Essex flat track leaves bowlers sweating

Scorecard: Essex v Australians

Even allowing for yesterday's once-in-a-150-year heatwave, if the pitches rolled out for the upcoming Ashes series are modelled on the run-rich strip produced at Chelmsford then both teams face lengthy stints in the field.

The 562 that Australia amassed over the first four sessions was put into sharp context by the following two when Essex – fuelled by Tom Westley (144), a former England under-19 captain with no senior international experience – rattled along to finish the day at an imposing 3-299.

But it was not so much the score that the home team, led by former England all-rounder Ravi Bopara (86no), posted but the manner in which they dealt with an attack which (minus Mitchell Johnson) will be the one that turns out for the Ashes holders in next week's first Test in Cardiff that was revelatory.

While there was a hint of movement in the air given the morning rain and cloud that came in the wake of Wednesday's record-breaking 36C scorcher, the surface itself offered little other than tennis ball bounce.

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Westley salutes after scoring a ton // Getty Images

Which meant any delivery pitched marginally short of optimal length sat up, begging to be hit.

And just as a majority of Australia's batsmen did to achieve a scoring rate of more than five an over across eight hours, Essex's batsman didn't pass up the regular invitations to hit them.

"(It was) disappointing not to get a few more wickets, our consistency with the ball wasn't quite on today," Australia's most impressive bowler Peter Siddle said after the close of a long and largely fruitless day.

"We were a bit all over the shop at times.

"We scored 500-odd out there at a fast rate, so that shows what the wicket is like but there was enough there, we just couldn't do it."

A graduate of the prestigious Durham University, Westley had clearly done his pre-game prepping by reading up on ex-England spinner Graeme Swann's recent advice for batsmen to take the game to Australia's No.1 tweaker Nathan Lyon.

The 26-year-old right-hander was unbeaten on 35 when Lyon came into the attack for the 24th over and, when Lyon was then rested after five unproductive overs, he was on 77 and steaming towards his 10th first-class century.

Lyon, by contrast, was nursing the forgettable figures of 0-54 from five overs and the advice that Swann had publicly proffered was being enlarged and pasted to the walls of the home team's dressing rooms at the five Ashes Test venues in England and Wales.

In fairness to Lyon, a barely blemished day two pitch was never going to prove a field of dreams for a finger spinner.

But the intent with which Westley and Bopara took to him from the outset, thereby denying him the opportunity to settle into a rhythm on his first competitive outing of tour carried a whiff of pre-meditation.

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Starc ends Westley's innings on 144 // Getty Images

A four and a six from his first over, another couple of boundaries from his next and then Westley, who led England's under-19s on a tour to New Zealand in 2008 when gun Black Caps bat Kane Williamson made a name for himself, took him for three consecutive boundaries in his fourth.

Operating around the wicket, the slow if exaggerated bounce that Lyon was able to extract ensured that any time he dropped short he would be paddled behind square – and sometimes almost up and over 'keeper Peter Nevill – with impunity.

And just to make sure Lyon felt compelled to push the ball through and fire it into the unhelpful surface, both Westley and Bopara – whose once promising international career now appears to be over – happily charged down the pitch to anything flighted and clubbed into the vast expanse at deep mid-wicket.

Lyon, who should have claimed Bopara for 35 when Nevill missed a stumping, was not the only Australia bowler having his first trundle of the tour who looked sorely in need of a gallop.

New-ball pair Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood – who, with Ryan Harris's knee soreness, now appear odds-on to fill that billing in Cardiff next week – produced a mixture of the unplayable and the forgettable as the Australians' huge lead whittled and their frustration mounted.

Starc was able to gain some demonstrable swing with the new Dukes ball but was regularly wayward, having started the innings with a 'Steve Harmison' special that was headed to Michael Clarke at second slip before Nevill dived full length to arrest its path.

And Hazlewood was able to occasionally coax some help from the benign pitch but was also uncharacteristically unable to nail that miserly length, although both quicks beat the outside edge often enough to suggest it is just a matter of fine tuning.

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Siddle bowls Mickelburgh // Getty Images

But as the eight bowlers Essex were required to use to get through their 111 overs yesterday and this morning knew only too well, the slightest error in length or suggestion of width was seized upon by batsmen ever ready to pounce.

The bowler to make the initial breakthrough was Peter Siddle, suddenly back in the reckoning with Harris unlikely for at least the first two Tests, when he produced a copy of the in-dipping jaffa he unfurled against Kent to rattle Essex opener Jaik Mickelburgh's off stump.

And a further 213 runs were piled on before Starc found his mark as the shadows lengthened and a tired Westley had his stumps scattered, as did nightwatchman Jamie Porter whose departure for a duck signalled stumps.

Video: Aussies go down swinging

The batsman-friendly conditions Australia confronted when they began their bowling innings after lunch would certainly have come as no revelation to Siddle and Lyon given the ease with which they had flogged a flagging Essex attack around the county ground in the morning session.

After Starc and Hazlewood fell cheaply to edges behind the wicket and Mitchell Marsh's towering four-hour innings that yielded 169 ended with a wild swoosh at Matt Salisbury, the tourists' final pair crushed the home team's ebbing spirit by belting 73 off the last nine overs.

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Mitch Marsh's innings ends on 169 // Wendy Dray

Siddle, who enjoyed a brief stint with Lancashire earlier in the English summer, said he expected that the sort of flat track prepared at Chelmsford would be replicated at the Test venues over coming weeks, in part to nullify Australia's pace bowling advantage.

"Going on what happened last Test series over here, the wickets were pretty similar," he said.

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Lyon sweeps on his way to 41 // Getty Images

"India copped pretty similar wickets last time around (in 2014).

"We've just got prepare like we normally do, expect the worst and hopefully we get something better.

"That's what happens with English wickets, when they do flatten out they really flaten out.

"It is going to be hard work in some of the games (but) that seems to be an Ashes series - long days in the field.

"That's what has happened in the last few."

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Siddle (37*) pulls away a boundary for four // Getty Images

It was certainly the case last time Australia played a tour match at Chelmsford as skipper Clarke who, having missed his chance to cash in yesterday when he fell for a first-ball duck, doubtless recalled of the that visit in the penultimate week of their failed 2005 Ashes tour.

Needing to win the final Test at The Oval to retain the urn, Australia's attack was thrashed to all parts of the Essex County Ground by Bopara (135) and an even fresher-faced young left-handed opener by the name of Alastair Cook (214).

Despite rebutting Essex's impudence with big centuries from Matthew Hayden and Brad Hodge as well as 50-plus scores by Justin Langer, Simon Katich and Brad Haddin, the home side's 4(dec)-502 scored in a day proved the final indignity for Australia before the Ashes were surrendered a week later.

They have not won a series on British soil since.

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