Instead, 21-year-old batsman Luke Parker made his Championship debut, with James Anyon, the 22-year-old pace bowler, promoted from the one-day side to take Heath Streak's place Parker could be pleased with himself. Unless their opponents suffer a similar fate today, they are likely to face a substantial first-innings deficit. Given that they can barely scrape together a team, Warwickshire might argue they had done well to manage even one batting point against Nottinghamshire's capable seam attack. In fact, the defending champions built themselves a promising platform against a side with designs on snatching their crown, only to fall off spectacularly. Why, Waugh was asked, was he fighting so hard to be fit for the last act of a battle that had already been settled? "I am the captain of Australia," he said, "and it is my duty to be there. A cricket career lasts only so long, and while you are involved you just have to give it a bit of a go." Waugh returned at The Oval, batted bravely through obvious pain, and Australia won.That was some of the legacy Waugh bequeathed to his successor Ricky Ponting, and we can be sure it will be rampant in its meaning in the Australian dressing-room today. Perhaps they could readjust the Red Sea while they are at it..
"Nail them from the first ball," young Pietersen demands of the Lord's crowd. In intervals between the painful work, he sat on a Headingley balcony and watched England snatch a little consolation through the batting of Mark Butcher. Nothing we have seen so far this English summer suggests that the Rubicon has been passed.Four years ago, with another Ashes series won, the Australian captain Steve Waugh slaved to be fit for the final Test at The Oval. None of this encourages the doffing of caps and the touching of forelocks, but there is a huge distance between that and announcing the decline of opponents who have been setting new standards of achievement throughout their working lives.England have covered a lot of ground under Vaughan, but whether it has brought them to the same competitive level as their opponents today is a question that can be resolved only in the heat of the forthcoming action. As potential comers, a team who over the past couple of years could in many ways not have shaped better for the great challenge of their lives, England have a right to carry self-respect on to the field of Lord's today.Vaughan is a world-class batsman, Andrew Strauss has shown marvellous instincts for the challenge of opening, Marcus Trescothick is capable of virtuoso performance, and when Harmison's spirits are up he is among the ?te of fast bowlers Flintoff has Bothamesque qualities. Against Australia in the cricket arena that matters most - the one where Test matches have to be settled - Pietersen and Hoggard speak as young men with everything to prove, and while they should remember hubris is always a problem it is particularly deadly when applied to non-achievement.Maybe the chief concern here is that England are claiming bragging rights they do not own. The headline said, quite careless of the possibilities of morbid reflection in a few days' time, "Past it".
Hoggard said: "It will be tough for Glenn McGrath and it will be interesting to see if he still is the world-class performer he was ... it will be interesting to see if Shane Warne can reproduce his best because he is getting on a bit as well."Of course, there is no law against agitating Australians They have been doing it to us since the days of Ned Kelly However, the value of timing cannot be overstated. It was the most chilling of thoughts as Hoggard provided one sports page with the headline that, even as you read it, conjured the picture of Warne and McGrath, the old gunfighters, slugging down a glass of red-eye and walking out into the street. They will not do it - as Hoggard, the hero of South Africa earlier this year, tried this week - by talking themselves up and the Australians down.When Hoggard took a run at Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne - two of the greatest bowlers cricket will know - you were reminded of the words of one cautious cornerman when his fighter faced the young Mike Tyson: "Whatever you do, don't make him angry." In the last of their maturity as front-line Test players, McGrath and Warne are less likely to be angry than recharged.
