By Christopher Martin-Jenkins
IF EVER there was a deceptive start to a day's cricket it was yesterday's at Cazaly's Park beneath the jungle-clad hills which surround a ground used mainly for Australian rules football. Matthew Hayden played a half-cock defensive stroke to Darren Gough's second ball of the day after England had won the toss, had the middle finger of his bottom hand jammed against the bat handle and retired hurt to discover that it was broken.
By the time that bad light and fast-approaching rain had brought an early end to a day's hard graft by both sides, with Queensland on 193 for eight, the pitch had been revealed not as some unplayable monster but as a slow turner of slightly uneven bounce which suited no one more than Robert Croft and which had as much similarity to the hard, fast and bouncy surface expected for the first Test at the Gabba next Friday as a Ulysses butterfly to a green-eyed tree-frog.
These specialities of the nearby rainforests are a bonus to adventurous members of a visiting cricket team to Cairns (there are not many) as indeed is the proximity of the Barrier Reef, but as a dress rehearsal for Brisbane the best that can be said for staging a match in Northern Queensland is that it is preparing the players for the sort of weather conditions, high temperatures and heavy humidity, which await them in the state capital, 1,500 miles to the south.
The events of the first day here had the additional advantage of reminding Alec Stewart that accurate spin bowling is an essential ingredient of any attack in most conditions.
Croft is nowhere near the confident off-spinner who bowled with such an effective mixture of sharpish spin and away drift in New Zealand two winters ago, admittedly against lesser players, but his three for 56 here, plus a neat slip catch at the start of the day, can only have helped him.
If that was the good news for England the bad was another dropped catch. Queensland would have been 81 for five if Stewart had not muffed a relatively easy chance as his rival captain, Ian Healy, cut at a short, rising ball from Dominic Cork and edged it towards Croft at first slip. Stewart seemed to make a late decision to go for the catch, two-handed. Healy, then seven, stayed to play a typically gritty innings, scoring mainly towards third man.
He is deceptively difficult to bowl to, no doubt, but he cuts so obsessively, with his bat parallel to the ground instead of chopping down on the ball in the proper way, that he is always liable to be caught at slip or gully. After yesterday's reprieve he made no more mistakes en route to his 38th first-class fifty while he helped the left-handed Geoff Foley to add 90 for the fifth wicket either side of tea.
Healy and Foley, a 30-year-old all-rounder well known in the Lancashire and Cheshire leagues, had much to repair when they came together after Gough had followed up his damage to Hayden he will be out of cricket for a month - with wickets in his first two spells.
Jimmy Maher, the local boy, proved one left-hander who for once did not upset the bowlers, edging low to first slip. But the tall Martin Love, having played beautifully straight and very securely for 88 balls and 31 overs, failed to control the bounce and lobbed a catch to short midwicket, six overs after lunch. His 29 runs were worth many more on any faster pitch and outfield.
In between Gough's wickets, each of them well deserved, two of county cricket's most attractive batsmen of recent times, Stuart Law and Andrew Symonds, failed to capitalise on careful starts. Law tried to pull a ball not short enough for the shot against Dean Headley and skied gently to cover point. Symonds rewarded Alan Mullally's persistence when he, too, tried to pull and played on.
The missed catch which followed at least gave Croft his chance to rehabilitate his England career and the fact that Mark Ramprakash was given only one over suggested that he is unlikely to be treated seriously as potentially the only spinner next week. Stewart owes it to himself to give Ramprakash a longer bowl in the second innings.
All the bowlers had something to be pleased about but the jury may still be out on Cork. He limped off before lunch with a minor thigh strain but was told that nothing was wrong and more or less proved as much afterwards. Even in the heavy atmosphere he hardly swung the ball at all and that waspish late outswing of his is taking a worryingly long time to return.
Shane Warne's long-awaited comeback to first-class cricket was put on hold yesterday because of rain. The Australian leg-spinner, who underwent shoulder surgery in May, was due to return for Victoria in their Sheffield Shield match against Western Australia starting at the WACA in Perth yesterday.
But the opening day's play of the four-day match was abandoned without a ball being bowled because of heavy showers.
Day 2: Cairns brews up a storm for Butcher
By Scyld Berry
ENGLAND'S first visit to Cairns has been worthwhile for its acclimatisation value. After another day of sweltering on the coastal plain between the Barrier Reef and the Great Dividing Range, they will be used to oppressive humidity by the time of the first Test; or else they will be on drips for dehydration.
The cricketing value of their visit however has been made minimal by the tropical storms which soaked Cazaly's Oval in the week before the game and made the pitch a pudding. ``We thought Adelaide was low and slow, but this was one of the slowest I've seen in any form of cricket,'' remarked Alec Stewart after his team had laboured for fewer than two runs per over largely against medium pace and finger-spin.
``It was very nice to spend three hours at the wicket after the disappointment of the last game,'' added England's captain. But the other batsman who has to make runs here, Mark Butcher, was again dismissed in a fashion which suggested that the scar from being hit in Perth goes deeper than the faint line which lingers beneath his right eye. Butcher did not move his front leg out of the crease to a full-length ball which was no more than medium paced, and was beaten past his outside edge.
While the Queensland fast bowlers Mick Kasprowicz and Andy Bichel could bang nothing out of the pudding, a diddly-doddly medium-pacer like Adam Dale was ideally suited to it. His name makes him sound like one of Robin Hood's merry men, and Mike Atherton certainly felt robbed when he was caught down the leg side first ball, his third unlucky dismissal in a row. But the Dividing Range, which starts to rise a mile from this ground, is topped by a plateau known as the Atherton Tableland, and England's former captain is secure upon it, while Butcher is toiling in the foothills.
``If he scores 50 in the second innings, there are no problems,'' concluded England's new captain about Butcher. Actually, even if Butcher does make a 50, the probability must be that England will pay lip-service to a balanced side (with Dominic Cork at seven, Robert Croft at eight) until the eve of the first Test, then opt for all seven batsmen, together with four seamers. The only spinner would then be Mark Ramprakash, who is not consistently accurate enough to bore a batsman out, but is as likely as Croft to bowl one out as he tweaks it more.
In addition to being one of the hottest and slowest days in the annals of England tours, it must also have been the first with a scheduled start of 9.38am, when the temperature was already 33C. The 22 minutes which had been required to find some sawdust during Darren Gough's opening over on Friday had to be made up, and in that time Gough took Queensland's remaining wicket with the second new ball.
Following the swift dismissal of Butcher and Atherton, whose opening partnerships made all the difference against South Africa, England's present captain and vice-captain assembled a stand of 100 over the next three hours. Stewart had made a hearty 70 at Lilac Hill, yet the brow had been furrowing after his pair in Adelaide. He concentrated on leg-side accumulation until he was set, and even then front-foot driving was almost impossible as the ball came so grudgingly on to the bat.
After lunch torpor set in. Nasser Hussain, having righted the boat once again, added 14 runs in an hour and a half, as if to acquiesce in his omission from England's one-day party. Heat shimmered from the turf as if from the top of a barbecue, until thin cloud came up and the temperature plummeted to 31C.
Another cloud came in the form of the umpire Tony McQuillan, who proceeded to give five batsmen out. There was nothing doubtful about the lbw decision against John Crawley, and Hussain certainly appeared to top-edge a pull on to his forearm before the ball lobbed to the one wide slip; but both Stewart and Ramprakash, who was given leg-before sweeping, had got a long forward stride in.
Day 3: England left to contend with a sporting wicket
By Christopher Martin-Jenkins
ENGLAND'S final game before the Test series starts on Friday developed by slow degrees towards a surprisingly thrilling climax on the third evening yesterday.
Win or lose against Queensland this morning on a pitch on which the ball had begun to keep impossibly low at times, Michael Atherton was bound to be the centre of attraction following last night's decision to call up Graeme Hick in case the former England captain does not recover from his latest back injury.
Atherton was out to his first ball on Saturday, flicking down the leg side at Queensland's steady but unexceptional medium-paced swing bowler Adam Dale, whose first innings figures of seven for 33 were a career best. Atherton was unfit to field yesterday and therefore not allowed by tour regulations to bat higher than No 7 when England began their chase for 142 to win.
John Crawley, Atherton's probable replacement as Mark Butcher's opening partner in the first Test - England will certainly be put in if they lose the toss - was bowled for three making the same mistake as the first three batsmen: playing back instead of forward on this pitch.
After a second day of attritional cricket, 18 wickets fell yesterday, including England's last three in the morning for a further 10 runs. Queensland gained a precious first innings lead of 17, despite Matthew Hayden's broken finger. Dale took two more wickets under the gaze of Allan Border to put himself in the running for the Test team, which is named today.
Darren Gough, who again bowled splendidly in the heat, took two wickets before lunch, the first thanks to the low bounce but the second a beauty which knocked out Stuart Law's off stump. Jimmy Maher, the left-hander from Cairns, now played with the utmost resolution and had made 56 out of 99 when he was sixth out.
Robert Croft again gave Stewart valuable variety but he twisted his right knee when long studs in his new boots stuck in the turf as he pivoted in his action in the last over before lunch. To his credit he continued to bowl, picking up Andrew Symonds at short leg and Geoff Foley, yet another lbw victim. But as the quicker bowlers finished the job, it was clear that 142 runs would not easily be made.
An increasingly excited crowd sensed a humbling of the Poms from the moment that the unfortunate Butcher went back to his second ball from the pacy, uncomplicated Andy Bichel and was defeated by low bounce. Dominic Cork, opening in Atherton's place, now played an enterprising innings and for a time Hussain played superbly. But Mike Kasprowicz removed Hussain, Stewart and Crawley in the space of two overs and when Cork was given out lbw, the game had veered towards the home side.
Atherton was padded up to come in at the fall of the fifth wicket but with only an over to go, his appearance was delayed in order to give him a chance of batting in less discomfort after a night's sleep.
Shane Warne bowled 10 overs but was unable to collect a wicket as Western Australia overcame a shaky start on the second day of their Sheffield Shield match against Victoria.
Day 4: Croft and Mullally stand and deliver winning runs
By Christopher Martin-Jenkins in Cairns, Queensland
IT was not so much the win over Queensland as the character with which it was achieved which made England's exciting one-wicket success here yesterday such a great and timely boost to team morale.
It means that, despite the considerable concern over the batting in advance of the first Test on Friday, the touring team have come through their warm-up matches with an unbeaten record.
In a way, the fact that every game might have gone another way amplifies the impression that this is a genuine team, one which has learned to win narrowly rather than lose honourably when the going gets tough.
Robert Croft, jointly the hero with Alan Mullally of a last-wicket stand of 36, hinted at the reason when he said after the job had been done: ``It's a boost to team spirit. Most of the lads have been playing together now for two or three years. We tend to know each other a lot better and to know each other's games a lot better.''
Partnerships have been important in most of England's recent successes and, if only because of its very unexpectedness in the final phase of the game, this one deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as Graham Thorpe and Mark Ramprakash's record-breaking stand against South Australia a week ago.
Croft's batting has improved after much hard work in the nets with Graham Gooch since he was humiliated by Glenn McGrath in England in 1997, but Mullally had a first-class average going into this tour of 9.25. Yet at Perth, he made 25 not out and here he batted 78 minutes for 23 not out and, in his loose looking way, played very well.
Croft defended soundly for the 1.5 hours he was at the crease and waited patiently for the limited scoring opportunities presented by accurate bowling, keen fielding, the slow, badly cracked pitch and the spongy outfield. Only 10 fours were scored in the 142 which England managed to eke out over 60.2 overs of strangely compelling cricket.
Michael Kasprowicz had celebrated his return to the Australian Test 12 with three more wickets in the first 15 overs of the day. Dean Headley, hitting straight and with spirit, and Mark Ramprakash, all careful defence, gave a foretaste of the last-wicket stand in the first seven overs before Ramprakash pulled a rare short ball to square leg.
Enter, with more than usual briskness, Michael Atherton, determined to show that he is not finished yet. But his stay was brief. He survived appeals from Kasprowicz after each of his first two balls, the second of which skimmed low into his pads, steered a single off Jackson but was then stumped as he stretched forward and the ball spun out of his reach.
Kasprowicz bowled Headley and Gough in successive overs to take his figures to six for 15 and to bring the odd couple together an hour before lunch. Sixteen overs later, they were still in harness and the 36 runs required had been whittled down to 14. Three singles came from the first over after the break from a tiring 'Kasper' and five more in his next as Mullally followed a pull in the air to long leg for two with a straight-driven three.
A similar shot by Croft 15 minutes later settled a game played cheerfully by both sides despite trying conditions and a pitch which would no doubt have been better but for last week's heavy rain. From the start last Friday, when Darren Gough's second ball broke one of Matthew Hayden's fingers and a 20-minute delay ensued while some sawdust was delivered, this was a close and unpredictable contest.
Everyone must now hope for more in the hectic seven weeks which lie ahead. Australia, meanwhile, have named more or less their expected 12 for Brisbane, with Ricky Ponting reclaiming the No 6 position from Darren Lehmann and Kasprowicz, Damien Fleming and Jason Gillespie getting in ahead of Paul Reiffel. McGrath and Stuart MacGill are certain to play.
The England party made the two-hour flight to Brisbane yesterday afternoon and Atherton was due to see another back specialist there this morning. He is hopeful of playing in the first Test as he says, he played in 63 consecutive Tests before he missed the Sri Lanka match in August - and assuming he can move reasonably freely, it will make an immense difference to England's chances if he plays. Graeme Hick is due to arrive tomorrow to give extra batting cover.
Two draws and two last-gasp wins by margins of a single run and a single wicket hardly demonstrate that a mighty power has been let loose upon Australia. Nor will anyone remember for long the details of these early games. But if similar resilience can be shown under pressure in the Test series itself, they may come to be seen as portents of surprising events to come.