Headingley Test, Day 5, Close
Monday, August 20, 2001

Well, what a fantastic match. I thought the last day was brilliant. Adam Gilchrist's remark afterwards, that at least whenever Australia were beaten it took something pretty special to do it, shows that he rates Mark Butcher's innings too, way up there with VVS Laxman's 281 for India.

Butcher was superb – really balanced, and with good timing throughout. He watched the ball really closely, and by the time he'd passed 50 he must have been seeing it like a football. After the game the poor bloke was just exhausted, and couldn't remember half his shots – I hope someone buys him the video of the innings.

I was impressed with Nasser Hussain's innings too. His leadership has been fine, but he hasn't been scoring many runs recently. But here he played better than I've seen him for a while – again, it was good positive stuff from the word go.

Gilchrist will be disappointed that only two of his bowlers were really firing. Warne and Lee just didn't get it in the right spot often enough. And Gillespie was a bit unlucky as well. But Australia really fancied themselves to win before play started, and they got just the start they needed with a couple of quick wickets.

With the Oval Test coming up straight away Gilchrist will soon know whether he ever wants to take on the captaincy fulltime. The other match he skippered, against West Indies at Adelaide, was different – it was in the middle of a series with lots of recovery time. As wicketkeeper and a front-line batsman he's got a lot on his plate. I've always thought that keepers make pretty good vice-captains – they're an extra pair of eyes for the skipper – but that if you've got two similar candidates for the captaincy you should give it to the bloke with least on his plate, which is usually someone who stands in slips all day and does bugger all!

Ian Healy made a record 395 dismissals in 119 Tests for Australia, and was on the winning side in the last six Ashes series. His comments will appear on Wisden.com at the end of every session of the Oval Test too. He was talking to Steven Lynch

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