Close England 342 and 36 for 3 trail Australia 552 for 9 dec (Ponting 154, Martyn 95, Gilchrist 54, White 4-106) by 174 runs
Scorecard

And so Australia rumble on remorselessly. England didn't do a lot wrong for much of the third day at Adelaide, but they were bulldozed by an Australian performance that was at first icily efficient and later deliriously brutal. By the end, England were coming apart at the seams.

Australia declared their first innings on 552 for 9, with Ricky Ponting making a masterful 154. Then, in 11.2 overs of the purest bedlam, they reduced England to 36 for 3, still 174 behind. It's just a matter of dotting the Is and crossing the Ts from here.

Ponting played quite beautifully, if within himself - he hit only four fours in reaching his 14th Test hundred. It was a declaration of maturity from a man ready to assume the throne, and even his celebration verged on the sombre. Ponting has now made hundreds in the first innings of his last three Tests, and in four of the last five. His career has been defined by dramatic peaks and troughs, but this is still a seriously purple patch.

Ponting and Damien Martyn (95) batted serenely through the morning session, and their partnership had reached 242 when Martyn gloved Steve Harmison off his hip to Nasser Hussain at leg-gully (356 for 3). It was the first ball Harmison had bowled from around the wicket all match, and it finally gave Martyn an average in Adelaide Tests: 305.00.

After three dropped catches off his bowling Harmison deserved his wicket, and he should have another in identical circumstances soon after, but Hussain muffed a sharp chance offered by Steve Waugh. Waugh was 1 at the time, and when he flogged a couple of trademark off-side boundaries you felt England might pay for their profligacy.

They didn't. Waugh raced ominously to 34 before falling to Craig White at the end of a canny spell of 8-1-20-3, one which began with Ponting skying a pull to Richard Dawson (397 for 4).

Darren Lehmann, in his first Test innings on his home ground, made an unconvincing 5 before he slashed at White and was caught by the substitute Andrew Flintoff - fit enough to field, it seems, but not to play - at second slip (414 for 5). This was a dismissal with a domestic twist: Lehmann is married to White's sister.

As in the second innings at Brisbane, Adam Gilchrist got off the mark with a six, but in the next over Waugh played a jumping cut at White and Mark Butcher at point took a terrific goalkeeper-style catch to his left (423 for 6).

Shane Warne (25) was almost painfully plumb lbw second ball but survived to add 48 with Gilchrist before Dawson, leaping to his right, took a fine caught-and-bowled. If England thought that was the end of the misery, they were wrong. With both Harmison and Caddick, who was suffering from back spasms, off the field in the evening session, Gilchrist and Andy Bichel flogged a tiring attack.

Matthew Hoggard's wicket column had also been in spasm, but he finally got his first Test scalp for 84.4 overs and 310 runs when Bichel played on. He made a rollicking, Test-best 48, outscoring Gilchrist in a partnership of 77 in 14 overs. When Gilchrist (54) top-edged a pull off the impressive Harmison in the next over, Waugh called it a day.

England must have been tempted to do the same, especially when Trescothick received a rough lbw decision before he had scored, with the ball from Jason Gillespie almost certainly missing off stump (5 for 1).

Michael Vaughan's badly bruised shoulder, which kept him off the field throughout Australia's innings, didn't seem to be giving him too much trouble when he pulled a majestic six off Glenn McGrath three balls later.

Indeed most of the grief was coming from McGrath; when Vaughan edged the next ball just short of slip, the pair had a heated exchange. At one point McGrath took to raising two fingers in a gesture taken straight from the playground, presumably to remind Vaughan how many times he has dismissed him. Regrettably, Vaughan didn't have 177 digits with which to respond.

But two balls later McGrath had a smile on his face as Butcher played around his front pad and was as plumb as they come (17 for 1). McGrath didn't even bother to look at the umpire. Vaughan was then dropped by Lehmann at short leg in the next over, and three balls after that Hussain survived a huge appeal for caught-behind. Then Hussain would have been run out by a direct hit from Martyn at point.

It was a manic passage of play and a serious test of character for Vaughan in particular. He got through it ... but Hussain didn't. As on the first day, Waugh brought Bichel on for the last over of the day – and lightning struck twice. The first ball was a jaffa that beat the outside edge; the second was even better and trimmed the off bail. It was breathtaking cricket, two balls that acted as a microcosm of the whole series. There is just nothing that England can do.

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Rob Smyth is assistant editor of Wisden.com.

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