Cricket: Hayden runs roughshod over the ghost of Jardine: Paul Hayward witnesses the Australians strolling to victory in their tour opener in Hertfordshire

AUSTRALIA'S 1993 Ashes tour opened yesterday at a green oasis inside the roaring M25. Not Lord's or The Oval, but Radlett, who thanked Hertsmere Borough Council 'for the splendid road signs' and summoned every available tea and cake maker to uphold the spirit of village cricket. It will not always be this civilised.

Could it have been a plot by England to unsettle the ancient foe, given that Radlett is where Douglas Jardine (of the infamous Bodyline tour of 1932-33) played his last games? So loathed was the England captain in Australia that once when he was swatting midges on the pitch there a voice called from the boundary rope: 'And keep yer bloody hands off our flies, Jardine.'

Merv Hughes had the perfect method for exorcising Jardine's ghost. He spent much of the day impersonating Arnold Schwarzenegger. 'I want your clothes, your boots and your motorcycle,' he recited in the Terminator's Hollywoodised German.

For his team-mates (Hughes was 12th man) it was anything but a searching test against a capable but outclassed England Amateur XI. Allan Border stayed in London until mid-afternoon, with Steve Waugh, Ian Healy and Tim May also described as 'resting'. That left Hughes to bear the burden of unceasing interviews and to blame his Bothamesque girth on 'too many meals out on these tours'. He also conceded that 'a few tubes' have been emptied along the way.

As they were amid the trees of Radlett - 'A mecca for lovely ladies, socialising and drinking', according to the excellent souvenir brochure, and a proud, freshly painted refuge that must delight the Range Rover brigade fleeing the city. Beyond the leafy edge of the arena, you could see the odd pylon, sense the clamorous rush of north- bound traffic, but inside the ground you could have been in deepest Somerset or Kent.

It is a comment on English suburbia that although Jardine was revered at Radlett, where he played in the mid-1950s, 'almost nothing is known about his family life in the village', according to the club's historians. Gone, the story goes, was the reviled, aloof Englishman in the Harlequins cap, and his new team- mates counted it as a triumph that they were allowed to call him Douglas rather than 'Mr Jardine'.

If not for Jardine, why Radlett when the Arundel fixture traditionally opens these Australian tours? Connections. Donald Carr, a former secretary of the Test and County Cricket Board, is a stalwart of the club, and the pavilion yesterday resembled a sunlit gallery of establishment faces. John Major found time to send a message of support, praising Radlett's 'lovely surroundings'.

Judging by the aura of youth and good health attending the Australians, England could need more than prime ministerial encouragement this summer. It may have been like Sinatra standing out in a karaoke competition, but still the fluency with which Matthew Hayden, one of the tourists' many gifted greenhorns, thumped his way to 151 was an ominous sign of the freshness and vigour of this visiting squad. His side's total of 292 for 3 off their 55 overs, certainly proved too much for England's amateur's, who were dismissed for 198.

Hayden is a 21-year-old meaty left- hander who earned his trip to Britain by becoming the youngest Australian to score 1,000 runs in his debut season in 1991-92. His task now is to win the other Test opener's place alongside Mark Taylor., and in that he will have been greatly helped yesterday by outscoring his fellow youngster, Michael Slater, who struck 41.

They call Hayden 'the unit', an Australian said. Why? 'Because he's such a big unit.'

Unfortunately for England, Hayden's batting is a little more imaginative than his nicknames.