deliveries had troubled him most in his career. After at first waving the question away, Bradman came up with an interesting and inherently authoritative answer: the full ball attacking the stumps that might go this way or might go that but at all events compelled a stroke was, even at his peak, a challenge.
What was good enough for Bradman those many years ago proved today more than enough for England. The third ball of Siddle's twelfth over was sharp and tight on off stump. When he entered Test cricket three years ago, Siddle rather struggled with left-handers, and lost knots and accuracy when bowling round the wicket. From over the wicket, this ball demanded a defensive bat from Cook, and snagged an edge as it angled away.
Siddle found the right solution for Prior too, who for a batsman with an average above 40 is bowled too often â 28 per cent of his dismissals. The ball was again full. It found bat and pad not just ajar but almost at odds.
The younger Siddle might at such a point have bowled a bouncer, into the ribs, maybe at the helmet. But it was Siddle's twenty-sixth birthday today. This is his eighteenth Test. He is in his fast-bowling prime, coming into savvy to go with the sizzle. In the nets before the game, both Tim Nielsen and Troy Cooley were entreating him to bowl a fuller length â as he did so, he was excited to find the ball swinging. So for his hat-trick ball, he aimed again to skid the ball from the otherwise disobliging surface, to take advantage of slow-moving feet and an uncalibrated eye.
Stuart Broad's preparatory rituals were as elaborate as those of a prize fighter shadow-boxing in his dressing gown: stretching, skipping, fiddling and generally farting around. His failure was almost foreordained. Siddle's yorker was rather like the jubilant sandshoe crusher with which Jeff Thomson at the Gabba thirty-six years ago upended Tony Greig; it is destined to be replayed as often. Broad legged it from the scene of the crime like an urchin spied stealing an orange, but was collared by the long arm of the lbw law, personified by Aleem Dar and ratified by Tony Hill.
Here was the delayed gratification of Test cricket at its best. In the hour before it, the Test had slipped from a restless doze into REM sleep. Alastair Cook and Ian Bell were restoring English heart, ticking over calmly enough, if not threatening at any stage to break away. The commentators were chatting. The crowd was a little listless. Marketers were busy thinking about how to squeeze in another T20 international. They were disturbed in their machinations by the sound of celebration reverberating around the concrete crucible of the Gabba, by the outbreak of cricket worth waiting for.
Australia had special need of Siddle under the circumstances. The attack was generally persevering rather than consistently penetrative. Shane Watson chipped in, but Ben Hilfenhaus was no better than adequate, and Xavier Doherty was rather flattered by a couple of tail-end wickets.
Debutant Doherty came on to bowl the 21st over with a slip, a bat-pad and, after his first ball bit and bounced promisingly, a short mid-on. Except that he struggled with his line to Cook, asking too little of the left-hander's cover drive and offering too much to be nurdled round the corner, a bread and butter shot that sustained the batsman when his vital signs, every so often, showed signs of failing.
The comparison was unfair but inevitable. Four years ago, Warne let Pietersen know there would be no gimmes with a waspish throw back to the keeper that struck his old mucker's bat, following up with some pantomime huff-and-puff. Doherty's response in his third over to stopping Pietersen's crisp straight drive was rather less assured: his throw bounced at the edge of the cut strip and would have vanished for four overthrows had Haddin not darted quickly to his left.
A moustache has made Mitchell Johnson look a little more like Dennis Lillee, meanwhile, but it hasn't
What was good enough for Bradman those many years ago proved today more than enough for England. The third ball of Siddle's twelfth over was sharp and tight on off stump. When he entered Test cricket three years ago, Siddle rather struggled with left-handers, and lost knots and accuracy when bowling round the wicket. From over the wicket, this ball demanded a defensive bat from Cook, and snagged an edge as it angled away.
Siddle found the right solution for Prior too, who for a batsman with an average above 40 is bowled too often â 28 per cent of his dismissals. The ball was again full. It found bat and pad not just ajar but almost at odds.
The younger Siddle might at such a point have bowled a bouncer, into the ribs, maybe at the helmet. But it was Siddle's twenty-sixth birthday today. This is his eighteenth Test. He is in his fast-bowling prime, coming into savvy to go with the sizzle. In the nets before the game, both Tim Nielsen and Troy Cooley were entreating him to bowl a fuller length â as he did so, he was excited to find the ball swinging. So for his hat-trick ball, he aimed again to skid the ball from the otherwise disobliging surface, to take advantage of slow-moving feet and an uncalibrated eye.
Stuart Broad's preparatory rituals were as elaborate as those of a prize fighter shadow-boxing in his dressing gown: stretching, skipping, fiddling and generally farting around. His failure was almost foreordained. Siddle's yorker was rather like the jubilant sandshoe crusher with which Jeff Thomson at the Gabba thirty-six years ago upended Tony Greig; it is destined to be replayed as often. Broad legged it from the scene of the crime like an urchin spied stealing an orange, but was collared by the long arm of the lbw law, personified by Aleem Dar and ratified by Tony Hill.
Here was the delayed gratification of Test cricket at its best. In the hour before it, the Test had slipped from a restless doze into REM sleep. Alastair Cook and Ian Bell were restoring English heart, ticking over calmly enough, if not threatening at any stage to break away. The commentators were chatting. The crowd was a little listless. Marketers were busy thinking about how to squeeze in another T20 international. They were disturbed in their machinations by the sound of celebration reverberating around the concrete crucible of the Gabba, by the outbreak of cricket worth waiting for.
Australia had special need of Siddle under the circumstances. The attack was generally persevering rather than consistently penetrative. Shane Watson chipped in, but Ben Hilfenhaus was no better than adequate, and Xavier Doherty was rather flattered by a couple of tail-end wickets.
Debutant Doherty came on to bowl the 21st over with a slip, a bat-pad and, after his first ball bit and bounced promisingly, a short mid-on. Except that he struggled with his line to Cook, asking too little of the left-hander's cover drive and offering too much to be nurdled round the corner, a bread and butter shot that sustained the batsman when his vital signs, every so often, showed signs of failing.
The comparison was unfair but inevitable. Four years ago, Warne let Pietersen know there would be no gimmes with a waspish throw back to the keeper that struck his old mucker's bat, following up with some pantomime huff-and-puff. Doherty's response in his third over to stopping Pietersen's crisp straight drive was rather less assured: his throw bounced at the edge of the cut strip and would have vanished for four overthrows had Haddin not darted quickly to his left.
A moustache has made Mitchell Johnson look a little more like Dennis Lillee, meanwhile, but it hasn't
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