Not for the last time this series one suspects, England have completely dominated Australia on Day 1 at Bellerive Oval in Hobart. Finishing on 0/318 with Carberry 153* and Cook 154* there are, simply, no positives to come out of the day for Australia.

If Sutherland, Howard and Invers wanted to play England’s batsmen into form in this game then that goal has certainly been achieved in the case of England’s openers. A woefully inadequate bowling line up, Cutting and Copeland aside, has been shown up as just a terrible choice particularly in light of the pitch prepared by the groundsman in Hobart. The edict from Sutherland that pitches should be more batsman friendly this year has bitten the Australia “A” bowlers on the backside here, remembering that Bellerive once possessed the greenest wicket in the land, with Cook and Carberry never troubled today in what might have been a centre wicket practice but for the Australian crests on the shirts of the fielding team.

Henriques was selected, it would appear, to be the third seam bowler however he only gave himself (or, which is more likely the case, was told) only 9 overs of the 93 bowled today. The other fast bowlers were forced to shoulder heavy loads on, I repeat, a wicket providing no assistance to them. That just does not make sense to me, either from a captaincy or a bowling management stand point.

Cricket Australia have gotten it wrong again right from the beginning and, as I wrote this morning, the shambolic preparation for what might be Australia’s most important test series of the decade continues on unabated.

I hope tomorrow is a better day for the Australians in Hobart. If it is not then records could tumble and England’s spirits could only be lifted higher. Additionally, given past form of Inverarity, reputation of the Australian bowlers could be heavily impacted as well by another day like today. Indeed, the only people not at risk of a terrible result this game and this summer will continue to be Sutherland, Howard and Inverarity which continues to be a travesty.