Perth Test, Day 1
Monday, November 29, 2002

England have endured a tough week or two because of all the injuries, and that showed even in their warm-ups before the start – they didn't look at all confident. The captain hasn't helped either, by saying plenty in the press. That just increases the pressure on the players, and they are not living up to the expectations. I'm not sure how well they're getting on either.

Nasser Hussain would probably have liked to lose the toss, but he did the right thing when he won and took it on. Unfortunately the batsmen gave their captain's decision nothing. There was no patience. McGrath just kept to a tight line and length, but gone are the days where you could go through a dull hour or a tough session or two. England's batsmen were barely hanging around for even two or three overs, before they started pulling at balls that weren't there and got themselves out.

They didn't show any patience when they were bowling either. Hussain would sustain a plan for one over or part of an over, then make a field-change the moment Australia scored a four.

Brett Lee went all right on his comeback. Mind you, he had it pretty easy. Less than 20 overs in a day's work is not a tough ask, and the conditions suited him. He simply bowled fast, and scared himself some wickets. Hussain was one of them – when Lee is running in at you, it does get your blood-pressure pumping, and he is always likely to pick up wickets with false shots.

The key is to stay patient at the WACA – the bad balls will come. Once you are set here, the runs start to flow without you having to do anything unusual, and you just have to trust that your half-hour of nothing will pay dividends in the end. The Aussies may have forced the issue tonight and looked for boundaries, but just watch Damien Martyn tomorrow. He'll dig in early on, and the runs will accumulate without anyone noticing.

There will be one or two slashed wrists in the England dressing-room tonight. Alec Stewart, Michael Vaughan and Hussain all played rash shots, and Rob Key will be especially upset, to miss a little offcutter from Martyn and get out in the over before tea. But Key was great. I said after he got a pair of 1s at Adelaide that he was batting in the right frame of mind – nothing seemed to bother him. He wanted to be out there, and I was pleased he got some runs to go with his unflappable nature.

Craig White is still there at No. 7, but who else have England got left? For White, it's simply a matter of finding a way for perform. Maybe he should just block and block and not look for runs. England have to be simple, basic, and above all, patient. I thought they were onto something when Steve Harmison started bowling round the wicket to Martyn, but it only lasted for an over and a bit, before the field changed again and he came back over.

I wasn't surprised Harmison didn't bowl first up. He's been a bit wayward with the new ball on this tour, and with Alex Tudor doing a job into the breeze, Hussain probably wanted to keep him to bowl downwind. That said, Chris Silverwood wasn't as fast as I'd expected, and he was battling for fitness as well – England need to nurse him through a long day tomorrow. But Harmison, he showed he's got the goods today. He can play.

England's slips looked a little close this evening – and that is down to Alec Stewart. If he stands too close, it drags the whole cordon up too far. He was taking a lot of balls above his head, and that can be dangerous at Perth, where most of your slip chances come from slashed cuts, like the one that Martyn got through Marcus Trescothick. You can afford to give yourself a bit of room at Perth. It'll carry, especially if it's downwind.

It's premature to predict another century for Ricky Ponting, but he's certainly having a great time since he got married, and he's in the form to add to those four hundreds in seven innings. It's all so easy – he has a lot of time to get on the front foot, and he's got so much control for those back-foot drives through the covers. He's scaring England into a bad line and length, scaring them with those pulls, then driving them when they overpitch to compensate.

England have got to get eight wickets tomorrow, and the way the Aussies are batting, they'll be giving chances. It should be entertaining stuff. England have to bowl boring tomorrow, bowl outside off stump and bore Australia into making mistakes. The pitch might quicken up as well, with a bit of the early moisture gone, so they might get a couple of early wickets and get the tail playing shots. But realistically, the game is gone already.

Ian Healy, who kept wicket for Australia in six winning Ashes series, will be providing his Expert View at the end of each day's play in the Tests. He was talking to Andrew Miller.

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