For two sessions today, England batted well, The trouble was that thedamage done in the first two hours threatens to be terminal. Inside the first eight overs Richard Dawson, Rob Key and Nasser Hussain departed. Key couldn't do much about the sandshoe-crusher Brett Lee fired in at his feet, but the others perished to ambitious attacking shots off Stuart MacGill. And John Crawley followed soon afterwards, to the worst shot of a manic morning.

It was left to Craig White, already England's most impressive bowler in this match (not that that is saying much), to salvage some pride for the batsmen. He did it, with staunch help from James Foster, by keeping it simple.

White and Foster played themselves in. They played straight. They left the good balls and thought hard about hitting the bad ones. It was a stark contrast to the earlier batsmen who - with the exception of Marcus Trescothick and Mark Butcher for a spell last night – were looking for too many scoring opportunities. Possibly the shot of the day was the one with which White brought up his fifty: he spotted Lee's slower ball, adjusted his stroke and creamed it through the covers for four.

Hussain has always wanted his England to play like this Australia, careering along at four an over and aiming for 300 in a day, minimum. It worked against Sri Lanka and India last summer. But it was never likely to come off against Australia, whose bowling attack wouldn't let the World XI down, even with MacGill in for Warne.

Against Australia, as White and Foster showed, you have to be patient. England are aching for a Boycott or an Edrich, or even an Atherton.

The good news is that Trescothick and Michael Vaughan were obviously watching the White stuff. They played each ball on its merits and, if it hadn't been for a debatable decision from Russell Tiffin – not his first in this match - Trescothick might still be there instead of mulling over his second 37 of the game.

So let's hear it for Craig White. Even the crowd took to him ("We love White, he's from Victoria"). Oddly this was his maiden first-class innings at the MCG - his one home outing for Victoria before he turned Pom was at the Junction Oval down the road in St Kilda. The Victorians might just be regretting letting him go: during his innings he became only the 14th man to achieve the mini-double of 1000 Test runs and 50 wickets for England. Today it was a tale of Chalky and cheese.

Steven Lynch is editor of Wisden.com.

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