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Pietersen cut short
Whatever Kevin Pietersen said beforehand, making an impression in this match, on his former home ground, would have left him with immense satisfaction. He looked primed for the challenge, too, as he concentrated hard at the start of the innings to just about stop himself trying for one of those hairy singles. But it was a pristine straight drive off Jacques Kallis’s first ball of the day that made everyone sit up and take notice. Pietersen stood tall and drilled the delivery past mid-on, the type of shot he plays with regularity when at the top of his game and when he was dropped by Kallis at slip it appeared set for him. Alas, it was a false dawn as he tried to sweep a full ball from Paul Harris and was lbw. It had promised so much.Aleem’s hat trick
The weather has already played a part in this game, but the third day was perfect with clear blue skies. However, there was a strong wind blowing, which was gusting across the ground and causing a few problems. At one point it caught Aleem Dar’s wide-brimmed hat and the umpire had to chase it through midwicket before finally grabbing hold two-thirds of the way towards the boundary. The crowd gave him a hearty cheer and Dar got into the spirit by acknowledging the applause before trying to firmly fix his hat back on.Bowled ‘im…oh, it’s the wind
As well as troubling Dar, the gusts also meant the bails had trouble staying in their grooves and on one occasion struck with precision-like timing that would have done a Swiss-watchmaker proud. As Makhaya Ntini slanted a delivery across Alastair Cook, the left hander shoulder arms and the ball sailed through to the keeper. However, at the exact moment the ball flew past the stumps the bail fell out of its groove. It caused momentary excitement in the crowd and Cook may have thought he’d made a horrid misjudgement. It was all a false alarm.Cook’s reprieve
There may be one England player who’s now a big fan of the Umpire Decision Review System. On 64, Alastair Cook – who earlier confirmed to Pietersen that he was indeed plumb to Harris – prodded forward to JP Duminy and was given out caught at short leg. It was clear Cook wasn’t happy and made the ‘T’ sign which brought Steve Davis into action. The third umpire had a long look and the pictures did suggest that ball had missed bat and glove, coming straight off the pad. Was it conclusive enough? Yes, Cook was saved and went on to reach a gusty hundred. “It’s great, this new system,” he might have said.Bell’s statement
Sadly for Ian Bell his leave against Paul Harris in the first innings at Centurion will be played forever more on blooper videos. It will live with him, but all he can do is try and show what he is capable of. The pressure is certainly on, but he looked far more comfortable as he came to the crease on this occasion – although that may have had something to do with a score that read 297 for 4. After a couple of leaves against Harris (brave boy) he made his intent clear with two steps down the track and a six over long. It’s a shot that will replayed, but still not as much as that leave.And down she goes
It was a tough day for South Africa with just four wickets to show for their efforts, but they could easily have had an extra scalp to take with them which would have made tomorrow morning appear slightly less daunting. Kallis, still not at 100% after his injury, came back for a late spell and forced Matt Prior to defend a ball into his thigh pad that bounced out to Hashim Amla at short leg. Amla is normally very safe under the helmet, but could only palm the chance to ground. It was one of those days.

John Wright, a prominent name doing the rounds for New Zealand’s next coach, will work with the national side briefly ahead of the first Test against Pakistan. New Zealand Cricket (NZC) chief executive Justin Vaughan said that Wright, currently with the Invitation XI playing the touring Pakistanis in Queenstown, would pop in to be with the side.”But there is nothing more to be read into it than that,” Vaughan was quoted as saying by the . “He will be there helping out and before the game begins he will be heading off to continue his elite coaching work.”Wright had done a similar stint with New Zealand last year when West Indies played in Dunedin.Vaughan said that NZC had spoken to the internationals to have returned from the limited-overs fixtures against Pakistan in the UAE ahead of zeroing in on a coach. “What was gratifying was that the feedback from the tour was resoundingly positive, which gave me a sense of assurance that we did not need to rush our decision,” he said.Vaughan was hopeful of deciding on a replacement by February, when Bangladesh visit ahead of Australia. “It is a matter of looking twofold, assessing what the team’s needs are under the current environment and also what is sustainable into the future,” he said.

There must have been a few Chelsea and Manchester United fans who felt a little odd when the two teams clashed in the 2008 Champions League final. The venue, Moscow, was 2500 km away from the scenes of their usual skirmishes, Stamford Bridge and Old Trafford. Compared to the sense of displacement felt by supporters of New South Wales and Victoria in Delhi tonight, that was nothing though. As the crow flies, it’s 10,193 km to Melbourne, 10,416 to Sydney. For one of sport’s most ancient rivalries – spanning 262 games and 117 years – this truly was a step into the unknown.New South Wales have been dominant both at Sheffield Shield (45 wins to Victoria’s 27) and 50-over cricket (nine triumphs to four), but the Twenty20 format is one in which the poorer cousins from Melbourne can claim greater mastery. They were well on course for a fourth consecutive success in the Big Bash last January until Ben Rohrer’s 20-ball 44 and a bye off the final ball gave NSW the trophy for the first time.On a slow and low pitch where both had previously excelled – Victoria thrashed the Delhi Daredevils, while NSW were way too good for both Eagles and Sussex – you expected a closely-fought game. Apart from a Shield match at Albury (countryside NSW, in 1989) and a 50-over contest in Canberra (2006), the contest had never strayed too far from the traditional venues in Melbourne and Sydney, but never had there been so much at stake as on this early winter’s night at the Feroz Shah Kotla.In financial terms, the difference between exiting the tournament in the semi-final (US$500,000) and winning it (US$2.5 million) was huge. It’s probably fair to say that there’s never been a domestic match with so much riding on the outcome. Sadly, the occasion seemed to get to Victoria who were never in the game after a tidy first over from Shane Harwood.David Warner and Phillip Hughes are quite an opening combination, one determined to bust the myth that left-handers make more elegant batsmen. If Hughes’ bat comes down like an axe, the Warner method is redolent of the blacksmith on his anvil. Between them though, they took Peter Siddle apart, combining straight-bat flails with tennis-forehand smears. One such swipe from Hughes, down to the sightscreen, was spectacularly ugly. In this format though, aesthetics mean nothing, and by the time the Powerplay was over, New South Wales had 56 on the board.”We’d pretty much summed up in a team meeting last night what we were going to do,” said Warner after the game. “The plan was to target the sightscreens. When Phil was playing across the line, I told him, ‘Mate, we can’t afford to do that at the moment.’ He played his natural game after that. “Only Harwood and Andrew McDonald, with his slow medium pace pitched short of a length, adjusted to the conditions. Siddle was too full and Jon Holland, the left-arm spinner, was also brutalised. And though the batting lost some fizz in the second half of the innings, 169 was at least 30 more than Victoria could reasonably have expected to chase.”They took the game to us,” a disappointed Cameron White said. ‘It’s not easy to play like that on a pitch like this. But we were a little too full or a little too short with our bowling.”While other captains have whined about having to play on these Delhi pitches, Simon Katich has been utterly phlegmatic about it. “It’s like the slow pitches we play on in Sydney,” he said when asked if he would have preferred to play the semi-final in Hyderabad. “We’re quite used to it.” He and his side have made the adjustment seamlessly, and Katich’s captaincy deserves plaudits, both for giving Nathan Hauritz a share of the new ball this evening, and also for bringing on a left-right combination against the spinners earlier in the game. New South Wales have been flexible without being gimmicky, and Katich has had an answer for every situation, Kieron Pollard excepted.Brett Lee has bowled with impressive control and fiery pace, and the support from Doug Bollinger, Stuart Clark and the innocuous-looking Moises Henriques has been tremendous. And with Hauritz getting prodigious turn to go with his new-found self-belief, no batting side has really looked at ease against them. Pollard’s heroics in Hyderabad merely obscured the fact that Trinidad and Tobago were comfortably second-best for 35 overs of that match.Add in the likes of Rohrer, who produced another cameo tonight, and the promise of Steven Smith, and it’s not hard to see why Katich’s side will be huge favourites on Friday night, no matter who they play. They may be a long way from home, but Australia’s most successful state side seem intent on proving that, like the national team, they’re a class apart.

Scorecard and ball-by-ball detailsNathan Rimmington cleaned up the tail with a hat-trick•Getty Images

Nathan Rimmington’s hat-trick and Chris Hartley’s second consecutive half-century set up Queensland’s six-wicket win over Western Australia at the Gabba. Rimmington’s lower-order strikes restricted the Warriors to 224 but two rain interruptions in the chase forced the target to be revised twice. The Bulls were ultimately set 197 from 37 overs, which they achieved with an over to spare.The Warriors were propped by a second-wicket stand of 99 between Marcus North and Wes Robinson. North made a brisk 50 off 54 balls but Robinson’s half-century was more sedate, facing 92 balls for his 52. Robinson’s dismissal sparked a mini-collapse as the Warriors lost three wickets for five runs. Robinson gave the offspinner Chris Simpson the charge and was out stumped before North lobbed a full delivery tamely back to the bowler.Simpson had his moments in the field as well when he flung himself to his right at short cover to complete a stunning catch to send back David Bandy. That catch was significant because it halted the fourth-wicket recovery between Bandy and Theo Doropoulos after the pair added 65 in just under 11 overs. Doropoulos went on to score an unbeaten run-a-ball 63 before being dismissed by Alister McDermott.Rimmington, who also has a domestic Twenty20 hat-trick, came into the picture late in the innings when he yorked Ashley Noffke off the last ball of the 47th over. He returned to york Brett Dorey off the first ball of his following over and then induced a thick outside edge to send Michael Hogan and the Warriors packing for 224.The Bulls lost the early wicket of Ryan Broad before the first rain interruption in the fourth over. Six overs were lost and the target was revised to 215 from 44 overs. There was another interruption in the seventh over, after which seven overs were lost, leading to a revised target of 197 from 37 overs.Hartley, the wicketkeeper, and Lee Carseldine added 74 for the second wicket before Carseldine fell for 33, edging Hogan to the keeper while attempting a dab to third man. North struck soon after when he bowled Nathan Reardon for 6. Two half-century stands then took Queensland home, with Hartley and Glen Batticciotto adding 53 in 8.3 overs before Craig Philipson joined Hartley. Hartley finished unbeaten on 70 off 95 balls to follow up his fifty from the previous game against South Australia.

Scorecard
The Supersport series match between Titans and Warriors at Willowmore Park in Benoni was abandoned after just seven overs as a result of an unfit pitch – the crease at the southern end of the ground was moist, affecting the bowler’s delivery stride.The situation led to Peter Muzzell, an expert on pitches in South Africa, being flown in from East London to inspect the conditions, and he will submit a report as a part of Cricket South Africa’s effort to investigate this matter. Titans, the home team, are likely to be fined for the embarrassing result.The problem was evident from the first ball of the second over of the day. Titans bowler Ethi Mbhalati found that his front foot dug several centimetres into a soft crease. During subsequent overs, the ground staff tried, unsuccessfully, to tackle the problem with sawdust and other equipment.With no improvement in conditions, the players had to leave the field after 5.5 overs in the hope that the ground staff and the sun could repair the damage.On resumption, it became obvious that play was impossible, and after seven more deliveries the game was called off for the day. Following further discussions between the umpires, match referee, captains and Muzzell it was decided the match had to be abandoned.”Both umpires as well as both captains will be required to submit a report,” Brian Basson, Cricket South Africa’s general manager for cricket operations, said after the abrupt end. “There will also be a report from Muzzell, who went to the ground as soon as we established that there was a problem with the pitch.”The umpires were of the opinion that the pitch would get worse even if it dried out and that it would not be suitable for a first-class match.”This is not the first time that matches in South Africa have been abandoned due to an unfit pitch, and a penalty could be enforced. “Yes, action can be taken – a maximum fine of R150 000 and points can be deducted from the Titans,” Tiffie Barnes, the match referee, told SuperCricket. “Muzzell also inspected the pitch and he said there was a lot of moisture underneath. He said it probably will not have improved by tomorrow, but might be better by Saturday.”

Daniel Vettori could have been forgiven for thinking that he was still marooned in Sri Lanka, but the relatively sluggish pitch was still no excuse for another listless New Zealand performance with the bat. Having reached the semi-finals of the last two ICC 50-over events, it will take an almighty effort for them to now repeat that feat. Apart from a brief passage of play when Ross Taylor and Grant Elliott batted with something approaching fluency, this was South Africa’s match from start to finish, and just the kind of outing they needed after being thrashed by the Sri Lankans.New Zealand’s batting woes were put into perspective later on by AB de Villiers. The very best batsmen somehow manage to look as though the conditions aren’t a factor, and de Villiers did that today, stroking the ball with panache on his way to an unbeaten 70. On a spin-friendly pitch at Trent Bridge in the ICC World Twenty20, he had been a class apart as India were overwhelmed in a low-scoring game. Here too, he batted with as though free of the restrictions that the surface imposed on other batsmen.”The first prize is always to win the game,” Graeme Smith said later, when asked if there had been one eye on the scoring-rate as well. “Compared to Tuesday night, the wicket was a touch slow, and you had to work harder. But we got it to a point where we could have a good go.”The game changed dramatically towards the end of the New Zealand innings. With Taylor and Elliott in tandem, even 250 appeared to be a possibility. But with Wayne Parnell showing a Botham-esque knack for taking wickets without bowling especially well, the last five wickets fell for just 11 runs. And having erred by not picking a second specialist spinner, defending 214 was never going to be easy.Vettori defended the selection by citing team balance, but that was an odd argument considering that he came in at No.9. If Kyle Mills and Gareth Hopkins are better batsmen than their captain, then the world has yet to see evidence of it. “We would have [played Jeetan Patel] if Jacob Oram was fit,” said Vettori. “Jake offers us that balance. Without him, we felt we needed an extra batsman. It [the top-order batting] is an area where we haven’t been performing as we wanted to.”South Africa too had their alarms while batting, but Hashim Amla, Jacques Kallis and Mark Boucher all chipped in with crucial contributions, while de Villiers seized the initiative in mid-innings. Kallis, in particular, seems determined to shed the dour tag, and there were some magnificent drives and clips off the pads before he had a flail at a delivery from Shane Bond.”Today was more of the level we expect of each other,” said Smith. “Wayne and Dale [Steyn] bowled with intensity and in the right areas. Wayne’s proved that he’s got the skill. Today, he showed that he could bounce back.” Parnell himself was brutally honest about a patchy spell. “Compared to Tuesday, I felt better, but I still went for a lot of runs,” he said. “But to pick up five wickets is pretty good.”Steyn and de Villiers apart, South Africa’s real star was Roelof van der Merwe, who bowled a tidy spell after taking a stunning catch to start New Zealand’s slide. Those that know him say that he has the temperament of a fast bowler, and his captain was full of appreciation for the role he played in the win. “He’s one of the most competitive guys you’ll see,” said Smith. “He always plays at a 100% and his skills are right up there. He gives it a lot of revs and gets turn as well. His consistency’s very good. Both he and [Johan] Botha add value in different ways.”Smith again gambled at the toss, but this time there was no disaster to send a holiday crowd home with sullen faces. “I blamed our lack of skills for the loss [against Sri Lanka],” said Smith. “We all did. If we hadn’t bowled well today, it wouldn’t have turned out the way it did.”Vettori said, tongue firmly in cheek, that six weeks in Sri Lanka was perfect preparation for their next game at the seam-friendly Wanderers, and it’ll need a herculean effort from his pace bowlers to get their side back on track in this competition. South Africa have an English obstacle – hardly Becher’s Brook, given recent results – to overcome before a semi-final place can be confirmed. That opening-day loss, which put expectations into some perspective, could yet be a blessing in disguise.

ScorecardIan Blackwell finished with career-best figures of 7 for 85•Getty Images

Durham spent the third day of this match batting themselves solidly, even stolidly, into a strong position, but some rather puzzling defensive tactics in the final session may prevent them from forcing victory on the final day.  A turning pitch, provided it is not a minefield, is a rare pleasure in modern cricket and if there were more like these, spin bowling in England might flourish again.  Consequently both sides were playing in rather unfamiliar conditions, but Durham handled them more adeptly – particularly Michael Di Venuto, who restrained his natural attacking instincts to guide his team to a position of strength.Lancashire began the day still 18 runs behind Durham’s first-innings total and, the way the last pair of Tom Lungley and Gary Keedy had been batting, were still capable of taking the lead.  For a while they continued with a mixture of some good strokes and a bit of luck, but the latter expired when Keedy was caught at short leg off Ian Blackwell, five runs short.  This gave the Durham spinner figures of 7 for 85, the best of his career.Lancashire made what was to prove serious mistake when Di Venuto, with only a single to his credit, edged a ball from Kyle Hogg low into the slips, where Paul Horton could not hold a difficult chance.  As expected, the seamers did not last long, and Keedy came on the bowl the seventh over, being joined at the other end by Stephen Parry for the 12th.  Sometimes the ball turned and spun awkwardly, and the wicketkeeper Luke Sutton did not have an easy time during the day, conceding a number of byes and failing to take at least one difficult chance, though he did bag two.  The ball was turning square – or so the Lancashire fielders tried to convince the batsmen, as they crowded round their intended victims in a noisy mob.  Mark Stoneman, for once scoring faster than Di Venuto, made 33 out of 60 when he was given out to a fine diving catch behind square leg off Keedy, much to his displeasure.It seemed we were transported to the subcontinent, with two spinners bowling with a marauding pack of fielders making the usual ridiculous farmyard noises of simulated astonishment and disbelief every ball the batsman survived.  VVS Laxman, the chirpiest culprit, was put on to bowl his occasional off-breaks, which did quieten things down a little, until on the stroke of lunch Will Smith (1) turned one of his deliveries into the hands of the mobile wicketkeeper and Durham were 65 for 2.  Immediately on leaving the field, Laxman was awarded his county cap, though presumably this was for more than just his wicket and vocal contributions.After lunch Gordon Muchall decided attack was the best method of defence and took the assault to the spinners, using his feet well to drive and pulling anything short.  Di Venuto, in contrast, was uncharacteristically restrained, playing an innings far different from his usual upstanding, dominant style.  But the vital factor was that he stayed there to anchor the innings, even if it did take him 113 balls to reach his second 50 of the match.  He then pushed on a little more quickly, while Muchall seemed to run out of steam before being given out caught at square leg for 40, and walked off another dissatisfied customer.In these circumstances, and thanks largely once again to Di Venuto, Durham did remarkably well to reached 182 for 3 at tea. In the second over afterwards, however, he pushed a catch to silly point off Keedy and departed for an invaluable 84.Durham’s tactics now became rather puzzling, unless their attitude is now “We have the championship in the bag, so let’s make sure we finish the season undefeated.”  With rain forecast for at least some of the final day, one would have expected them to press on with some urgency towards a declaration; some locals considered they had enough runs to win the match anyway.  But instead two normally aggressive batsmen in Dale Benkenstein and Blackwell pushed and prodded their way along at just over two runs an over, until finally Blackwell (25 off 61 balls) pushed at a ball from Parry outside the off stump and was caught at the wicket.Benkenstein finished the day with a laborious unbeaten 48 off 143 bals.  No doubt Durham will consider themselves vindicated if they do win this match on the final day, but their surprisingly unenterprising approach during the final session has improved Lancashire’s chances of forcing a draw, result wicket and all.

Will Steve Harmison and Andrew Flintoff be smiling once they set foot on the Edgbaston pitch?•PA Photos

Steve Rouse, the Edgbaston groundsman, believes England should resist the temptation to call in Steve Harmison for the third Test on a wicket he predicts will be flat and sluggish. Rouse also forecast a torrid outing for the likes of Andrew Flintoff, with rain making for a heavy playing surface that will make “bowling 25 overs feel like 35 overs”.Harmison combined with fellow England squad member Graham Onions to force the only first-class result at Edgbaston this year; a ten-wicket win for Durham. The England pacemen claimed 16 of the 20 Warwickshire wickets to fall, and Harmison has continued his rich vein of form since with three further five-wicket hauls this season.Rouse, though, insists Harmison’s bang-it-in approach would not be suited to an Edgbaston pitch softened by recent rain. Bowlers who maintain a fuller length, he suggested, will stand a greater chance of success from Thursday.”Steve is a back of a length bowler,” Rouse told Cricinfo’s Switch Hit podcast. “If you bang it in on that, it will dent the surface and come off slowly, and good players – quality Test players – have always got time to play. I don’t think Steve pitches it up enough. I think it’s a kiss-the-surface wicket.”The outfield will be heavy. You’ll get a wet ball. Nobody likes bowling with a wet ball because the seam goes soft and it doesn’t swing, and it will be bloody hard work on the bowlers’ legs out there as well because it is heavy. If you bowl 25 overs a day it will feel like bowling 35 overs a day, that’s how heavy it is.”Rouse made headlines last week when he described the rain-soaked surface as “jelly”, but believes the wicket has improved dramatically in recent days. Michael Clarke, the Australian vice-captain, noted with surprise on Tuesday that the Test strip was “quite dry”, while Ian Bell predicted another “good batting wicket”.But their forecasts could be overshadowed by those from The Met office, which is predicting plenty of rain for the West Midlands over the coming days.”I think it will be pretty slow and low,” he said. “We haven’t had any really hot weather to dry it out to a depth. The top three quarter inches is firm, I wouldn’t say it’s hard, but firmer than it was three days ago. If we could have had another three days’ sunshine and wind it probably would have had a bit of pace in it.”I said the pitch (was like jelly), not the wicket. The pitch meaning the outfield, and that is still very, very wet indeed. You only have to look where they’ve been training this morning .. and they’ve cut it to shreds. We’ve actually asked England if they would train and play on the same side the Aussies did so we don’t have to cut it in two different places and save the fuel bill.”Rouse found himself at the centre of attention four years ago when Ricky Ponting infamously defied modern history and sent England in to bat on an Edgbaston wicket that looked particularly green after a period of inclement weather, which included a tornado. Rarely has a pitch’s hue and a captain’s decision provoked such public curiosity and debate, but as England stormed to 407 on the first day, all eyes turned to Ponting and the playing surface he had apparently misjudged.Steve Rouse: “It will be bloody hard work on the bowlers’ legs out there as well because it is heavy. If you bowl 25 overs a day it will feel like bowling 35 overs a day”•PA Photos

Or had he? In a surprising development, Rouse admitted that he had agreed with Ponting’s call to bowl first; a decision that was lambasted by many within the media, and allegedly led to a dressing room disagreement between the Australian captain and his senior bowler, Shane Warne. Rouse’s assessment, however, will provide little comfort for Ponting, who presided over a two-run loss at Edgbaston and an eventual 2-1 series defeat in 2005.”I still think Ponting was probably in the right to bowl first,” he said. “There was a lot of moisture underneath it. The fact that they didn’t bowl well, nobody says anything about that.”Knowing what I know what was underneath and being a bowler, I would have bowled first anyway. This has got a fair bit of moisture under here at the moment. (ECB pitch consultant) Chris Woods has just been to stick the old pin in the top, and he said it’s incredible how it’s changed from last Tuesday, where his probe went in nine or ten inches and now he had to really press through the top. That’s how much it’s dried.”The Edgbaston pitch has played host to 16 draws from its last 20 first-class matches, and is regarded among the flattest in the country. Risking a showdown with Warwickshire’s director of cricket, Ashley Giles, Rouse said he had been unsuccessful in his attempts to convince the county to leave more grass on the strip which, he feels, would bring bowlers back into the contest.”I’m always onto Ash about leaving more and more grass on,” he said. “I get sick to death of watching boring cricket. I can see no point in getting 650, that’s two-and-a-half days gone, then the next side goes in because they want their batting points. They go and get 400, declare at tea time on the last day and go home. To me, that’s four days totally wasted. If I could leave a lot, lot more grass on so there’s more pace and more carry you’d encourage the quick bowlers, plus it helps people play their shots more. But they’re frightened to lose. If you’re frightened to take a gamble, you’re not going to win anything. Never.”

Jagmohan Dalmiya is set for another term as the president of the Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB) after no nomination papers were filed to contest against his candidacy.Reports had earlier suggested Sourav Ganguly was interested in joining the Bengal administration and while he will attend the annual general body meeting July 31, Ganguly is out of contention for any post since the deadline for filing papers has been passed.There was no challenge for the current two joint secretaries – Arun Mitra and Biswarup Dey – and treasurer Subir Ganguly either. Abhjit Dutta will contest for the vice-president’s post.In July 2008 Dalmiya was elected the state board’s president, a position from which he was unseated in December 2006 following charges of embezzlement. He defeated the incumbent, Prasun Mukherjee by an overwhelming majority to secure a seat on the Indian board.

Australia’s six Test specialists completed the 24-hour journey from Australia to England on Tuesday, but they were not the most exhausted members of the squad. The ten survivors of Australia’s dispiriting World Twenty20 campaign have been subjected to a gruelling week of training in Leicester, all of which Brad Haddin believes will serve them well ahead of the Ashes.”We’ve done a lot of loading while we were up there,” Haddin said. “We’ve had some pretty intense days. It’s been good. We’ve given our quicks and everyone else a chance to get outside in some outstanding conditions. We got a lot of volume now.”With Australia’s Test squad fully assembled for the first time on tour, focus has well and truly shifted to the Ashes. Haddin, who served as understudy to Adam Gilchrist on the 2005 tour of England, said he was looking forward to his first Ashes series as Australia’s senior glovesman.”It’s hard not to speak about the Ashes,” he said. “We’ve all been talking about the Ashes for the last 12 months. There’s obviously been other series that have been enjoyable, and we’ve had a great tussle with South Africa over the last six months. But it’s always been in the back of your mind that you’re coming to England. I’ve definitely spoken about it.”