The Bulletin by Andrew Miller at The Oval
August 21, 2009
5.25pm Australia 160 (Broad 5-37, Swann 4-38) trail England 332 (Bell 72, Siddle 4-75, Hilfenhaus 3-71) by 172 runs
Live scorecard and ball-by-ball details
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Stuart Broad produced a bowling performance to rival that of Andrew Flintoff at Lord's, as he and Graeme Swann combined to rout Australia's batting in a sensational session on the second afternoon at The Oval. From a confident but never comfortable 61 for 0 at lunch, Australia lost eight wickets for 72 runs in 24.4 adrenaline-fuelled overs of the afternoon session, before losing their final pair for 27 in the first half-hour of the final session. All out for 160, a massive deficit of 172, and their grip on the Ashes had been loosened with dramatic haste.
The star of the show was Broad, who was thrown the ball for the second full over after a 50-minute rain delay, and responded with a full and straight 12-over spell that perfectly exploited a pitch showing increasing signs of uneven bounce. He claimed the first four wickets to fall for eight runs in the space of 21 deliveries, and then - after Swann had chimed in with the key wickets of Marcus North and Simon Katich - wrapped up his second five-wicket haul in consecutive innings by yorking Brad Haddin for 1.
It was a stunning turnaround in a session dredged from the depths of Australia's worst nightmares, and it could yet prove to be the decisive passage of play of the summer. Each of the eight breakthroughs was greeted with riotous acclaim by an absorbed and pumped-up crowd, as England's bowlers surfed a wave of emotion to exploit once again the peculiar frailties of an Aussie batting order that, for all its myriad successes this summer, has now failed calamitously in three out of seven innings in the series.
The clues to the chaos that lay ahead had been plain to see in the first 20.2 overs of Australia's innings before lunch, in which time Shane Watson and Katich had been forced to scrap for every one of the 61 runs in their opening stand. Watson in particular was fortunate to survive three consecutive lbw appeals in the space of seven deliveries from Andrew Flintoff and James Anderson - the last, from Flintoff, was especially adjacent - but after the resumption, he fell to the very first delivery he received from Broad, nailed plumb lbw for 34 to prise open the floodgates.
Ricky Ponting was the next man in, and though he emerged to loud acclaim - the boos of Edgbaston a distant memory - his personal jitters were transparently plain to see. He got off the mark with an under-edged cut for four off Broad, and then survived a frenzied lbw appeal in the next over as he shouldered arms to Flintoff. But before he could settle, Broad cramped him on the back foot, and he inside-edged a loose drive onto his middle stump for 8.
Three Broad deliveries later, and Mike Hussey's traumatic series had taken another turn for the worse, as he thrust out his front pad and was sent on his way lbw for a duck - the decision looked tight on the replay, but stone-dead to the naked eye. And when Michael Clarke, Australia's star of the summer, drove fiercely into the covers in a bid to impose some authority, he picked out the debutant Jonathan Trott, who swooped superbly to cling onto a stinging low catch.
From 73 for 0, Australia had drifted listlessly to 93 for 4, with only the obdurate Katich providing any sort of sheet-anchor. He opened the face of his bat to steer Broad through the gully to move to 49, but then at the other end, Swann got into the act - in a somewhat fortuitous fashion - as North thrust his bat and pad forward to a non-spinning delivery on middle stump, and was adjudged lbw for 8 despite evidence that the bat had won the race.
North grinned wryly as he departed the crease, but there was little he or Australia could do to halt England's momentum, and in his next over, Swann claimed the vital wicket of Katich, who once again played for non-existent turn on a pitch creating demons in the mind, and popped a facile chance off his bat and pad-flap to Alastair Cook at short leg for exactly 50. Nine balls later, and Broad was back on centre stage, as Brad Haddin came down late on a stump-splattering yorker, as Australia's last recognised batsman joined the procession.
Mitchell Johnson did what he could to jump-start a flatlining innings, smacking Swann for two lusty fours in a single over, but with tea looming he became the eighth casualty of the session, stunningly snaffled by Matt Prior behind the stumps, who read the big turn off the pitch, and moved sharply to his left to cling onto an edged drive.
Australia limped to tea on 133 for 8, and though Stuart Clark was hugely unfortunate to be adjudged caught at short leg for 6 when his bat was nowhere near the ball, Peter Siddle thrashed a skittish 26 not out as he and Ben Hilfenhaus hung around long enough to haul their side past the 150 mark. But Andrew Flintoff claimed his share of the limelight by yorking Hilfenhaus for 6, to complete an incredible and series-transforming two-and-a-half hours of cricket.
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