So now we know: the toss makes not the slightest difference. England finally won it today. "We'll have a bat," said Mike Atherton, with almost indecent haste. "We'll have a ball," thought Steve Waugh, and they did. England were 117 for 3 today - and then 185 all out, with Glenn McGrath taking 5 for 49. In the first innings at Lord's, they had been 121 for 3 - and then 185 all out, McGrath 5 for 54. People keep mentioning Groundhog Day, but there is a significant difference. Groundhog Day was funny.

At Lord's, Ian Ward and Craig White were England's No.7 and 8, and although each managed an unbeaten 20 as well as a hapless duck, it was blindingly obvious that both were out of their depth. For this match, which England must win to keep the series alive, they were not merely retained but promoted, to six and seven - the positions occupied definitively, a generation ago, by Tony Greig and Alan Knott, who showed that batting at six or seven is easy: all you need is a cool head, a thick skin, a good eye, a willingness to improvise and a bucketload of guts.

Greig and Knott's natural heirs in this generation are Damien Martyn (who may soon be too good for No.6) and Adam Gilchrist. They are most definitely not Ian Ward and Craig White.

Ward took one look at Glenn McGrath today and dangled a crooked bat at him, which is like waving a red rag at a bull, only not quite so intelligent. White was dropped at third slip on 0, making his trademark error of sticking his bottom out, propping forward, getting under the ball, and slicing the ball towards gully. Did he make the Aussies pay for this blunder? Of course not. He didn't add another run.

Both men stayed in the team because of the so-called policy of continuity. That policy was exposed as, if not quite a sham, then certainly a piece of PR, when an extra fast bowler was suddenly needed on Wednesday. The call from David Graveney's mobile went out not to Ryan Sidebottom, who played in the first Test of the summer, nor to Alan Mullally, who played in the one-day series, nor to Martin Bicknell, who was within a stump's-width of being picked for Lord's, but to Richard Johnson, who had never even been mentioned in dispatches by the present selectors.

It was bad luck that removed Atherton second ball today. But it was bad judgment that lumbered him with this batting line-up.

Tim de Lisle is the editor of Wisden.com

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