Clarke ponders Ponting's 2005 punt

Michael Clarke readily recalls the most recent occasion on which an Australia team came to Birmingham for a Test match and decided it was a good idea to bowl first.

It was a decade ago. 

Glenn McGrath had wrecked his ankle in the warm-up. 

Ricky Ponting won the toss and decided he still had sufficient bowling firepower to smash England as they had done at Lord’s 11 days earlier, despite the vocal protestations of at least one celebrity teammate.

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Ponting wins the toss at Edgbaston 10 years ago // Getty

The home team took up the challenge, rattled on 407 on the opening day, rediscovered their vim in the process and went on to win the match and a series from which they had been prematurely, perhaps condescendingly discounted.

And for the first time in almost two decades, the Ashes were lost.

So when Clarke, who replaced Ponting as skipper in 2011 but has yet to redeem his record as a captain in the UK, arrived at a dank, damp Edgbaston on Monday morning to be greeted by a lush pitch sporting a nine millimetre coat of deep green grass, he momentarily found himself in his predecessor’s boots.

"If it (the pitch) stays like that and I win the toss, I will most definitely bowl first,” Clarke said with all the bravado of a captain speaking a full 48 hours before the coin is flipped.

"But I don’t think it will stay like that."

True enough, even before the Australians had completed their two-hour training session on an outfield that squelched and slipped underfoot as it bore the result of the steady, seeping rain that has characterised Midlands summer over the past week, that 9mm was shaved closer to two.

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And with the teasing bursts of sun that snuck between the thick clouds during the day and the optimistic forecasts of 'sunny intervals' tomorrow afternoon before the scheduled return of rain in the evening, it will be even balder – though likely little firmer – than it was come sunset today.

Now on his fourth Test visit to the UK having also spent time here as a county professional 11 years ago, Clarke has seen enough of English pitches to know they are made to deceive those who gaze into them narcissistically and see only what they wish for reflected back at them.

But he similarly understands the value of verbal ammunition before the real stuff is hurled about.

And he could therefore not resist the observation that perhaps England – having rolled out two lifeless surfaces thus far and paid a heavy price for it at Lord’s less than a fortnight ago – have urgently changed their order for playing surfaces.

Which means ground staff have been caught on the hop.

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"That's as much grass as I’ve seen on a pitch in England, so I wonder if the talk in the media and the commentators’ talk (criticising lifeless tracks at Cardiff and Lord’s) has made the groundsmen a little bit nervous,” Clarke said today, wearing his best poker face.

"(It) looks like a 'Gabba (Sheffield) Shield game, but England haven’t trained on it yet.

"From the Australian team’s perspective, I hope he (the Edgbaston curator) leaves it on there.

"If they leave grass on it, then it will make it easier for the bowlers rather than harder.

"The way we were able to take 20 wickets at Lord’s - and that was as flat as you’re going to get - I don’t think too much adjustment will be needed."

The reason for Clarke making such merry with the sudden change in the nature of English Test pitches – and taking the chance to deliver a State of Origin backhander to Queensland’s notoriously made-to-measure pitches along the way – was rival skipper Alastair Cook’s words post-Lord’s.

In the wake of his team’s record 405-run loss in the second Test, Cook bemoaned the lack of life in the pitches that popular wisdom ascribed to a home town wish to blunt the hostility of Mitchell Johnson and thus ensure five days of revenue - both of which have failed utterly so far.

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In doing so, Cook cried out for the chance to play "on English wickets", and at first glance after the hover cover was briefly rolled away and the splendour of the Edgbaston grass revealed in its fullness, that call has been quickly and affirmatively answered in Birmingham.

For his part, Cook claimed he was happy with whatever was on offer when the covers are pulled back on match morning – when more rain is deemed likely – and that it was the cloud formation above rather than the grass concentration below that would play the more influential role.

"We've had a fair bit of rain so it will be interesting to see,” the England captain said today when asked about his expectation for Edgbaston.

"They are normally pretty flat wickets - most Test wickets are pretty good wickets - so normally it's a good scoring ground. 

"As always, it's overhead conditions and the week building up to it."

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The week leading into Wednesday’s highly anticipated opening session has seen the Australians acclimatising to the Midlands conditions with a three-day practice session against neighbouring county Derbyshire (of which one day was heavily rain affected).

In that time, England’s players have been enjoying some time at home although their selectors did cause a minor upheaval by excising Gary Ballance and replacing him with fellow Yorkshireman Jonny Bairstow, which also necessitates a reshuffle of the Test batting order.

To wit, Ballance (98 runs at 24.50 in this series with a top score of 61) will be replaced in the pivotal number three spot by Ian Bell (73 runs at 18.25, top score 60) with Joe Root (212 runs at 53, top score 134) to occupy Bell’s berth at number four.

Cook dismissed suggestions his team might have been better served with Root making a straight swap for Ballance, meaning one less change in order to slot Bairstow in at five.

"The selectors would have thrown that around in the meetings, but they decided the experience Ian's got in terms of 100-odd Test matches, and Belly at three and Rooty at four looks pretty good,” Cook said.

"I think he (Bell) is delighted to be back at three. 

"He said he'd bat anywhere for England, which is always the answer you want to hear when the selectors told him what was going to happen. 

"For him it's a great opportunity to get in and make his mark on the game.

"Yes, he's had a tough time and a lot of players go through certain patches in their career where it doesn't quite go to plan, and it's how you bounce back from it. 

"He's a proven international player, and I think he'll relish the chance to bat at three."

Raw statistics suggest Clarke has also been enduring something of a tough time with the bat, with just one score above 50 in 13 Test innings over the past year – the exception being a character-defining 128 in the most gruelling physical and emotional circumstances imaginable in Adelaide last December.

Clarke maintains that he feels comfortable and confident at the crease, and points out that in two of his past three first-class innings – the second at Lord’s and his stint as an opener in the last hours at Derby – he’s been undefeated when he’s voluntarily called a halt to his team’s batting.

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But he concedes the time he spent away from the Test game after undergoing hamstring surgery in the wake of the Adelaide Test has meant it’s taken him some time to find his red ball rhythm, in the Caribbean last month and since arriving in the UK six weeks ago.

"I’ve felt good the whole time to be honest, even in the West Indies,” Clarke said when asked to assess his batting form.

"I’m sure time in the middle (has helped) because I didn’t pick up a cricket bat, especially in Test cricket for four or five months.

"But I feel like I’m working as hard as ever and that’s probably the one thing I’ve looked at in my career, if I’m doing the work then I’ve got confidence that my performances will take care of themselves.

"And I’m excited about doing my training – it’s not like I’m fatigued, it’s not like I don’t want to be here, it’s not like I can’t be bothered.

"It’s the other way round and that’s a real good sign for me.”

The other sign he might have noticed as he peered out from the Australia team’s dressing room viewing balcony was the one being held by an elderly but eager English autograph hunter lurking below.

Wielding a mounted scorecard from that 2005 game that requires just the signature of one final Australia player before it can be affixed to a wall under its bold, unambiguous headline – ‘Edgbaston’s Greatest Test Match’.

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