Supporting England prepares you for disaster, so it would have been no surprise to have woken up this morning to find that the day had been washed out by rain, or that Brad Haddin and Mike Hussey had put on over three hundred again, but mercifully when I switched Radio 4 on in the small hours of the morning it was to find that Australia were all out and the Barmy Army were in the process of drinking Adelaide dry.
Australia knew that they were up against it, having lost Clarke the night before, but they must also have known that rain was forecast for later in the day and that Stuart Broad wouldn’t be bowling so their task, while difficult, wasn’t insurmountable. Unfortunately, having shown considerable resolve on day four they folder in just ninety minutes before lunch.
Swann started well, having Hussey dropped by Prior, but it was the second new ball that produced the vital wicket of Hussey. Finn had started slightly erratically, but produced a delivery that got big on Hussey and he spliced a straightforward catch to Anderson who celebrated gleefully. England must have felt that Hussey took the hopes of his side with him as he trudged from the field.
Haddin and North resisted for a time, but when Haddin edged a beauty from Anderson to Prior and then Ryan Harris completed a slightly unfortunate King Pair all of the impetus was with England. Harris will consider himself a little unlucky, but it is hard to have much sympathy for anyone who is leg before playing no stroke and the way that he played the two balls that he faced in the match suggested that he is too high at number eight.
Marcus North got to twenty for the second time in the match, usually a sign that he will go on to a decent score, but fell leg before to a ball from Swann that the review showed would have hit middle about halfway up. Neither Doherty nor Siddle stayed for long, Doherty bowled by an arm ball and Siddle surviving playing the ball onto the stumps only to be bowled by a beauty from Swann that would have dismissed a far better player. England had well and truly banished the memories of 2006 – Adelaide is no longer a word for English supporters to fear.
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