The Ashes 2013: 1st Test - 5 key moments of the match

England won the 1st Ashes Test by 14 runs

The media-hype generated ahead of the Ashes centered upon the weakness of the Australian squad, but all doubts regarding their ability to compete were washed away as they fell short of causing an upset within touching distance of the target.

England‘s 14-run victory may have won them this Test match, but it surely will go a long way in motivating the visitors as it was a moral victory for the Australian camp. They showed a fight that had gone missing under Mickey Arthur’s reign.

The Aussies have unearthed an absolute gem in 19-year-old Ashton Agar whose batting exploits have veiled his performance with the ball which was no less than impressive in the second innings. The opening-pair of Chris Rogers and Shane Watson looks a formidable one, but they need to strengthen their middle-order.

England on the other hand, will be delighted by the victory, but they will have a few causes for concern. The bowling department seems overtly reliant upon James Anderson who had to run-in time and time again to break frustrating partnerships.

The lower-middle order constituted by Matthew Prior and Jonny Bairstow needs to be strengthened as their role goes beyond scoring runs themselves to accumulating those additional runs with the tail. They can take a lesson from Australia in that aspect. They have a huge positive in Ian Bell’s century as he played a match-winning knock, but England’s dependency on the strong foundation provided by Alastair Cook remains intact.

The first innings was testament to the fact that they can be vulnerable to a meltdown in the absence of an anchorman.

Here is a look back at five key-moments that will mark this Test match in the memory of cricket fans:

5. Peter Siddle’s five-wicket haul

Peter Siddle

The fiery spell set the rhythm of this Test match, and spelt out the fact that Australia were no underdogs in this contest, much to the delight of cricket fans all over the world who had been starved of such breathtaking Test cricket due to many one-sided contests lately.

It was a great personal achievement for Siddle too. The bowler justified his role as the experienced campaigner amidst a bunch of new kids on the block. The talk ahead of the first Test had centered upon the prospective contest between Mitchell Starc and Alastair Cook, and the threat that would be James Pattinson, but Peter Siddle proved that you need not have prodigious swing to get wickets.

He is a work-horse who is the greatest asset a captain can have as he runs in every time. The key to his performance was a quick assessment of conditions that consequently meant that he was bowling full, but not too much, and on the imaginary fourth stump in the corridor of uncertainty.