Ashes: Australia seek to draw series at Lords

He is an extrovert and he will have spent the past few days thinking of ways for Australia to get out of this.

The England batsmen have been in fine form, and the fact that Ian Bell is back in runs should give them an added boost.

The cracks appear to be showing in the normally-invincible Australian cricket team. “Test match cricket is a five-day game and they are more than capable of hitting back if we’re not careful”. I hated it, but it was motivation to come back stronger. There weren’t many good excuses for the performance at Cardiff for the Aussies, besides the fact that they just didn’t play well.

Australia coach Darren Lehmann was clearly disappointed with the placid wicket in Cardiff that negated the bouncers used frequently in the past to intimidate England’s batsmen.

I think Adam Lyth showed in England’s second innings that he’s capable of scoring runs against top teams like Australia, so that was a real positive. We always put ourselves in that position.

One man who would not have been particularly happy with himself in the last Test would be Mitchell Johnson. Can Australia do it again?

The trick to bowling well at Lord’s is being adaptable.

Marsh is different. He has pace but has sometimes lacked penetration and doesn’t generally bowl with the same accuracy.

“You can actually hear and notice how quiet it is and there are not too many places around the world where you get that”. Watson is a control bowler, expert in tying up an end and maintaining pressure while the frontline fast bowlers have a breather, and known to jag the big wicket every now and then, too.

“I’ve had to learn on the job because I hadn’t done it before, so you tend to get better”.

England by contrast have named an unchanged 13-man squad for their London appointment. I just naturally worked it out pretty quickly.

“We’re going to have to think a little bit on our feet out there because no-one has seen a huge amount of him, but obviously Trevor might have a bit of information on him”, he said.

“I watched Roger Federer play Novak Djokovic in the Wimbledon final the other day and in the first set I was certain Roger was going to win, second set I wasn’t so certain”.

In some respects, England were fortunate that Australia didn’t truly look to get after them today. The second Test begins at Lord’s cricket ground here on Thursday. “Unless the selectors have spoken to the media before they’ve spoken to the captain and the team”.

While England have been quick to play down their chance, the Australians have been desperately searching to find a scapegoat for their first test struggles.

“They don’t like losing”, he said after the Cardiff game. He is a thinking captain and aggressive. “But it’s all about the England team, not one person or the captain”.

He will miss having Brad Haddin, but I have been there myself and know that family has to come first in such situations.