Tim Bresnan hit an unbeaten 57 on his comeback from injury as the England Performance Programme’s batting dominated the first day of three versus Queensland Second XI.
Bresnan, who had not played since August’s Investec Ashes Test at the Emirates Durham ICG due to a stress fracture of the lower back, has been with England’s Ashes squad in Australia but is playing this week for the EPP at Allan Border Field.
The seam-bowling all-rounder’s contribution from number nine aided a stumps score of 376 for nine after Sam Robson made 102, Moeen Ali 83 and Jos Buttler 54.
The EPP, fielding 13 players in the game but with just 11 batting, were put in and lost captain Varun Chopra early to Simon Milenko, who also snared Chopra’s opening partner Alex Lees for 24.
Jason Floros ousted James Vince for 23 but Robson, the Sydney-born batsman who has pledged his allegiance to England, and Moeen shared a 151-run stand. While Robson retired out, Moeen fell to Mark Steketee.
Buttler followed up Robson and Moeen’s good work, scoring at a run a ball, and, after Ben Foakes and Chris Jordan went cheaply, Bresnan came to the fore. Floros ousted Buttler and James Harris made little impact, but Bresnan and Danny Briggs frustrated the hosts.
Robson said: “It was a little bit tricky early on, but overall it was a good wicket so I just tried to get stuck in and hang in there and luckily got a few today.
“It was good, good to get a bit of time in the middle. I’m really pleased with my start to the tour. It’s been a really good couple of weeks training here in Brisbane so far and working with all the guys; it’s been really good. To put some of the things that we’ve been working on into practice was really good.”
Robson, who scored 1,180 first-class runs in the summer for Middlesex at an average of 47.2, has been working on his batting with coaches Mark Ramprakash and Graham Thorpe.
“I’ve done a lot with Ramps the last couple of weeks - I did a lot with him during the summer at Middlesex as well - and he’s been really good,” he added.
“Also I did quite a bit with Graham Thorpe in Loughborough a couple of weeks ago, which was really beneficial as well. So they’re probably the main guys with the batting, but all the guys have been really helpful.”