Glenn McGrath just goes on maintaining his stranglehold over the England captain. He has now dismissed Mike Atherton 16 times in Tests, three more than his second-favourite prey Brian Lara.

Meanwhile Ricky Ponting's four failures in the series so far are a continuation of his bad run against Darren Gough, who has now dismissed him cheaply the last six times he has bowled to him in Tests. This is quite a reversal: the first time Gough got Ponting out, at Headingley in 1997, he'd already scored 127.

In the two head-to-heads, Ponting's performance is slightly the worse. His overall average (41.32) is almost four times higher than his figure against Gough (11.67), whereas Atherton's overall 38.31 is just over three times higher than his average against McGrath. The kind of statistic England are having to cling on to.

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