

After watching a lot of batting and batsmen beating up on bowlers until the last day in Adelaide, suddenly the name of the game is bowling. Australia were skittled for 244 and England were 2 for 51 at stumps. This is looking like it's going to be a low scoring game in comparison to the previous 2 tests. In the thick of the action was Monty panesar, the man everybody thought should haave played in Brisbane and Adelaide.

Panesar made a mockery of England's conservative selections this series when, given the chance to twiddle his spinning finger instead of his thumbs, took 5-92 on Ashes debut to help bowl Australia out for 244.

Aided by the reinvigorated fast bowler Steve Harmison, Panesar gave life to the tourists' dreams of fighting back from 2-0 to keep alive their chances of retaining cricket's most prized trophy.

However Australia's bowlers also sprang to life to orchestrate a home side fightback on easily the most absorbing day of the series.

England was 2-51 at stumps.

England's batsmen can expect the wicket to flatten and slow over what should be four more cracking days, but on the hostility Glenn McGrath and Brett Lee showed tonight, the tourists will have to bat superbly to forge out a first innings lead of any note.

McGrath halted a quickfire England start with the removal of Alastair Cook (15), and then Lee produced a peach to have Ian Bell caught behind for a second-ball duck, although television replays showed the speedster overstepped.

With Andrew Strauss (24 not out) due for a big score, England will be desperate to build a lead big enough to avoid a repeat of the last day of the second Test in Adelaide, when the tourists' batsmen were mesmerised by Australia's bowlers and succumbed to the pressure.

Panesar at least brought much-needed positivity to England's cause with a display of class, occasion and resilience after he got the nod over Ashley Giles, after two Tests on the sidelines.

Panesar bowled a dumbfounded Justin Langer - leaving the ball with an angled bat - with his seventh ball and then won the battle against Andrew Symonds' attempts to hit him out of the attack, when he had the allrounder (26) caught behind cutting at a wide ball.

So it's looking like now we're going to see a Test match where bowwlers are goingg to get good figures and batsmen look like chumps. Panesar is making the seleectors look like geniuses, but I wonder how England will look when they face Warnie tomorrow. That's going to be fun on this pitch.