Australia paid the price for being in a confused state going into the Test at Edgbaston. This resulted in a poor batting display on the opening day and led to their eventual defeat by nine wickets.

However, there were times during the second innings when you would have thought Australia were dominating proceedings. Many of those moments were while Greg Blewett was at the crease. Blewett was in great pain on the third evening, but he found an anti-dote to his knee problems on the fourth day hit boundaries so there's no need to run. Blewett's gutsy fight to hold on to his wicket on the third evening paid handsome dividends as he ripped into some wayward England bowling in the first hour.

Blewett added 39 runs with eight boundaries to become the only man in Ashes battles to score centuries in each of his first three Tests. There were some glorious drives in those eight spanking boundaries, but two powerful pull shots which stopped Devon Malcolm short in his tracks were gems. After the first one Malcolm looked stunned that anyone could treat his pace with such impunity, but the second shot was ample evidence that it wasn't a fluke.

This knock of Blewett's seemed to be saying to the selectors, ``Look I'm sick of being shunted up and down the order, I'll take the No. 3 spot.''

That resolves one of the issues that has been causing Australia to falter on the tour and coming on top of Mark Taylor's determined century, the tourists can now start to build on the positives that occurred after the first two horror days.

Under normal circumstances Taylor would probably have been disappointed at his rather soft dismissal, but coming as it did after a career-saving knock there's every chance he was happy with the result. Throughout his career a strong mind has always been big part of the opener's game and never was this better displayed than for six and half hours at Edgbaston. It was Robert Croft, the off-spinner who brought about the downfall of Taylor and this set Australia on the downward spiral.

He followed with the wicket of Blewett and he along with Darren Gough will need to continue to bowl well if England are to be able to repeat this first Test victory. Gough built on what Croft started by getting rid of the Waugh twins and the tentative Michael Bevan. Gough has the ability to lift and give his team something special at the required time and he did it a number of times in this Test.

With Australia reeling, Mark Ealham provided the knockout blows picking up two wickets in consecutive deliveries and then fooling the dangerous Shane Warne to end the innings. England then made haste towards victory with a series of flashing shots and just the one mishap.

Taylor will take some solace from Australia at least putting the brakes on an England team that had been rampant. Australia only have themselves to blame for slipping behind in the series but strangely they have less issues to resolve for the Lord's Test than they had coming into Edgbaston. Thanks to the bowling of Michael Kasprowicz, the batting of Blewett and Australia's record at Lord's they have many good reasons to look forward to the next contest.

SCOREBOARD

AUSTRALIA (1st innings): 118

ENGLAND (1st innings): 478-9 decl.

AUSTRALIA (2nd innings) (overnight 256-1): Matthew Elliott b Croft 66, Mark Taylor c&b Croft 129, Greg Blewett c Butcher b Croft 125, Steve Waugh lbw b Gough 33, Michael Bevan c Hussain b Gough 24, Mark Waugh c Stewart b Gough 1, Ian Healy c Atherton b Ealham 30, Shane Warne c&b Ealham 32, Michael Kasprowicz c Butcher b Ealham 0, Jason Gillespie run out 0, Glenn McGrath not out 0; Extras: (18b, 12lb, 5nb, 2w) 37. Total: (all out in 144.4 overs): 477

Fall of wickets: 1-133, 2-327, 3-354, 4-393, 5-399, 6-431 7-465 8-465 9-477.Bowling: Gough 35-7-123-3, Malcolm 21-6-52-0, Croft 43-10-125-3, Caddick 30-6-87-0, Ealham 15.4-3-60-3.

ENGLAND (2nd innings): Mark Butcher lbw b Kasprowicz 14, Michael Atherton not out 57, Alec Stewart not out 40; Extras: (b4, lb4) 8. Total: (for one wicket in 21.3 overs) 119

Fall of wicket: 1-29

Bowling: McGrath 7-1-42-0, Kasprowicz 7-0-42-1, Warne 7.3-0-27-0

Result: England won by nine wickets. Second Test: Lord's, June 19-23.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.