Great day of test cricket. England bowled well to have us 5 for 97 and we were thinking 170 was probably the best case scenario. Then Haddin and smith played great innings, they rode their luck as you need to in test cricket, Haddin in particular was brilliant in throwing off the shackles.
So what happened with the poms bowling, they were tight and pitched up in the first session but then dropped short. The loss of rankin hurt but there is really no excuse from broad and Anderson. Broad and Anderson? I can only think they were trying to emulate Johnson by intimidating the bottom 5 with short stuff then got carried away. Broad bowled two overs to Harris where there was only one ball not targetted at the body. Only stokes was targeting the top of off stump, and he got the reward. Even cook seemed to be on his own page, as there were a couple of times he moved square leg deep mid over for stokes, only for stokes to keep pitching it up on off.
As for man of the series, it has to be Mitch, the electricity he generates in the stadium is unbelievable. I haven't seen it live before myself, I presume Lillee had the same effect 30 years ago. And don't forget Mitch's fielding efforts on top of beat contributions with the bat and ball.
I'm back for d2 tomorrow. I suspect the poms will make a good fist of their first innings, but being bowler a short, it would seem they are in trouble unless they bat for a long time in their first innings.