Fight for the Urn won’t be walkover

AUSTRALIA may well win the Ashes this summer but it won’t simply be a matter of huffing and puffing and blowing England’s house down.

Fasten your seat belts folks. If first indications count for anything this could be a wonderful Ashes series, one of the rare ones in Australia that actually sways in different directions.

It’s been more than 30 years since there’s been a seesawing, dogfight of an Ashes series on our shores.

Someone normally cracks and is crunched. Mostly it’s England. Twice in three decades it’s been Australia.

But Ashes series in Australia in recent times are rarely ever ding-dong battles.

The Ashes are overdue for a series in Australia in which two evenly matched teams kick and scrap and scratch and claw and it goes right down to the wire. Maybe this is it. Shane Warne said last week that England no longer feared Australia and the comment gained more credence when Mark Stoneman and James Vince were constructing a century stand and Dawid Malan was fighting hard in lengthening shadows.

All three had been earmarked pre-tour as the weakest links in a so-so team.

For that reason alone it was a day of significant progress for England but Australia still finished almost dead level on the scoreboard.

There was no sign this England team — particularly the lesser-known players — were nervous in the way they were four years ago when Mitchell Johnson had Kevin Pietersen thinking “I could be killed at the Gabbatoir’’ as he waited to bat.

Nor do they seem to be fazed by any headlines suggesting their key players could be about to be shunted into retirement.

This is not one of the great England teams but there is a quiet confidence about them.

It’s just a matter of whether they have the class to resist the class of the Australian attack when they are at their best, which they were not quite on a pitch devoid of treachery on day one. It should not be forgotten that day one was the first home soil Ashes Test for all three fast bowlers. They will be better for the run.

Nathan Lyon will surely strike paydirt soon for he has rarely bowled better and Mit- chell Starc versus the England tail on day two will also be intriguing viewing.

Instead of being the mortar assault everyone was expecting, the first day of the Ashes was like one of those old-fashioned Ashes Tests that creeps along like a gently rising tide. It was hard work. So it should be. It’s an Ashes Test on a flat deck.

With Australia playing just four bowlers there is an intriguing element to it. Every over England bats it takes a little bit of petrol out of an Australian attack that will know it’s alive playing five Tests in seven weeks.

England, by contrast, has five bowlers, including four fast men. If it could kick on to 400-plus today it may have major benefits in the second innings and beyond.