Test-match cricket is supposed to be a sedate and cerebral activity in which events unfold at a leisurely pace before building up to a climax after four or five days. But nobody told the England and Australia teams. The opening session of the 2001 Ashes had it all: runs, wickets, thrills, spills, glares and flares. It was Test cricket on speed.

The first five minutes belonged to Australia. The last five minutes belonged to Australia. The other 110 minutes belonged firmly to England, as Mike Atherton and Mark Butcher put together a bold, occasionally risky but highly effective counter-attack. Graham Thorpe may have been missing, but his fighting spirit was there.

Atherton was almost unrecognisable, hooking, slashing, and, best of all, pulling Brett Lee imperiously for four in his first over. Atherton batted as he normally does only in fourth-innings run-chases, such as the one here, four years ago, when England raced to victory against Australia. What had got into him? Perhaps he was stung by Wisden's rather ungentlemanly revelation that his head-to-head batting average against Glenn McGrath was only 12.46. By 12.46 today, he had already survived one and a half spells from his nemesis, without a single alarm.

While Gillespie took the new ball with panache and a nice line in glares, McGrath's performance at the other end was an odd one. At Edgbaston in 1997 he had bowled too short, and failed to locate an English length. Returning today, armed with local knowledge from his year with Worcestershire, he got the length right but the line all wrong, spraying it both sides of the wicket. His line was not so much unEnglish as too English: it was just the sort of nervous first-morning display that England fans have winced at in Ashes series down the years.

McGrath apart, the Aussies were as pumped-up as Atherton. For most of the morning the only men on the field exuding an air of calm were umpire Bucknor, cool as ever, and Butcher. Trescothick's early misjudgement could have been a mortal blow but Butcher did his job for him, keeping the scoreboard ticking with stolen singles and solid tucks for two. It was as if the last 18 months - in which his marriage ended, and his Test career was assumed to have gone too - had never happened.

Steve Waugh looked rattled, and his deputy, Adam Gilchrist, dropped two catches, in what was surely an act of divine retribution for his bloody-minded decision to bat on to a lead of 740 against Essex last Sunday. Having put England in, Waugh seemed over-determined to get them out with the quick bowlers, when any fool knows that Butcher is at his worst against spin.

Finally, like an ordinary captain, Waugh offered the last over before lunch to Shane Warne (wearing flares). Oh no, said two voices in the Wisden office as Warne took off his shades, this is it for Butcher. And it was. Why does a man who never goes forward to the seamers immediately plant his foot down the pitch to a spinner?

By then, McGrath was himself again, and the runs had dried up. England were facing the uphill battle they had expected first thing. But they had a hundred runs in the bank, and they had shown what Nasser Hussain had asked of them: stomach for the fight.

Tim de Lisle is editor of Wisden.com.

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