WINNING the toss in unsettled weather may not quite be the equivalent of a poisoned chalice but it is often a very doubtful advantage, writes Christopher Martin-Jenkins. Three times in succession Mark Taylor has called right and yesterday at Old Trafford, as at Edgbaston a month ago, he took the brave but hazardous decision to bat first.
The consequences might have been much worse but for some early luck and a superb 13th Test hundred by Steve Waugh, an innings of typical doggedness and skill in conditions in which the ball moved extravagantly off the pitch and swung significantly too, permitting an incisive first day's work in Test cricket by Dean Headley.
Australia were in danger of being bowled out for under 200 when bad light knocked a further hour-and-a-half off a day already interrupted twice by rain. Instead, Waugh and Paul Reiffel did more than merely survive a difficult last 14 overs of the extra hour, extending their eighth-wicket partnership to 64 and the Australian total to 224 for seven, a recovery from 160 for seven which spells danger for England unless they can finish the job smartly this morning.
Waugh's resolve was utterly unshakeable and there were two big slices of luck for Reiffel, another cricketer of character. First when Alec Stewart, with five catches already safely pouched, missed a rising outside edge when he had scored 13 to deny Headley what would have been a deserved fourth wicket; then in the last over of a dank evening when Stewart appeared to make amends by taking a fine catch off Robert Croft. Umpire George Sharp was not certain, however, and gave Reiffel not out.
Only Waugh, as tough a competitor as ever wore the baggy green cap, had defied Headley and the other England bowlers with any suggestion of permanence during an innings which has so far lasted three-and-a-half hours and included 12 fours.
Not that there was ever any question of his wearing a cap rather than a helmet. For the first time in the series he drew England's bowlers into his well-wrought net, driving them straight with sturdy, short-arm strokes when they pitched anywhere near a full length and forcing them to waste far too much energy on short-pitched balls which he either ducked or flailed through the offside.
Darren Gough, increasingly carried away by the bounce instead of bowling a length and occasionally varying it with short ones, and Andrew Caddick, his usual mixture of unplayable balls and badly-controlled dross, were the main culprits.
Mark Ealham, who both swung and seamed the ball away, proved more dangerous in the sense of taking wickets rather than threatening bones, and one could only guess what Devon Malcolm, left out for Headley, might have done. At his best he would have neen a nasty proposition, but the fact is that batting was tricky against almost anyone and Waugh's was a towering innings in difficult conditions.
Admittedly Taylor was confronted by a pitch of confusing appearance when the covers were finally pulled back yesterday morning. Green and damp in the middle but with bare patches at the ends, especially on the very spot where Shane Warne bowled his most famous ball to Mike Gatting four years ago, it promised increasing pace as it dried out and considerable assistance for the hero of 1993.
Warne and the Australian fast bowlers may, therefore, yet prove their captain right, but batting was a perilous business, yesterday morning in particular, and only by great good fortune did Matthew Elliott hold the first part of the innings together.
Headley, presented with his cap in front of the pavilion by Mike Atherton, was given the new ball ahead of Caddick and justified it almost at once. His rocking, slingy action does not prevent his making full use of his 6 ft 4 in and it was his bounce, as well as his movement off the seam and occasional swing, which made him an awkward proposition during overs in which he maintained a consistently demanding off-stump line. Catches by Stewart and another held low at first slip tell the story graphically.
``There is a tide in the affairs of men which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune.'' Headley duly took a chance which would have come two or three seasons ago but for untimely injuries. Mind you, any fast bowler worth his salt would have enjoyed bowling at Old Trafford yesterday. It was overcast all day and the fresher the air the more the ball seemed to leap about.
Contrary to many a pitch whereon the bounce gets lower as a new ball loses its hardness, this one was as resilient in the last session of play as it had been in the first. Moreover, the pace is uneven and unless the sun shines today, England may find batting no less demanding.
During their anxious first hour, Australia descended to 22 for two. Taylor, having ducked into a short ball in Headley's first over, was caught at first slip off a ball which left him late, Headley's 18th in Test cricket. Five overs later Greg Blewett, after one classical drive through extra-cover off Gough had been followed by a vicious off-cutter, cut at Gough and chopped on to his stumps.
Mark Waugh never settled during his nine overs at the crease. He was beaten past his outside edge three times in succession by Headley, bowling from the Warwick Road End, before Ealham took over and did him with the three-card trick: two long-hops followed by a length ball which left him to take the outside edge.
Elliott must have played and missed a dozen times but he hung on gamely, playing some sturdy drives and quickly asserting himself against Croft when Atherton brought him on for two exploratory overs before lunch. But he was given out two overs into the afternoon and Michael Bevan's tenure was predictably nervy before Headley squared him up and took the outside shoulder of his bat with a pearler.
When Ian Healy and Warne were both also caught behind before tea, Healy to a leg-side ball which he somehow gloved, it looked as though Waugh would be left in isolated defiance. Over-excited bowling and a mixture of luck and pluck took Australia to the close far better placed than they might have been after a day which had begun with a worrying diagnosis. Adam Gilchist has damaged ligaments in his left knee so badly in practice that he may take no further part in the tour.
Day 2: England hopes take turn for the worse
ENGLAND have had the best of the conditions but the worst of the match. There was nothing in the pitch to explain their obeisant collapse from 74 for one to 123 for eight on the second day of the Old Trafford Test before a doughty little stand by Mark Ealham and Andrew Caddick brought a temporary halt to the long-awaited reawakening of Shane Warne, writes Christopher Martin-Jenkins.
Bowling admirably steadily, rather than especially viciously, he delivered a second spell of 25 overs unchanged from the Warwick Road End, taking five for 38 and, in a heady return to his days of triumph, five for 19 in one 76-ball period.
His success was greatly helped by a series of unworthy strokes from England's four, five and six. Graham Thorpe's attempt to sweep, and the consequent bottom edge on to his pad, was more forgivable, because he was seeking the initiative, than the defensive pushes with angled bats off their back feet which accounted for Nasser Hussain and John Crawley as both followed leg-breaks spinning far outside off-stump.
For a crowd of 21,000 longing for some authoritative batting, this was all the more disappointing after Mark Butcher had played excellently to launch the reply to Australia's 235 all out. For three hours he batted with a broad bat and calm demeanour, despite losing Mike Atherton in the ninth over as he gloved an attempted pull at a short leg-side ball from Glenn McGrath.
Butcher's stand of 68 with Alec Stewart for the second wicket promised to take the match and the series in a quite different direction from the one it followed with a certain inevitability after Warne had turned and bounced a ball sharply across Stewart's bows to have him caught at leg-slip.
It was a classical leg-spinner's wicket and the prelude to a model spell of bowling by a great bowler on a favourite ground. Fifteen matches, both before and after the operation on his spinning finger, had passed since he last took five wickets in a Test innings.
There have been many moments of self-doubt, surely, since his seven for 23 against Pakistan at the end of 1995, not to mention the opinions of expert observers who claim to have recognised some apparent loss of venom due to a dipping left shoulder and a right one which seems not to have wheeled over with quite the same fluid ease. They really should have known better.
What did seem to have changed was the ability of England's batsmen, more experienced in the tricky art of playing wrist-spin bowling than they were when Warne took 61 wickets in his first 11 Tests against them, to keep the golden boy at bay.
In fact, once he had got Stewart with a ball which the batsman could have done little to avoid edging, he was presented with his next three wickets before Darren Gough was given out leg before to a leg-break when well forward.
Michael Bevan was far less accurate, but still capable of bowling a fatal ball. He gained Butcher's wicket with a full toss, Ian Healy deftly turning it into a stumping opportunity as Butcher's feet left the crease in an attempt to glance the ball fine.
It brought Healy his 100th victim in his 25th Test against England and, as Warne blossomed, so did his closest ally, relishing again the chance to stand up to the wizard, with close fielders in attendance on either side and batsmen pushing diffidently at the ball once the attempts by Hussain and Thorpe to sweep him off his length had failed.
The ball turned, certainly, but Stewart's dismissal apart, it did not bounce particularly highly or quickly. Robert Croft, who became McGrath's second wicket with a gentle back-foot lob to mid-off, may get some help today and Atherton will surely regret not having a left-arm spinner to balance him.
But Australia, still 74 ahead when the third day starts, with only two more wickets to take, will feel that anything Croft can achieve, Warne will be able to return with interest in the fourth innings.
As things stand it will need something positively inspirational by one or more England bowlers today if Australia, on a pitch now fully dried out and playing much more comfortably than it did when Mark Taylor boldly took the risk of batting first, are not to win comfortably.
Batting of admirable phlegm by Ealham and Caddick, who played each ball on its merits, at least stopped the rot yesterday evening and in the last 18 overs of the day added 38 precious runs. If England were to win they needed, surely, to be substantially ahead on first innings.
There is plenty of cricket left but the pitch, although it should hold together reliably, is likely to be turning even more out of the rough for Warne by the fourth innings. It looks very much as though England blew their chance with wild bowling on the first evening. That, however, would be only half the story: Steve Waugh's century now looks even more likely to prove a match-winning innings.
He added only six yesterday and Australia only 11 for their last three wickets as Gough and Dean Headley belatedly repaired the errors of the night before.
Gough produced two searing inswinging yorkers to account for Paul Reiffel and Waugh, who had put on 70 for the eighth wicket in 25 overs, and Headley deservedly got the last wicket a ball after dropping a caught-and-bowled chance from Jason Gillespie. The snick from the spar which followed gave Stewart his sixth catch.
Day 3: Australia slam the door shut
By Scyld Berry
LONG and slippery has been the slope down which England have slid in this match towards perdition. No single move has been fatal to their design upon the Ashes. This has been a gradual process of decline and fall.
It was unavoidable that England would sooner or later have to bow at least one knee towards Australia. The disappointment which will be relieved only if England perform the miracle of making the highest fourth-innings total in their history to win - is that England have buckled in conditions to their own rather than Australia's liking.
England's bowlers, with the exception of Dean Headley, under-performed on the opening day largely by under-pitching, so that Australia's total of 235 was a relatively high one. The contagion spread, as it does, to England's batsmen, who set out their stalls to occupy for two days a pitch that had been dried by a strenuous wind and something known as ``sunshine'', and were so intent on batting Australia out of the game that they omitted to hit the ball; and thus Shane Warne was allowed to bowl.
Equally galling to admit, England find themselves at the wrong end of this game, 335 runs behind and with Steve Waugh still batting, after enjoying the better of the umpiring as well as the conditions. England were the injured party when umpire Venkat for the second time in this Test disallowed what appeared to be a fair catch off Robert Croft, but by then Warne was batting with Waugh and Australia were 295 runs ahead and all but out of sight in a low-scoring match.
More important was Venkat's decision that Greg Blewett's edged drive had carried to Nasser Hussain at slip. Shortly afterwards Matthew Elliott was caught at second slip off Headley, Australia were little more than 100 ahead and only the Waughs stood in their way, as Michael Bevan has to be ranked as a tail-ender against a short fast ball. The door was teasingly ajar, for one last time.
Blewett should not have been given the benefit of the doubt - no such thing exists in cricket law - but he should have been reprieved for want of conclusive evidence. The side-on camera atop the pavilion offered only a general view, too distant. Only the slow-motion camera, at the Stretford end, captured the moment in close-up and on the balance of probability, under Sky's microscopic lens, the ball appeared to bounce in front of slip.
Some argued that this instance supported their belief that television replays should be used whenever possible: and, as Australia's tour manager Alan Crompton suggested, there is little logic in opening Pandora's box half-way, calling on the third umpire and his replays for some decisions but not others. Until cameras are ubiquitous, it might be better to have television evidence used for all possible circumstances in one-day cricket, and not at all in Test matches, provided the best umpires are standing.
At the half-way stage therefore, England found themselves in much the same position as at Christchurch in the last of the winter's Tests, when their seamers again began with too short a length, and England's batsmen buckled too, so that they turned round with a deficit of 118. England won from there thanks to Mike Atherton, but the quality of opposition this time is such that England will need a combination of his Johannesburg and Christchurch epics.
The bounce will still be inconsistent for the Australian seamers to exploit - Paul Reiffel has the habit of nipping in with lbws when the ball is keeping low - and the tourists will not have an 18-year-old college boy for a spinner as New Zealand did when England successfully chased 305, but the wrist spinner with more Test wickets than any other. Warne went past Richie Benaud's 248 when he turned a leg-break out of the deepening rough first thing yesterday to have Andy Caddick taken by silly point. Now that Warne's leg-spin is gripping, England may have to revise their policy of working him to the leg side.
Grim though England's prospects are - a rain-inspired draw is only marginally more likely than knocking off the runs - they deserve credit for their half of a fight back yesterday. The bowling of Darren Gough and Caddick was much nearer the mark than it had been on Thursday, while Headley maintained his control over left-handers to the extent of exerting a monopoly, dismissing Australia's three both times.
It might be asked where the 27-year-old Headley has been all these years, but he has been given A tour opportunities when he has not been injured. He is unusual in being his own man, which might have been influential when he kept his length on Thursday while others were losing theirs, most significantly when the stand between Steve Waugh and Reiffel turned the match and with it the series Australia's way.
With the help of Mark Butcher, back to his Edgbaston catching form, Headley dismissed both openers in a start which animated the capacity crowd and he added Michael Bevan who, for the third time in this series, was bounced out and caught at gully as he jumped into the air and lowered his hands into danger at the same time. It is good to know that some batsmen from other countries find it impossible to make the transition from county to Test cricket; but Bevan may yet have his revenge by delivering his wrist-spin into the rough.
Mark Waugh drove the ball as nobody else in the match has done and set the trend of not allowing Croft to settle by lofting an off-break just short of a six, but was bowled through a gate that his brother would never have allowed. Mark Ealham seamed the ball back to effect this dismissal but continued to be scantly employed.
If Steve Waugh had not been suffering from a damaged right hand, he might have already become the first right-handed Australian to make two hundreds in an Ashes Test, since Warren Bardsley and Arthur Morris were left-handers. If he is not unequivocally the finest batsman of the moment, he has to be the best off the back foot.
To compensate for his finger injury, England did not post a short-leg for Steve Waugh during his door-slamming innings, though the odd ball climbed. But they kept dutifully to their task as Ian Healy continued his impressive match, and subsequently Warne hit out in the evening sun, and the crowd tried to be as patriotic as could be.
Day 4: England lurch into state of confusion
ENTRY to Old Trafford will be free this morning, but Michael Atherton is out, Jack Russell is not playing and Willie Watson and Trevor Bailey are long retired, writes Christopher Martin-Jenkins.
Fourth day of five: Australia (235 & 395-dec) lead England (162 & 130-5) by 338 runs
Shane Warne's fizzing leg-breaks and Jason Gillespie's extra pace have been the means by which Australia have made virtually certain of the victory in the third Test made possible in the first instance by Steve Waugh's wonderful hundred on the first day.
Asked to bat a minimum of 141 overs to save the game, England have lost five wickets for 130 with a full day to go. Their approach has been confused, like a sailor in a strange port late on a Saturday night, or indeed the 10 or more spectators from the fourth successive full house of 20,500 who invaded the ground in various states of undress, heedless of the true meaning of the battle on a sunlit stage.
Would that England's approach had been as single-minded as Waugh's as he ground out 116 more runs over the weekend, in less demanding circumstances but with a badly bruised right hand, to become the first man from either country to make a hundred in each innings of an Anglo-Australian Test since Arthur Morris at Adelaide in 1946-47.
Between them Waugh, pale and taciturn, Warne pink-faced and loquacious, may not yet have broken England's will, but they have surely ensured, despite belated defiance from John Crawley and Mark Ealham, that the series will be level when the Headingley Test starts on July 24.
The Old Trafford pitch has played exactly according to form, helpful to seamers on the first day, but lovely to bat upon thereafter apart from the increasing problems caused by the ever deepening rough. Had Mike Smith made his debut, Robert Croft would have had rough on the other side from which to spin the ball more dangerously, but Dean Headley dealt with the left-handers most impressively and Croft was relatively powerless on a hard, true surface against the rest.
England were probably doomed from the moment that Atherton was leg before to Gillespie yesterday in only the 17th over. The impossibility of the target which Mark Taylor set them when he declared 20 minutes after lunch - 469 on a ground where the highest winning total in the fourth innings is, remarkably, only 145 for seven -ought to have concentrated their minds on defence.
Australia's bowlers, however, do not invite that sort of obduracy. They throw down the gauntlet with aggressive bowling and attacking fields which offer the lure of easy runs. England fell as dizzily as any Gillespie into the trap. Even Atherton hooked the young South Australian for six before he was beaten on the back foot by a ball which thudded back into his pads.
It was possible, of course, that simply to have played no shots save against the rankest of balls might have led in time to the fall of as many wickets. In the case of Warne, despite constantly varying the angle of delivery and confidently mixing in more variations on the leg-break than he has recently, there were no bad balls anyway and hitting at anything pitching in the rough was hazardous in the extreme.
The example set by Ealham, however, was a guide to what might have been had England not become carried away by the desire to play their shots. Skilfully as Crawley played, he almost gave Gillespie a fourth wicket when, on 10, he cut in the air past gully.
Nonetheless Crawley's innings will become important to his future if he can carry it through for a long time today, when England face 90 more overs and, if necessary, a new ball shortly after lunch. He could even make a case for a swap in the batting order with Alec Stewart, who was Warne's 250th Test victim when a top spinner hurried through his gate as he played for a leg-break.
Mark Butcher played well and calmly for a second time to guide England to 49 for two at tea, but Nasser Hussain was out exactly as Atherton had been - this time to a ball which might well have gone over the bails - and Butcher unwisely tried to hook, Glenn McGrath running in from long-leg to catch him low to the ground. Graham Thorpe also went to a stroke which bore no relation to the presumed plan, edging a cut at a wide ball which spun away from him: a wrong 'un of sorts but the right one for Thorpe.
There were all sorts of balls, too, from Michael Bevan in his eight-over spell, including a liberal sprinkling of full-tosses and long-hops, and it was mainly against these that Crawley prospered.
England had fought back after losing their last two wickets for only a run on Saturday morning, thanks to a new-ball spell of the highest quality by Headley. While Darren Gough struggled with his sore shins and shoulder, Headley bowled with verve, bite and intelligence to remove Taylor and Matthew Elliott to catches by Butcher at second slip.
Greg Blewett was attacked on his pads, a plan which was failing rapidly when Croft -and the benefit of doubt against the batsman and against convention - came to the rescue, but the Waugh twins were instinctively positive in their response. Mark was brilliant against Croft, Steve resolute and shrewd against the fast men and he had his reward ater 45 minutes yesterday before the tailenders indulged themselves.
Day 5: Australia level Ashes series as England slump
IT WAS consummate fast bowling by Glenn McGrath rather than any further unplayable stuff from Shane Warne which ensured that England did not long detain a last day crowd of 7,000 at Old Trafford yesterday, writes Christopher Martin-Jenkins.
Australia (235 & 395-8 dec) beat England (162 & 200) by 268 runs
Australia won the third Test by 268 runs to level the series at 1-1 with three to play and it took them only 90 minutes to collect the last five England wickets. McGrath took four of them in a 31-ball spell costing him only 15 runs, and, perfectionist as he is, he begrudged every one, scowling like a scarecrow at the offending batsman.
Only John Crawley resisted him with any suggestion of prolonged authority before he was eighth out much as Mike Atherton had been at Lord's, his back foot hitting the base of the stumps as he rode back to get on top of the bounce. He had batted fluently against both McGrath and Warne for his 83 in a little under three hours but once McGrath had found Mark Ealham's outside edge with a ball which cut away in the 10th over of the day, it was only a question of time.
Ealham, after 98 minutes of disciplined defence, thus became the last victim for Ian Healy, diving to his right to catch the ball close to the ground and thereby completing a marvellously skilful performance behind the stumps, especially when standing up to Warne. In the second innings he had done so with a helmet, for his own protection but also, perhaps, to demonstrate to the England batsmen how hard it would be to survive against Warne bowling out of the rough.
McGrath's performance yesterday stressed that Warne is one of two true champions in Australia's attack, not to mention a third in the making in Jason Gillespie, who was not required to add to his three for 31. McGrath soon had Robert Croft caught at short leg off his ribs - a weakness clearly spotted and ruthlessly exploited - bowled Darren Gough as he drove across the line and thought he had Dean Headley leg before twice with yorkers before Warne bought Andrew Caddick's wicket at mid-on.
McGrath finished with match figures of seven for 86 from 44.4 overs and he now has 137 wickets from a mere 31 Tests. Warne's overall bag has risen to 252 from 55 games. He deserved to take the last wicket: his nine for 111 would have been a man-of-the-match effort in most Tests, but Steve Waugh was, of course, the recipient of the £1,000 cheque for his hundred in each innings.
A mystery remains about the pitch on which Mark Taylor took his brave decision to bat first, despite its carefully maintained dampness at the start which gave England the chance they could not sufficiently exploit. David Lloyd, who knows it inside out, and David Graveney, who has made it his business to keep an eye on the preparations of all the Test pitches, both maintain that it has not been used for any other games this season. Three impeccable sources at Old Trafford report that it was used for one-day matches earlier this season. The original follow-through marks at either end suggested as much.
The Test pitch which the groundsman, Peter Marron, originally had in mind has been relaid and never used for a major match. England were not prepared, according to the Lancashire sources, to risk playing on an unknown quantity, though, ironically, it had the even (as opposed to excessive) cover of grass which the chairman of selectors, reasonably enough, has been seeking everywhere.
Lloyd's view is that when closely mown all the Old Trafford pitches become bare at the ends because the roots are so shallow. That seemed to be confirmed by the fact that there were bare marks even where the slips and wicketkeeper had been standing, like those on the baseline at Wimbledon.
If three immense individual efforts won the game for Australia, England lost it in two short sessions of play: the 14 overs on Thursday evening when, instead of finishing off Australia, they allowed Waugh and Paul Reiffel to push the total well past 200; and the period either side of tea on Friday when they subsided so swiftly from the apparently solid base of 74 for one. The writing was on the wall from the moment of Crawley's first-innings dismissal, which reduced them to 111 for six and ended any hope of the lead which was essential.
When the pitch was at its best on Saturday, England got three Australian wickets for 39 but once the Waughs established themselves Atherton had no option but to switch the emphasis to defence. He continued, sensibly, to switch his bowlers about Croft bowled five different spells, Headley, Gough and Ealham four each on Saturday alone - but Steve Waugh, despite increasing pain from his right hand, simply would not be budged.
All England rearguards of any substance since Graham Gooch handed on the baton have been centred on Atherton, and once he was out on Sunday there was only going to be one result. The captain was upbeat about England's prospects for the rest of the series, and the gap before the Headingley Test starts, two weeks on Thursday, at least gives Gough the chance to rest his painful shins. Having successfully promoted Headley in this game, Ashley Cowan might well get his chance next time.
Barring a return to early-season weather conditions, the Oval in August will suit Warne, McGrath and Gillespie handsomely, so England's only chance of regaining the Ashes (as opposed to drawing the series) seems now to be to win at both Leeds and Nottingham, which is unlikely. Australia will be stronger still when Michael Bevan is replaced by Justin Langer, Ricky Ponting or Michael Slater.