The Ashes - First Test

My sporting week started off on Wednesday night with a late start for the first Ashes test at the Gabba in Brisbane. It didn't go as well as I expected with Andrew Strauss falling to Ben Hilfenhaus after just the 3rd ball of the test match. After enduring another two hours of this lackluster England performance I'd had enough and I decided to head off to bed at 2am with the prospect of a highlights show to watch the next day. The next couple of days followed a remarkably similar pattern with a poor England performance keeping me up until 2am and a highlights show to watch the next day. Even thought there was little in terms of highlights for England the only bright sparks from an otherwise poor performance where good scores with the bat for in form Alistair Cook and Ian Bell and six wickets for Steve Finn in what was his first experience of the Ashes.
The turning point for England was the fourth day. Andrew Strauss made up for his duck in the first innings with a knock of 110 and his was the only England wicket to fall on the whole of day 4. Alistair Cook and Jonathan Trott then batted out the rest of the day with Cook passing his 100 and Trott passing his 50. Cook and Trott continued their excellent form in to day 5 in what has to be one of the best batting performances of all time by England with Cook eventually finishing on 235 not out and Trott on 135 not out, much to the delight of the travelling barmy army who easily outnumbered their Aussie counterparts for the last day with many Australian fans deciding not to turn up after this batting masterclass from England.
England then declared and put the Aussies into bat, with little chance of a result being reached, the decision came from Strauss and the England coaching team with the only thought being to give the bowlers another run out before the next test. Despite Ricky Ponting getting a quick fire 50 the momentum is firmly with England as we head towards the second test in Adelaide on Thursday.