Siddle hat-trick rips out England's middle order

| Friday November 26, 2010 00:00

Siddle, who was playing his first Test since January after recovering from a stress fracture in his back, changed the complexion of the opening day of the first Test midway through the final session, ending Alastair Cook's stubborn resistance, then dismissing Matt Prior and Stuart Broad first ball. England suddenly bore the pallor of Ashes tourists of old. But Siddle was not about to claim that the dismissal of Broad went exactly to plan. 'The crowd were cheering at the top of my run and that pumped me up a bit,' he said. 'I just wanted to charge in and hit the top of off-stump. Instead I hit him on the boot on the full. The execution wasn't quite there, obviously.'

Siddle took six wickets for 54 runs, his Test-best figures, as England were dismissed for 260. This was the ninth hat-trick in an Ashes Test, but the first to be confirmed by an umpires' referral. It was always a faint hope that the decision by the umpire Aleem Dar would be overturned but England deemed it worth a punt and boos rained down from a capacity crowd at The Gabba before TV replays backed Dar's decision and allowed Siddle to celebrate for a second time.

'I saw the finger go up and the boys all came charging in and then I noticed Stuart was still there,' Siddle said.

'But when you hit them on the full you are pretty confident it's safe.' Quite how bowlers of an earlier era would have coped with a potential Ashes hat-trick being sent for referral is interesting to contemplate. Shane Warne was the last Australian to take an Ashes hat-trick 16 years ago and was so skilled at pressurising umpires that he would have probably made it into the third umpire's room long before the decision was made. Fred Spofforth, who took the first-ever Ashes hat-trick against England in Melbourne in 1878-9, was reputedly a bit of an eyeballer, so it would have been a brave batsman who would have hung around for a second opinion. Siddle, who gave up competitive wood chopping as a teenager in rural Victoria to concentrate on cricket, was a controversial selection for the first Test. He was chosen ahead of Doug Bollinger, who is in the top 10 in the Test rankings, but missed out because of a lack of match fitness.

A comparatively sluggish Gabba surface, slowed by a wet and not particularly warm Queensland spring, demanded a fuller length and Siddle, on his 26th birthday, became attuned to that more than any other member of the Australian attack.

'My lengths are a bit shorter than most - I knew I had to change something,' he said. 'I don't want to feel mean to parents and friends who have given me [birthday] presents over the years but that one has to be the best.

'I saw England yahooing and cheering when they won the Ashes at The Oval last year. It's not the sort of thing you want to see again. But it's only day one, 24 to go.' Ian Bell, England's top scorer with 76, found himself running out of partners after Siddle's hat-trick and was caught in the deep, giving the debutant slow left-armer Xavier Doherty his first Test wicket, as he was forced to lift the tempo. (Guardian)