Shane Watson’s long wait for a test match century finally came to an end at Kennington Oval, London on the first day of the 5th Ashes test match.
He played a smashing knock of 176 runs and guided Australia towards a huge first innings total.
The Australian captain Michael Clarke won the toss in the morning and decided to bat first. Watson was promoted in the batting order and he came at the fall of the first wicket i.e. David Warner.
Watson looked in superb touch right from the first ball that was bowled to him. He was in an aggressive mood.
The one thing that was noticeable in his batting was that he was trying to play a lot straighter.
He played some gorgeous shots in the first session. The conditions were perfect for batting. There was not much movement available for the bowlers and Watson took advantage of that. He played his shots on the rise and with a flurry of boundaries, he forced the English captain Alastair Cook to set defensive field.
Although all the England bowlers struggled to keep Watson quiet but, the debutant Simon Kerrigan was the one who suffered the most. He was clearly nervous as he was playing at such a big stage for the first time. He dished up some full tossed deliveries in his first spell and the kind of form Watson was in, he was not going to miss out on those. 28 runs were smashed in Kerrigan’s first couple of overs and Alastair Cook had to take him out of the attack.
Watson completed his century in just 114 balls. That was his first ton in the last 3 years.
Watson was dismissed just a few deliveries before the end of the day’s play. He tried to play a hook shot off the bowling of Stuart Broad and ended up top edging it to Kevin Pietersen at the deep square leg boundary.
Watson faced a total of 247 deliveries during his inning and hit 25 fours and a six.