The Ashes: Graham Onions relishes the chance to spark England revival

It all happened so quickly. One minute Australia's No 5, Michael Clarke, was in a dressing-room armchair reclining to Coldplay on his iPod. The next he was walking to the middle with Graham Onions on a hat-trick.

When things go awry for a fielding side, they try to stick to the premise that one wicket can change everything. It rejuvenates bowlers, injecting their muscles with an extra dose of energy and expectation.

It stalls a batting side's momentum, instilling in them a sudden period of introspection. That would have been the gist of Andrew Strauss's team talk on the field before play.

Perhaps over-conscious of the need to strike in the two hours of play that was possible on Thursday night, the bowlers had striven too hard.

What they needed to do was relax and find a rhythm. It was brave of Strauss to give Onions, his most inexperienced bowler, the first over. Perhaps he figured he would be the least pent up, especially on a ground where he has prospered before. He was right.

Onions cruised to the wicket for the first ball and sent down a perfect delivery of insistent speed and awkward length and meticulous direction. It snaked into Shane Watson's pads and would have hit the top of his leg stump. It was plumb lbw.

Onions, a model of consistency, produced an identical delivery next ball which the left-handed Michael Hussey allowed to hit the top of his off stump. The ball did nothing.

It was the misjudgment of someone dragged abruptly from his dressing-room cocoon and caught unawares. Given he has been out shouldering arms in successive innings he might like to consider having his bat logos stuck on upside down.

Losing a wicket to the first ball of a new day casts a pall over a team. Losing a wicket to the second ball as well is choking. Batsmen become apprehensive, every ball seems loaded with danger.

Though Clarke cannily made Onions wait a long time to deliver his hat-trick ball (and it sailed down the leg side) he preyed on their uncertainty with a probing spell that wavered from a tight off-stump line only when he snared Ricky Ponting with a surprise and well-aimed bouncer. A hint of swing enhanced his effectiveness, preventing the batsmen from taking liberties.

Swing, that fickle beast, rarely materialises when bowlers are tense. The ball has to be coaxed to move in the air. Buoyed by Onions' early strikes, Jimmy Anderson settled quickly into his stride.

The ball bent around obediently with no perceptible change of action. He is twice the bowler when the ball is swinging. And now he is patient too.

The left-handed Marcus North was subjected to a succession of outswingers curving towards the slips. He left them alone, but Anderson persevered, mainly resisting the temptation to try the inswinger which might have offered him runs off his pads. Finally North chased another outswinger and was gone.

The rest were mesmerised by Anderson's curves. Andrew Flintoff, inevitably after all the hype, was wicketless. But this was a day for systematic erosion rather than explosive demolition.