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Lord's Day one wrap

Submitted by rickeyre on July 23, 2005 - 3:57am

Seventeen wickets on the opening day of an Ashes Test at Lord's. That hasn't happened since the century before last.

The unforgettable images of Day One will be those of Glenn McGrath's devastating five-fer, which started off with his 500th Test career wicket. He has been such a champion at this ground. 8/38 in 1997, then 5/54 and 3/60 in 2001.

Steve Harmison's bowling against Australia earlier in the day was also memorable, but found itself upstaged for historical importance.

On a bizarre day when the scoring was brisk - 282 runs from 77.2 overs - but the batsmen's concentration poor, it seemed fitting that the day should end on an odd moment with Wheelie bin Giles brushing the stumps with his glove, out hit wicket to become Brett Lee's 140th Test victim. Fat chance of Blee ever getting within cooee of Pigeon McGrath's 504-and-counting.

My 3-2-1 for the day: 3 pts, Glenn McGrath; 2 pts, Steve Harmison; 1 pt, Geraint Jones.

The Telegraph's coverage of Day One leads off with Derek Pringle's account of proceedings. At The Times, CMJ is obsessed with theatrical metaphors, but it is left to Simon Barnes to open his match report with a quote from Enid Blyton. And someone by the name of "Times Online Sports Desk" has been blogging the day's play. Goodness knows why.

James Lawton was there for The Independent, while The Guardian's coverage is led by Mike Selvey. Richard Williams, however, tells of the eeriness of being at the ground while reports of more bombs in the city were circulating.

The Hindu has Ted Corbett at the game. With stumps being drawn after most editions of the Australian dailies were being printed, Chloe Saltau's match report for the Fairfax media appeared online at around 11.30am AEST. Over at the Land of News Limited, Andrew Ramsay's lunch report is all that I can see online at present from their own Aussie journalists - it's left to AFP and Reuters to bring news.com.au readers up to date.

From BBC Online's report of the day are linked audio interviews with Glenn McGrath, Steve Harmison, and David Boon in his role as Australian selector.

That score again: Australia 190 all out, England 92 for 7.

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