It's hard to find too many crumbs of comfort when your opponents are cavorting round with a little urn in their hands, but another solid performance from Robert Key did give England some hope for the future. As our graph shows, Key was in control of 82% of his strokes, a very impressive ratio for a young man playing only his fourth Test against Glenn McGrath & Co. on a Perth flyer.

The defining features of Key's innings were a mature judgement of what to leave - he offered no stroke to 24% of the deliveries he faced (25 out of 106) - as well as the ability to play each ball on its own merits and not get sucked into playing the Australians at their own game. He faced more balls than anybody in this match; you'd have got long odds on that when he was left out of the original tour party in September.

Rob Smyth is assistant editor of Wisden.com.

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