Problems for Australia as Sussex get stuck into spinner

Aussie coach Tim Neilsen speaks out

If the Australians were fine-tuning what their former captain Steve Waugh used to call “mental disintegration” ahead of the Ashes, Sussex all-rounder Rory Hamilton-Brown might have made an easy target at Hove yesterday.

Quite what they made of his luminous green pad flaps and fluorescent orange bat-handle is anyone’s guess. Mind you, Hamilton-Brown has spent his last two winters playing in Perth so he is probably used to Aussie barracking about his double-barrelled name and public school background.

But the 21-year-old is not easily intimidated and the way he attacked Nathan Hauritz will have been keenly noted by Mushtaq Ahmed, back at the County Ground in his guise as England’s spin-bowling coach to monitor the only specialist slow bowler in the Australian squad.

In conditions likely to be similar to those the tourists will encounter in the first Test in 12 days time, Hauritz finished with 0-98 from 18 overs and never recovered from the pounding he received in his first five when Hamilton-Brown and Nash plundered 35 runs to unsettle him.

Nash set the tone when he came down the pitch to drive him between mid-wicket and mid on in his second over before Hamilton-Brown scored 16 off his third over, launching him over long-on and into the hospitality marquees for six and collecting two more boundaries.

Sussex wicketkeeper Andrew Hodd revealed his side were determined to take the attack to Hauritz.

He said: “At Hove where it does spin there is pressure on spinners to take wickets so batsmen will sometimes go hard at them and put them under the pump and you can cash in on some bad bowling.”

Hauritz returned for two further spells after tea but both he and his captain Ricky Ponting would have expected more on a pitch where Sussex’s off-spinner Ollie Rayner had taken 2-66 from 26 overs on the first day. Although he should have had one wicket when Brad Haddin missed a stumping down the leg side, Hauritz would have felt as exposed as the male streaker wearing a Borat-style green mankini who ran across the outfield.

Australia coach Tim Neilsen said: “He won’t be sitting back tonight thinking it’s all roses, that’s for certain. He was good in patches but didn’t bowl as well as he would have liked in other patches.

“We’ve had our first roll in four-day cricket since March 15 so we’re certainly not going to panic because guys have not had the best of days. We wanted to give the bowlers good quality playing time before the first Test to get any kinks out of the system and that process has started.”

Assuming Ponting keeps faith with Hauritz and with left-armer Mitchell Johnson a certainty for Cardiff, it’s three from Stuart Clark, Brett Lee, Peter Siddle and Ben Hilfenhaus for the rest of Australia’s Test attack.

Siddle impressed the most in this first audition of the tour, generating good pace from a bustling action in three spells down the slope. He was too quick for Ed Joyce, who top-edged a pull, and Carl Hopkinson, caught behind as he pushed forward.

Sussex’s batting may have had a frail look to it without Murray Goodwin and Matt Prior but they showed plenty of collective resilience, particularly when Lee took two wickets in ten balls to reduce them to 151-6 after switching to the Cromwell Road end.

The recovery was led by the gutsy Hodd who seemed to relish being peppered by bouncers from Lee and Clark, even after Clark struck him on the throat.

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