Tim Bresnan on helping England retain the Ashes 10 years ago at Melbourne THE PERFECT BOXING DAY
Two contrasting sounds live on in the memory of Tim Bresnan as he remembers the most flawless opening- day Test display by England in living memory.
Today is the 10th anniversary of the Melbourne Test when, with the series locked at 1-1 with two to play, Andrew Strauss’s team seized the moment.
Reminiscing, Bresnan picks out the roars of a gladiatorial arena on the eve of his Test recall, and the shuffling silence of the sports-mad Melburnians that afternoon as most of the 84,354 crowd filtered from the stands once it became obvious Australia’s hopes of regaining the urn had been obliterated.
‘During the half-hour we were in the dressing room having a coffee, between final practice and walking out for the start of play, the ground went from a gentle buzz to a wall of noise,’ Bresnan tells Sportsmail.
‘ It’s like walking into a coliseum when you play at the MCG. You emerge from underground to get on to the pitch, so you can hear the atmosphere building as you get closer and closer.
‘The national anthems were so loud. we always made sure we sang it properly as a team and it was quite a spine-tingling experience to hear God Save The Queen all around the ground.
‘Later on, when Alastair Cook and Andrew Strauss walked out to bat, the Australians seemed to have lost interest. You looked around the stands and there was only a smattering plus a few members left. The rest was Barmy Army.
‘It was the perfect day of Test cricket, if you are an Englishman.’
Yorkshireman Bresnan’s best present that year had been delivered 24 hours earlier when he was told ‘not to go too crazy on the beers’ at the Christmas lunch because he would be making his Ashes debut ahead of Steven Finn, then the leading wicket-taker in the series.
It was a controversial decision but ultimately an inspired one. His part in this thumping innings victory began during a first session contested under cloud cover and on a capricious, drop-in pitch which made the
MCG feel like a home from home.
Such was the dominance of the swinging ball that Shane watson was dropped twice before scoring.
‘It was a morning in which the seamers just didn’t miss. we were asking questions, building pressure and not going for any runs,’ says Bresnan, who struck with his seventh ball when Phil Hughes sliced to gully.
‘They’d faced Chris Tremlett and Jimmy Anderson, who gave them naff all to hit, and they were clearly thinking, “Let’s get on top of this lad”. That’s what they had previously done to Finny in the series.’
The tactic of going after Bresnan also proved fatal to Brad Haddin as a procession of Australia batsmen were caught behind the wicket on their way to their lowest score on home soil against England since 1936. Anderson and Tremlett struck four times apiece. ‘Between the second and third Tests, we played Victoria at the MCG and the drop-in pitch was dead. we couldn’t get the ball to bounce above the stumps, and the Australians obviously didn’t want another one like that.
‘They wanted a wicket similar to Perth, where they’d just levelled the series. Something hard, fast and bouncy. So they left a proper tinge of green on top. It played into our hands when we won the toss on an overcast morning.’
with heaven-sent timing, the clouds departed as England’s opening pair began a reply that reached 157 without loss by the close, and in excess of 500 when it concluded on the third morning. A day later, England’s players would make the sprinkler dance famous in front of swathes of away supporters, before retiring to the visitors’ dressing room to celebrate, albeit with restraint.
‘Some would have seen that as job done. we didn’t. we knew the New Year’s Test at Sydney was to come, and we wanted to put in another good performance,’ Bresnan continues.
‘we wanted to show England could go to Australia and not just retain the Ashes but win them properly. we p***** that Test match as well.’
Bresnan took five more wickets at the SCG in another innings victory, but success eluded him when he returned Down Under in 2013-14. Two elbow operations had softened his ‘zip’ — the ability to extract extra bounce and hurry the ball on to batsmen. ‘I’d probably still be playing international cricket now if I had that,’ smiles the 35-year-old.
Instead, he is excited about the next two years at warwickshire, having left Yorkshire last summer. Although nothing in the final stages of an illustrious career could surely compare to that rare humbling of Australia on their own soil.