The Ashes Diary by Michael Clarke

instructions to him were to attack the stumps and try to get Cook LBW or caught behind, and he delivered the goods second ball, swinging one in late and trapping Cook in front.
    The slope at Lord’s can play on your mind, both as a batsman and a bowler. You need to take it into consideration, but not get carried away by it. Ryan Harris was bowling from the Pavilion end, which meant the slope was going away from his left to right. That is, it would help the ball going in to the right-handed batsman (and going away from the left-hander); but it also might help him because he has the ability to take the ball away from the batsmen up the hill, which can be the most dangerous ball of all here.
    Ryan was simply outstanding. He rifled one through Joe Root that hit the front pad just before hitting his bat. The umpire gave him out, and Root had the decision reviewed, but there was so little in it that the original decision had to stand. As we’ve seen in the past week, this is a game of millimetres, and the close decisions can go either way.
    Rhino is a relentless bowler, and he can be a nightmare for a new batsman because he hardly ever gives them a loose ball to get off the mark. He was right at Kevin Pietersen, who like most of us is an anxious starter, and drew him into a defensive push which Pietersen sort of wanted to play, but sort of wanted to pull away from. He nicked it, and we had just the start we were after.
    Jonathan Trott was in good touch again, with some well-timed fours off his pads, and I rotated the bowlers fairly regularly. I wanted to get Patto into the attack, but he still wasn’t quite able to apply pressure with a consistent line and length, so I alternated some short spells between him and Watto. We managed to calm Trott down, and he was a bit lucky to survive when he gloved one onto his shoulder and then popped one in the air off the leading edge, the ball falling short of the slips cordon both times.
    Lord’s has lost the equivalent of ten days worth of rain in the current heatwave, and the pitch is dry, if not quite as dry as Trent Bridge. For us this meant we were in a bit of a race against the sun, to capitalise on our start before the heat sucked the last bit of life out of the strip.
    Trott and Bell got through to lunch, but we’ve noticed that Trott plays his pull shot without a lot of conviction. Mostly he manages to keep it on the ground, but it looks a bit awkward, and if he hit it in the air it wasn’t going over the boundary. I placed Usman Khawaja at deep square leg near the Old Father Time weather vane, about ten metres in from the rope. I really don’t like having square leg out, but Usman was there to prey on the batsman’s mind rather than specifically for a catch, to let Trott know that he’ll get short balls and can’t rock onto the front foot every ball.
    I’m always encouraging our quicks to use their bouncer. Soon enough, Ryan bowled one – and it didn’t get up at all! It went wrong. But Trott played that half-hit pull shot and connected too well, placing it where Uzzy only had to run in and take an easy catch. I ran straight to Ryan, and we were laughing at the fact that it didn’t go where it was supposed to go but got the wicket anyway.
    With England four down for 127, we were back in the game. Our energy in the field was fantastic. The boys were buzzing after the three early wickets, and the feeling was right where I wanted it to be. But throughout the middle session our bowlers lost their control a bit. Their line was on both sides of the wicket, and their length was sometimes too short, sometimes too full. Ashton Agar was struggling with a sore hip flexor after hurting it diving for a ball, and was probably having a first taste of how tough Test cricket can be. We just weren’t tightening the screws, and Bell and Bairstow were able to accumulate the runs. Peter Siddle actually bowled Bairstow for 21, but a replay showed that he’d overstepped by a very small