Melbourne Test, Day 3
Saturday, December 28, 2002

Another interesting day - odd how it was just the same as yesterday with England having to bat 34 overs at the end. But this time England only lost two wickets, which could be vital. If they bat conservatively tomorrow and make around 250 more, then the Australians might start thinking about four years ago here. I played in that one, and we were behind for about half an hour in the whole game - and we lost it.

Craig White was excellent today. He came in on what was probably his last legs, with hardly a run in the series, and started hitting the ball all round the wicket. He played some shots, and took to MacGill and showed what could be done. That led to some bad balls and some misfields.

Foster batted well, too, although he had a bit of luck early on when he was clearly caught behind. That umpire [Russell Tiffin] has struggled a bit in this game, and it makes you wonder whether the international panel has to have an equitable spread - do you have to have one from Zimbabwe if they've only got three first-class teams? I can see that you have to spread it around a bit, but personally I would have no problem with three umpires from one country if whoever ranks them thinks those three are among the best ten in the world.

England's batting at the start of the day wasn't a whole lot. Crawley looked as if he would nudge and nurdle, then the pressure got to him and he played a bad shot out of the blue.

Just before the end Nasser Hussain got what looked like another escape with that stumping off MacGill. Adam Gilchrist has just launched his new orange-and-black gloves, and they blended in nicely with the sponsor's colours on the stumps so the cameras couldn't tell when the bails came off! And the square-leg umpire was in the way of the shot from the other side that was needed to establish when the bails came off.

Again it's an odd coincidence that the three long referrals to the third umpire have all happened very late in the day. We really don't need all these five-minute delays - they slow the game down too much.

Anyway, what Nasser really needs to do now is capitalise on all this good fortune. He's only got a couple of fifties and a 47 in this series, and that's disappointing for me. He's got to go on tomorrow and get a big score.

I liked the way Vaughan played this evening, it was nice to see. Too many England batsmen in this series have been swaying and ducking the shortish stuff, but tonight Vaughan played regulation back-defensive shots, and started pulling and hooking Lee. The basics were finally being done right.

I don't think Steve Waugh would have thought too long about enforcing the follow-on. I think he's got over VVS Laxman by now. He would just have checked that the bowlers reckoned they had 34 overs left in them - it was hotter out there than it looked - but no bowler is really going to say no to that, is he? In any case England don't have the variety of bowling – no-one like Harbhajan Singh – to worry the Australians in the fourth innings.

The Australian bowling wasn't at its best today. McGrath was a bit under par – he was down on speed and lacked zip, and he bowled too short. Actually he doesn't look very well to me. MacGill had a long bowl, and I suppose there could have been a bit more variety at his end, but that was only apparent in the last four or five overs of his long spell really. But I was happy to see Jason Gillespie nip in and finish with four wickets – he's been an unlucky bowler over the years.

Tomorrow I expect Australia to mix up the bowling a bit more. They'll start with the big guns and be sharply focussed. If that doesn't work, I wouldn't be surprised to see Ponting or Martyn or Steve Waugh get a few overs. If there's anything odd in the pitch they'll find it.

Ian Healy, who kept wicket for Australia in six winning Ashes series, will be providing his Expert View at the end of each day's play in the Tests. He was talking to Steven Lynch.

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