Melbourne Test, Day 5
Monday, December 30, 2002

Well, that was a surprising morning, wasn't it? I was hopeful that England would come to the ground hoping to win, and they certainly did. They had a plan – short and fast – and stuck to it well. What they need to do now is take that into the really important stages of a match – the first day rather than the last.

The bowling was pretty impressive. I can imagine Englishmen everywhere being even more frustrated with Andy Caddick – what a difference from the first innings. And Steve Harmison seemed to be enjoying the pressure, he was happy and aggressive, and will have learned a lot.

That over of Harmison's to Steve Waugh was the most remarkable one I've ever witnessed in Test cricket. Steve was extremely nervous, you could see that the way he was jumping up and down at the crease. First he inside-edged one past the stumps, then he's flashing at a widish one – that's not one of his shots, it shows the nerves again – then he's caught behind and not given, and then he's caught off a no-ball. Amazing stuff.

I'm going to be interested to hear England explain why they didn't appeal for that catch. I assume they just didn't hear the nick. There was so much noise that they would have been struggling. It looked as if the ball ran down the face of the bat, which would have made the deflection difficult for the umpire to detect. If the slips and the keeper aren't sure, then obviously the umpire is going to struggle.

You could say that the Barmy Army cost England a wicket there, because it was them making all the noise. A crowd of 18,000 for the last day – that's as many as turned up here for that Border-Thommo match in 1982-83. It was interesting to see the Aussies trying to get the Barmy Army back onside here. Waugh acknowledged them as he went off, and so did Langer.

England really lost it here with their first-innings batting. They needed to make the 387 they scored in the second innings first time around, to put Australia under pressure.

I've said it 20 times or so but it's no coincidence that when you put the pressure on the other side then mistakes happen – even if that side is Australia. Yesterday when Vaughan was batting well we saw people slipping over in the field and some untidy throwing. And today we saw batsmen being put under pressure and struggling. So England are finally competing. It's a shame it happened on Day 5 of Test 4, rather than Day 1 of Test 1.

It will be interesting to see what sort of pitch we get for the final Test at Sydney. They've been endeavouring to get more grass on the wickets there for a couple of years. The pitch they had for the recent game between NSW and Victoria was a real greentop, but I don't think we'll see one of those. You can juice it up a bit for a Shield game, but you wouldn't get away with that for a Test, not with all the media scrutiny.

The one-day pitches there recently have been turners, so it will be interesting to see who plays. McGrath has an injury and Gillespie has a niggle, so Australia might field two spinners. I'm not too sure whether England have got two spinners to play, so there's a lot of thinking ahead. Let's just hope it's a good close game like this one.

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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