Australian coach Tim Nielsen moved to defend his bowling attack after they struggled to bowl out a weakened Hove (Sussex) on day two of their Ashes tour opener in Hove. The tourists needed more than 80 overs to dismiss the host county and secure a paltry 38- run first-innings lead as Hove (Sussex) posted a dogged 311 all out.
Although Brett Lee and Stuart Clark both grabbed three wickets apiece, young bowler Peter Siddle was their most effective bowler extracting pace and bounce out of a placid pitch on his way to two for 33.
But Ricky Ponting and his perspiring bowlers added to their own workload by conceding 40 extras, including 22 no-balls. More worrying for Nielsen was frontline off-spinner NathanHauritz failing to take a wicket in his 18 overs and leaking 98 runs on a pitch conducive to spin. But Nielsen said: ‘some days if you’re not quite on your game then you’re certainly going to get hurt, our challenge is to work out why it didn’t go quite so well for us today.’
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