The battle for the 2010 Ashes was won on the playing fields of Chittagong. That is the extraordinary conclusion that can be drawn from the performance of Tim Bresnan, a man whose unassuming demeanour and appetite for hard labour transformed him into England's weapon of choice for an MCG wicket that lived up to its dour reputation. By the end of a day that he cautiously conceded was his best in England colours, Bresnan had transcended the conditions to bowl England to the brink of their first series win in Australia for 24 years.
That's quite some achievement for a man who, at one stage on this trip, was the squad's fifth-choice seamer, with Ajmal Shahzad close to a call-up at Adelaide, and Chris Tremlett eventually plumped for in Perth. Today, however, he became the go-to man - a bowler with the stamina, skill and accuracy to make something from next to nothing on a wicket offering little swing for James Anderson and no reward for an excellent spell of bang-it-in old-ball bowling from Chris Tremlett.
"You use the conditions you get given," said Bresnan. "You go around the world and you get these wickets and you're expected to do a job on them. I'm not saying this one is anywhere near as slow and has less bounce than Bangladesh, because when it kisses through it kisses through nicely and you could actually bowl a bouncer on it. But today the pitch wasn't doing a great deal, so we had to rely on our skill, and the abrasiveness that came into play."
That was very much the case on a pudding of a pitch against Victoria a fortnight ago, where Bresnan was the only England seamer to claim a wicket in 78 overs. Despite that, he maintained his discipline at all costs, attacked the stumps with a hint of reverse swing on a still-lush outfield, and conceded his runs at barely three an over. It was all the evidence that Flower needed to give the promising but expensive Steven Finn a break from the front line, and bring in a man who could not have been more ready for action. And that Spartan attitude extended to his assessment of an incredibly significant day's play for England. While Watson admitted that the Ashes had already been lost by Australia, Bresnan kept ploughing the same furrow that has kept both him and the squad as a whole battle-ready all series long. "We've still got the three wickets to get, so I'll describe that tomorrow - if we do it," he said. "We've still got a lot of hard work to do."
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