1st Test Day 1: England Crawl to Opening Advantage

The opening day of the Australia summer of Test cricket is always one to treasure, but there is certainly something even more special about an Ashes series. This has become even moreso since the continuing demise of the West Indies, whose series in the 1980's and 1990's were as highly revered. The first day can often dictate the terms of the series. Today's may well have, but we won't know until the first week of January.

• England won the toss and decided to bat, and apart from the early first wicket the play was slow but steady, and very unlike what anyone would have expected. The wicket was quite placid, with nowhere near as much pace as was expected. Along with this, Australia’s bowlers looked to be trying to just put the ball on the right spot rather than coming in with all guns blazing. There was very little seam or swing, and the tactic, which could also have been attributed to first morning nerves and wanted to set a standard, didn't seem to work. Hazlewood in particular looked out of sorts, and this allowed the England batsmen to slowly build.
• Alistair Cook had yet another failure on this tour, falling early which immediately made it hard. However, the new boys Stoneman and Vince showed the right attitude for the fight, placing a high price on their wickets, and confidently pushing the ball around the field. Without the expected fury from the pitch or the fast bowlers, they settled in to their task and made it to lunch unscathed. The rain delay after lunch gave them time to get their minds set, and they then continued on. Their partnership of 125 would have been a surprise to both teams, but set England up perfectly.
• Nathan Lyon was magnificent on first day, somewhat surprisingly given the thoughts heading into the Test. With the fast bowlers lacking penetration, Lyon came on and showed all the tricks he had learned from the subcontinent. He tied up one end while looking eminently dangerous and allowed the fast bowlers to rotate from the other end. He helped slow the run rate to a crawl, and extracted a great deal of unexpected turn from the pitch. He has grown into the go-to man with the ball in such situations, and he was the best of the Aussies on Day 1.
• England had looked at ease, until two hours before stumps. Pat Cummins ramped up his pace, and from around the wicket blasted his way through Stoneman's defence for his first Test wicket on Australian soil. Stoneman had shown he can survive in these conditions, while Cummins showed he will be a force this summer.
• What could turn out to be the turning point of the Test was Nathan Lyon's run out of James Vince. Looking untroubled on 83, Vince pushed a ball into the covers and called for the single. Lyon swooped, picked the ball up one handed and threw the stumps down at the non-strikers end to find Vince short by half a metre. It was brilliant, the reward for the hours and hours of training these guys do on their fielding. And it got rid of a batsman who looked like he was in for the long haul. It will be four days before we know, but this might be the most important wicket of the Test. It added to Lyon's wonderful day.
• Cummins trapping Root LBW before stumps was priceless. The ball beat him for pace and left him pinned to his crease, and was in the middle of a terrific spell of fast bowling. At the same time Dawid Malan looked very unlikely, playing and missing and adding false shots along the way, but managed to get to 28 by stumps. He was uncertain against the pace of Cummins and the spin of Lyon.
• Moeen Ali at six looked more assured, and he and Bairstow look to be the danger coming into Day 2. If they can both get going and boost England's total towards 400 they will be in the box seat.

At stumps England sit at 4/196 off 80 overs of a rain affected day. The slowness of the scoring keeps Australia in touch more than they probably should have been, but England is in the driver’s seat if they were good enough to take the advantage heading into Day 2.