England Good but Australia Better

The build up to the Ashes was fantastic, the result even better as both teams went hammer and tong, desperate to draw first blood on day one of the First Test at Lord's.

After dismissing Australia for a trifling 190 before tea, England needed to put the finishing touches in the last session to gain honours but Glen McGrath ripped the heart out of England's batting dismissing the top five batsmen and in the process becoming only the fourth bowler to claim 500 Test wickets.

The first session was always going to be awfully important in setting the tone for the rest of the series and after winning the toss and electing to bat, nothing went right for the visitors. England made full use of the overcast conditions and picked up 5 valuable wickets for 97 before lunch.

Mathew Hayden started cautiously but his struggle on tour continued as he was clean bowled by an inswinger from Mathew Hoggard (1 for 35). Ricky Ponting received a nasty gash on his right cheek when he misread a rising delivery from Steve Harmison.

Widely considered as the best exponent of the hook shot, Ponting took his eye off the ball and suffered the consequences as the ball crashed onto his helmet. Harmison then dismissed him when he edged one to Andrew Strauss at third slip (2 for 55).

Justin Langer unlike his team-mates, looked confident and blasted his way to 40 in just 44 balls, punishing anything short and wide, but fell victim to his own aggression when he miss-timed a pull shot of a Flintoff delivery (3 for 66).

Simon Jones returning from his disastrous series-ending fall at Brisbane a few years ago got the crowd on their feet when he dismissed Damien Martyn caught behind in his very first delivery (4 for 66). Jones continued his dream spell dismissing Michael Clarke to put England in a commanding position at lunch.

Simon Katich (27), Adam Gilchrist (26) and Shane Warne (28) fought back with valuable partnerships for the sixth and seventh wicket but Steve Harmison (5 for 43) brought Australia's revival to a crash halt claiming the last four wickets to restrict the the visitors to just 190.

England's first target was to survive the 6 overs before tea and they did as Marcus Trescothick and Andrew Strauss returned to the dressing room in one piece. Little did they realise, what was to unfold. They both lost their wickets in the first over after tea to similar deliveries from the Maestro Glen McGrath (2 for 11).

McGrath picked up his next three wickets when he bowled Vaughan (3), Bell (6) and Flintoff (0) to send England reeling at 5 for 21 in 16.1 overs. After tea, the champion bowler had remarkable figures of 5 for 2 in 31 balls.

Geraint Jones (30) and Kevin Pietersen (29 not out) combined to restore England's innings adding 58 for the sixth wicket but Brett Lee's fiery spells towards the end resulted in two further dismissals, one off the last ball of the day to culminate what was an action packed day one.

Full scorecard available here.

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