Stuart Broad's Urgency and Precision Win Vital Duel with David Warner

With Stuart Broad it often seems to be all in the run-up. Watch Broad from afar enough times and you start to see the signs, little hints that England's streakiest, delicately engineered, match-winning new ball bowler could be about to clank into high gear. (Report | Scorecard)

For a long-time England observer the feeling can be similar to watching one of your own offspring in action. You get to know - or at least imagine that you know - the ticks and tells, each little gathering hint of spring and snap that suggests the rifle sights narrowing, torpedoes locked in, the force beginning to crackle. (Cook Hopeful of England Future)

On a day of passing cloud and tepid high summer heat, Broad bowled with wonderful urgency and precision, in the process turning this first Test decisively England's way. There is an ease to his approach at his best, this great slender conifer of a man leaning forward at first, ears pinned back, then gradually, almost bashfully unfurling himself to his full height at the point of delivery. Not so much a wrecking ball, he was instead a relentless, suffocating presence running in from the Cathedral Road end. (Clarke Seeks Solace in World Cup Example)

Broad bowled fast and full here, finding enough nip and bounce in the fourth-day pitch to discomfit every batsman who faced him. The first hour brought him the wicket of Chris Rogers, caught by Ian Bell at second slip as Australia lost their first wicket at 19.

Most compelling of all was Broad's duel with David Warner, a pedigree attacking opener but a man in need not just of a way into this series, but of a start in England, a method of playing in a country where he averages 22 after six Tests, against 46 elsewhere. England won here in part because they batted with new-found brio and aggression. But also because of the same-old same-old, England's most prolific fast-bowling pair performing as required in occasionally helpful conditions. That it was Broad rather than Jimmy Anderson who produced the decisive spell on day four might have come as a surprise to some.

Only Broad will know for sure if he really was irritated by the pre-series talk of Australia's greater fast bowling hand, a strength offset, the assumption was, by the presence of Anderson. Broad barely got a mention in the previews, despite that going back to March 2013 his record reads 120 wickets at 26 with seven five-fors, just about edging Anderson's own 118 at 27 with five five-wicket hauls.

This is not to downplay Anderson's influence here. Between them in the first two hours, England's new-ball pair produced a sublime, high-pressure period of sustained accuracy from around and over the wicket that, while it didn't quite skittle the Australian top order, established a hand on the throat that was never relaxed.

With the crowd still fluttering into place Anderson produced an in-ducker with the second ball of the day that hit Rogers square in what we might perhaps now call the Alastairs. Rogers grinned and walked it off. Ten minutes of leave-and-prod later he was dropped by Joe Root off Anderson in a close third slip position. It was, though, the action at the other end that defined the morning's play, and which will perhaps leave the greatest impression on the rest of the series. Either way Broad versus Warner was box office.

First Warner was beaten by a full ball that seamed away, inducing a spasm of a short-arm drive, the batsman playing the line then furiously reeling his hands back in. A shorter ball zipped past a narrow defensive prod. Then Warner was struck on the pad, producing an appeal from Broad that while loud and prolonged, was still a little short of the full jazz-hands. To his credit Warner stuck at his methods, playing not just late but too late at times, staying compact at the crease and enjoying a little good fortune too.

He is not just a fine batsman but a fascinating one, Australia's frontiersman of the new world and a player who for all his runs, his uncluttered method and his thrilling talent is still learning this longer game on the job.

If Warner was to provide a match-turning hundred here it would simply arrive in the flow of things, incidental to the unchanging methods of a man who seems to keep playing the same, unceasing innings across every format, offering not a selection of gears and modes but another draught whatever the weather of pure unadulterated David Warner.

He spent 23 balls toying with the idea of playing like a Test opener in England, scoring one run in the process and hanging in against three straight maidens from Broad. In all Broad beat Warner's outside edge eight times through a combination of nip, bounce and simple accuracy.

In between times Broad fielded at close funky-mid-off for his new-ball partner, diving full length to take a bunted drive from Warner almost hand in hand with the bowler, a move completed with a mutual pat of the rump, confirming the impression of two bowlers working, as was said of Braque and Picasso, "like two men roped together on a mountain".

Warner fought on, reaching 50 off 72 balls, with six fours and one six, periodically stretching out to thrash or pummel a loose ball to the fence, crouched very deep in his crease, reminiscent at times of Gary Ballance's much more frightening Australian cousin.

Mark Wood bowled well, producing some genuine skimming pace off that somersaulting tumbler's run-up. But it was Moeen Ali who finally got Warner just before lunch with a straight ball that scuttled into his pads.

Broad returned after lunch to remove Australia's captain and vice-captain. His three wickets for 39 might easily have been five.

More encouraging for England will be the unrelenting skill and urgency of their senior fast bowlers; not quite the pace like fire of the last Ashes series, but a more carefully-wrought, English-style destruction through high-pressure movement and accuracy that Australia must now look to counter.