Oval Test, Day 3, Close
Saturday, August 25, 2001

It's been an excellent day. I'm very proud of the character shown by my team, and though it was disappointing to lose Marcus early on, we managed to build good partnerships throughout the day, and that has been the key.

The highlight for us has obviously been the innings of my good friend Mark Ramprakash. Nobody in the dressing room was at all surprised by his knock, as he has been scoring like that for Surrey and Middlesex day-in, day-out, and has done so ever since I first played with him as a 15 year old. It was a very good performance indeed, I am delighted for him, and hopefully he can take it on tomorrow and knock off the remaining runs we need to save the follow-on.

Usman Afzaal also came up with the goods. There's something about him and he showed lots of character out there. He's got a bit to learn, he needs to keep the ball out more, especially against the likes of Shane Warne, but I was proud of the way he played today. In fact, I was proud of all our boys - Ormond and Gough as well - they all stuck it out. It would have been very easy to roll over and die, after fielding for two days and facing a 600 run deficit at the end of a tough series, but we stuck to our gameplan and built good partnerships.

I don't know whether the Australians would enforce the follow-on if they got the chance. It's a difficult one; they've been out in the hot sun and are going to be a bit tired, but obviously I hope that the decision will be taken out of their hands when we resume tomorrow. All I know is that we are still a long way behind, and that in all probability we are going to have to bat for five sessions at some stage of the game - be it tomorrow morning or after a declaration in the afternoon.

For Australia, Shane Warne once again proved he is world-class - anyone who takes 400 wickets has to be something special. Glenn McGrath too bowled brilliantly - when I came in against him in the morning he reeled off something like 10 overs for one run. But there is no point in going on about the class unit that Australia has got, it's all been said before. Today was about our side and the character that we showed under pressure.

Nasser Hussain was talking to Andrew Miller

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