Usual suspects were missing but Ashes battle is just like the old script

The initial signs at Cardiff suggest that the same might go for the Ashes, however unimaginable it is that this series will match the last one (by which, of course, I mean the series held here four years ago; not the more recent nonsense Down Under which we've already airbrushed from history).

The 2005 Ashes was, as the DVD title has it, the Greatest Series Ever Held, and the shadow it cast as the teams ambled out yesterday morning had the heart sinking a bit at the anonymity of the fielding side.

It felt like an outing to see The Usual Suspects II, only to learn from the opening credits that almost none of the usual suspects had been rounded up for the sequel.

Ricky Ponting was still there, as captain, as were Michael Clarke and Simon Katich.

But all four Aussie titans from 2005 were absent, with the injured Brett Lee in the pavilion, and Glenn McGrath, Adam Gilchrist and the mighty Shane Warne - all contenders for any Best of All Time XI - lost forever to retirement.

The batting side wasn't much more recognisable from 2005, with Marcus Trescothick, Michael Vaughan and Ian Bell gone from the top order, and Matthew Hoggard, Steve Harmison, Ashley Giles and watching Welshman Simon Jones departed from the tail.

Who are all these interlopers yesterday, you couldn't help thinking, and what the hell have they done with the real players?

It is the special charm of Test cricket in general that its subtleties do not permit much self-pitying nostalgia, though, and the specific appeal of Ashes cricket is that it captivates regardless of the personnel involved.

If the new names still seemed weird - Hilfenhaus and Hauritz sound less like Aussie bowlers than "Zuits ya, zir" gentleman's outfitters in 1934 Berlin - the tension was gratifyingly familiar.

So were the frequent momentum shifts as the advantage oscillated like a pendulum on barbiturates.

The Aussies won the morning session by taking three cheapish wickets, while England dominated with the bat after lunch and seemed poised to post a decisive total.

After tea the edge continued to swing, which was more than could be said for the ball, first when Australia took two quick wickets, then back to England as Kevin Pietersen and Paul Collingwood took control, and finally in the closing overs back to the Aussies as Peter Siddle anagramatically sidled out Andrew Flintoff and Matt Prior.

It was that kind of a day, nicely echoing 2005 when almost every day was that kind of a day, and it left this Test perfectly balanced with all three possible results equally likely to happen.

There were other echoes from the past, not all as delightful.

Umpire Billy Doctrove seemed the reincarnation of Tom Henning Ovrebo, which is odd when the Norwegian who refereed Chelsea's Champions League semi-final against Barcelona isn't technically dead, in refusing two Aussie leg-before decisions as plum as the penalty claims Ovrebo waved away at Stamford Bridge.

Pietersen returned as himself, meanwhile, ending an innings of solid good sense and sporadic flamboyance with a shot of such criminal self-indulgence that even we leftie liberals must re-examine the merits of capital punishment.

Whether it was idiocy or machismo, KP deserves a flogging at least for attempting to slog-sweep a ball, from harmless spinner Nathan Hauritz, that pitched far enough outside off stump to have a Newport postcode written all over it.

On a low, slow pitch offering very limited seam movement, too many Englishmen lost their wickets when apparently set for big scores.

As for the Aussie attack, in Lee's absence and with Mitchell Johnson seldom resembling the quickie who has recently terrorized batsmen around the world, as with the snorter had Andrew Strauss caught behind off his glove, there looks little to fear.

It remains, of course, the earliest of days.

But these inaugural undulations hint that the teams, although undeniably far weaker than four years ago, are depleted to a similar enough degree to ensure another thrillingly outbreak of Anglo-Australian warfare.