Bresnan bowls England to with-in touching distance of Ashes glory
England are closing in on their most significant test triumph in the last 25 years as the Australians are left teetering on the brink of another Ashes embarrassment at one of their favourite test venues; the Melbourne Cricket Ground.
On Day four, the hosts were left reeling on 169/6 as they chased 415 to avoid their second innings defeat in the series and more importantly relinquishing their grip on the most revered test match battle of them all.
After posting a gigantic first innings total of 513, the English team made rapid inroads in the Aussie line-up and had all but sealed the deal by the time stumps were drawn on another depressing day for the Aussie fans.
The man who did the damage on day four with the ball was Tim Bresnan; the right armer was lucky to make an appearance after Steve Finn was ruled out and made the most of his comeback appearance.
The modest man gave the credit to his team for his performance that typified the English stranglehold on the little urn.
"We've had a good day of Test cricket," said Bresnan,"We've done a lot of hard work, and hopefully we'll do the rest tomorrow and wrap up this win. I don't know if I've played a major part, but we've bowled well again, bowled well in partnerships,
and it doesn't matter who really takes the wickets, it just happens today is my day. It's a very good feeling."
The pace-man, who is also handy with the bat, made it to the Ashes squad after some impressive performances on the tour of http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Bangladesh-c747 earlier in the year.
Although he claimed just seven wickets at 32.28 in the two Tests, he made an impression on the English think tank who were convinced that he was the man who can replace any of the first choice pace attack. Even though he was the second
reserve pacer to get a game in the series, he ensured that he proved his worth to the team.
He attributed his success at the MCG to the variation in his bowling, something that he had worked hard on over the years.
"You use the conditions you get given," said Bresnan. "You go around the world and you get these wickets and you're expected to do a job on them. I'm not saying this one is anywhere near as slow and has less bounce than Bangladesh, because
when it kisses through it kisses through nicely and you could actually bowl a bouncer on it. But today the pitch wasn't doing a great deal, so we had to rely on our skill, and the abrasiveness that came into play."
"The way we've been preparing, especially me and the lads who haven't been playing in the series, we've played the warm-up games and prepared as if we were going to play," said Bresnan. "Andy sat us all down and said: 'Listen, I'd be very
surprised if we go with the same team through five Tests'. Obviously with it being so hard fought and close together, we knew there would be a chance for at least two or three of us playing, so we had to prepare as if we were playing."
Bresnan had extremely impressive figures of 3 for 26 off 15 overs. 7 of those overs were maiden as the Aussies groped around trying to figure out his length, line and the lateral movement that he extracted on what looked a benign track.
The pacer took some big scalps which included Shane http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Watson-c96326 for 54, Ricky Ponting for 20 and Mike Hussey for a duck. All three batsmen were the anchors the Aussies were banking on yet Bresnan had other ideas. He now can sit back and relax
as barring a thunderstorm of massive proportions, the Ashes are all but England’s.
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