Test 3 Day 1

Alastair Cook was presented with a silver cap for his 100th test, totally impractical for wearing under the Western Australian sun, and Michael Clarke got a cloth one with stitching on the sides saying "I played 100 Tests for Australia and all I got was this lousy cap".

Business as usual for a day 1 of this series: win the toss, bat, don't put in an especially convincing performance with the bat. Better than Day 1 Brisbane, bit worse than Day 1 Adelaide, but it hasn't been the days 1 that have decided anything this series or even revealed very much. Today's the day. It occurred to me in bed this morning in any case that a strong tail with puny forearms is a rather kangaroo-like arrangement, almost patriotic.

It also occurred to me that the English have only bowled out the Australian team once this whole series. They got us all out in the first innings of the first test and then not since. That must be immensely frustrating. I know commentators have said how downcast the body language of the English is on the field, and Alastair Cook is starting to show the customary dolefulness of the Losing English Captain a Long Way from Home with a Long Way to Go (LEC-LWH-LWG), but I think their problem is more rage, on the batting side at least. It's like the Australians are Darth Vader to the English's Luke Skywalker, breathing down their neck, whispering provocations and luring them into the red mist.

There was a beautiful bit of symmetry to the Johnson/Broad moment of last test when Broad spent an eternity between balls fixing a spike and generally stuffing around, only for Johnson to hit him for 4 - twice.

I was going to make ECB Protein Chocolate Brownies for this match but - surprise! - one of the ingredients (date syrup) is proving elusive and another (Magimix Musclemass whey protein*) only seems to be sold by the kilo at around $60 a pop and I only need 100 g. I guess the pros don't do things by tenths. I sincerely hope that sports ground caterers are like the tuck shop ladies in Jamie's School Dinners. The muttering! The arm-folding! The eye rolling! If I end up 'moving forward' with the ECB brownies, I will be using skim milk powder.

*The brand name of the whey powder is actually Maximuscle Promax, but Magimix Musclemass is how I remembered it when I was talking with the lady in the chemist and that is how it lives on in my heart.