da pinup bet： Out of the Ashes from the Brisbane Test, emerged one bright spark by thename of Vaughan
David Wiseman22-Nov-2002Out of the Ashes from the Brisbane Test, emerged one bright spark by thename of Vaughan. He ignited the England side as the three Lions foundsomething to roar about.Michael Vaughan was rewarded because he challenged the Australians. He tookthem on and with a bit of luck batted with great aplomb. Not since MikeDenness scored 188 in the sixth Test at the MCG in 1975, has an Englishmanrecorded a higher score in Australia.Steve Waugh and his Australian side put the ball in the opposition batsman’scourt. With four slips, two gullys and a bat-pad, there are plenty of runsavailable if you are willing to swing the bat as opposed to most batsman whoseem to bring it out as a prop to lean on.Vaughan punished the bad ball which forced Waugh to remove some of hisaggressive field placings.This was in contrast to Robert Key who seemed hell-bent on not actually scoringany runs. He laboured very hard for his solitary run and he must learn thatas a batsman, the dual purposes of run scoring and survival are not mutuallyexclusive.On a day where Australia were challenged such as they were on this firstday, Shane Warne and Glenn McGrath showed again how incredibly lucky the Australian sideis to have two stalwarts such as them. Together, they have carried theAustralian attack for nearly a decade.Coming into this Test, the Australian side had 1140 wickets between them, ofwhich Warne and McGrath had a share of 892.For England, the hard work has only just begun. Mark Butcher, Alec Stewart and Craig Whitehave to build and consolidate on Vaughan’s great work and one of those needsto go on and score a century.The minimum score they should be aiming for is 400 which would mark thefirst time since 1991, they have managed such a score in Australia. In thatTest at the SCG, centuries by Michael Atherton and David Gower took Englandto 8/469.That Test is also of interest because it is the last time, England bowledout Australia twice in a live Test match played on Australian soil.Australia had won the first two Tests of the series as England were striving towin back the Ashes 3-2 from 0-2 down. Their attempts to win the game werethwarted by Carl Rackemann who took 72 minutes to get off the mark andscored a defiant nine from 109 balls. England ran out of time in chasing awinning total.England need to bowl as well and field as well as Vaughan batted if they areto have any chance of taking 20 Australian wickets in this Test. It seemsout of their reach given the inexperience of their attack. They have 353Test wickets between them. Stephen Harmison and Richard Dawson share just 11.The Adelaide pitch is looking like it will be batsman-friendly for a couplemore days yet so the English bowlers will have to outwit the Australians toclaim their scalps. They will have learnt from their numerous mistakes inBrisbane and Andy Caddick and Matthew Hoggard should be better bowlers than they werethere.For Australia, their assignment is quite simple. Dismiss England asexpeditiously as possible on Day 2. Rack up a quick score and follow that upby bowling England out cheaply.After one day, this Test match still has four possible outcomes. Youcouldn’t say that after the first day at the Gabba.