Australia batting for their lives

The Third Test is not over yet. Australia did not lose a wicket this evening. The Old Trafford pitch is slow, and relatively benign. Strictly speaking, quality should out tomorrow, and the top order click. But the hunter is now officially the hunted. Today they had the thankless task of waiting for a declaration, like an errant schoolboy awaiting the headmaster's cane. They had the same experience eighteen months ago at Sydney against India, but then there was the excuse of the absence of Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne, and the reassuring bulwark of Steve Waugh. Someone tomorrow must make a hundred; someone, consequently, must raise the standard of their performance by a considerable degree.

There will be time to write a little more tomorrow. Today a little detour, to the cosy bolthole of the Museum at the Lancashire County Cricket Club, whose unprepossessing surroundings obscure some priceless antiquities, from Ted MacDonald's monogrammed leather hold-all to Vernon Royle's 130-year-old county cap with its blue felt faded but its rose still red. A ball presented to Cec Parkin for his bowling in Australia in 1920-21, still scarred by the spikemarks he left when he flicked it from ground to hand. Different times, different habits: the new ball today is fussed and cooed over like a new baby. Mind you, it's hard to imagine his captain Johnny Douglas, an opening bowler, being all that enamoured of the custom.

The other different habit of which the visitor is reminded concerns bats. Old Trafford somehow inherited a score or so of exhibits from the disbanded Wisden Bat Museum, including those of half a dozen England captains, which look heavy with oil and black with age. For locals, there is Archie MacLaren's bat from 1897-98, twice blessed because it was a gift from Ranji; for Aussies, incongruously, there is the bat with which Bill Ponsford scored the first of his twin 400s, 429 against Tasmania in 1922-23. Both of them, coincidentally, are Wisden Crawford Excellers, and painstakingly repaired with layers of twine; Ponsford's, in the course of the mass manufacture of 2500 first-class runs, was put back together with six separate, tight-coiled bands.

It is a remark on the mores that no one bothers repairing bats anymore. In part this is an outcome of modern abundance. In a consumer age, we hardly repair anything. `The more stitches, the less riches,' runs the slogan in `Brave New World'; we seem to living in just such an age. International batsmen, too, now favour bats that have not had their original spring pressed from them for the sake of durability. They are happy to cop a few breakages along the way. Mike Brearley yesterday told Cricinfo exclusively - he was sitting next to me, reading a book by Edward Said - that one Gray-Nicholls bat, sometimes a second, used to get him through a whole county season. Graham Thorpe, by contrast, said on radio recently that he expected a bat to last about 6-700 runs. Fifty years ago, state squads in Australia still had team kits. Now everyone is knee deep in gear. When Michael Clarke had his coffin lifted at Leicestershire a couple of months ago, the inventory of its contents would have delighted any gear fetishist: five bats, seven pairs of gloves, three pairs of spikes, two pairs of rubbers. No wonder he's developed a bad back. Back to Australia's repair job tomorrow.

The day begins with a haiku in my inbox from the poet, biographer and Oxfordshire Amateurs XI representative Simon Rae entitled 'On Enforcing the Follow-on at Old Trafford':

You don't take your boot Off a snake's neck in order To stamp on its head.

The weather, however, was fit for neither cricket nor snakes, and the follow-on remained as indistinct as the Pennines. Rain tumbled down; terraces were deserted as the capacity crowd sought shelter; Peter Marron's minions busied themselves in their various duties and errands. One of John Arlott's most famous snatches of commentary was a vivid word picture of the covers being shuffled round the Lord's square; you can find it in David Rayvern Allen's splendid biography. As it's already been done far better than I could, I feel no obligation to match it.

When play then finally began at 4pm for the first of two fleeting interludes, the follow-on quickly faded from calculations. Michael Vaughan, in fact, did not seem to seek it with any eagerness: Simon Jones bowled to the passive Gillespie without a short leg, and to the busy Warne without a second slip. England got one glimpse of the possible when Warne (55) ambled amiably down the pitch to Giles and ended up so far from his crease that he needed almost to mail his bat back. In the end, there was no need: Geraint Jones performed his party trick of palming the ball into space. Warne then sustained a crack in his bat, sought a replacement from his kit, and found a sweet one, hefting three boundaries down the ground to ensure that Australia's record of not following in Ashes Tests since the Bicentenary Test remained intact.

The follow-on can be like that: an alternative one would prefer not to have, which is why what used to be compulsory enforcement was eventually made voluntary. It requires a gamble on the fitness and form of bowlers and a belief in the zeal of fielders - rather more of a speculation since the gradual eclipse of the rest day, which used to afford recovery time between innings, but is now considered as archaic as Sabbath observance. Because it is an undertaking to bat last, enforcement of the follow-on also requires a certain trust in a pitch's integrity, and a cross-breeze at Manchester has already stirred up a good deal of dust from this one. England would probably prefer this to be Giles' to exploit rather than Warne's: the snake might be pinioned, but it's still poisonous.

By the close, Jones's keeping had entered the realm of embarassment. His attempt to catch a straightforward edge from Warne (68) in the penultimate over was a shambles. He can now hardly be trusted to carry a helmet from one end to the other without dropping it. The finish of the Edgbaston Test grows more miraculous with each passing day.

Shane Warne should give his teammates a go of his wristband. He bowled and batted manfully today, reinforced by the word 'Strength' on the strip girdling his wrist, a gift from daughter Brooke. But where was the support? What grounds these reputations? Australians experience soft dismissals like every other cricketer; but seldom, if ever, can there have been so many on the same day. The game was not drifting from Australia. It was bolting. And nobody said: 'Hang on a mo, digger!'

Out the back of Old Trafford at tea, Mike Gatting was busy re-enacting the ball of the century, with Merlyn standing in for Warne. A cute idea, but sooooo last century. Ashley Giles, of all people, threw in a candidate for the ball of the 21st, landing a ball in the left-armer's G-spot on leg stump and disturbing Martyn's off bail: he can be forgiven for looking as wired as a character from Irvine Welsh in its aftermath, and even for referring to himself in the third person at the press conference. England might even be grateful for Giles' post-prandial duck. No purpose was served by the home team's tail lingering today. Especially if rain sweeps in, as is expected tomorrow, time will be of the essence.

Even as we are gripped by the possibility that the Ashes might change hands - and I can't tell you what a strange and sublime sensation I experience in writing that line - a reminder is in order of how this series has turned on a sixpence. Had Glenn McGrath stepped six inches or so either way during the pre-match warm-ups at Edgbaston; had any one of the chances Australia dropped there been taken; had there been one fewer Aussie no ball and Justin Langer not run one short in the second innings, the Premier League season would have annexed the sports pages and those Freddie Flintoff cardboard cut outs would be piling up in some ad executive's garage. The cardinal principle of biography is that life must be lived forwards but can only be understood backwards; interpretation of cricket perhaps involves something similar.

Before lunch in the Old Trafford Test of 1902, Australia scored 1 for 173, Victor Trumper a hundred. At the rate this series has been played, I half expected this mark to come under challenge today, and it was a kind of relief when England dined at 93 for 1. It may sound strange to regard a day of 341 runs as taking place at a leisured pace, but such is the way it seemed: Australia again bowled their overs at a gentle recreational stroll despite 36 overs of spin.

Shane Warne's 600th Test wicket was not perhaps the collector's piece of legspin for which he might have hoped: a blur of Trescothick's pad, thigh, gloves and edge, adeptly caught by an alert Gilchrist. Mind you, he became Australia's highest Test wicket taker much the same way when he dismissed Paul Wiseman five years ago, and it wasn't entirely an inappropriate means of reaching the milestone. Nobody takes wickets on their own or in a vacuum, even though we are apt to examine statistics as though they are comparisons of static mechanisms with all other variables suspended.

Consider a comparison of Warne with his wicket shadow Muralitharan. Muralitharan is clearly the outstanding bowler in a mediocre attack. He bowls an extraordinarily high proportion of Sri Lanka's overs, which maximises his opportunities to take wickets but also reduces him to a stock bowler. He enjoys most of his success at the start of series; with ample opportunity for study, batsmen can get used to him. Playing for Sri Lanka, Muralitharan must also defend smaller totals, strive more often in losing causes, and be supported by less adept fieldsman. How would he have fared with a keeper like Ian Healy, or catchers like Mark Waugh and Mark Taylor, making wickets out of half-chances?

Warne, a great bowler in an omnicompetent team, has faced considerable competition for his wickets from the likes of Glenn McGrath, Jason Gillespie and Brett Lee, who have, for instance, restricted him to bowling on three fifth-day pitches in the last year. But he has also been able to bowl to attacking fields backed up by many runs with positive captaincy and consistently good fielding. If anyone can reconcile these differences they are welcome to set up a rival to StatsGuru called StatsGod. Until then, we may have to keep on watching the game.

It has been grimly sunny for the last two days in Manchester, but today it is more satisfyingly overcast after some overnight rain. Coming from Melbourne, I feel an instinctive throb of meteorological kinship for Manchester, both cities having hosted abandoned Tests. Thankfully, the forecast is variable for the next few days, for who wants balmy sunshine at Old Trafford? Another tradition, however, may be under challenge. Peter Marron's pitch is expected to be bouncy, not the traditional turner. As Brett Lee has bounced back from injury in time, Stuart MacGill may not make the starting XI.

The lot of the eternal reserve is a lonely one. Bob Taylor once told me of bumping into Bill Lawry at a cocktail party in Melbourne during MCC's Australia tour of 1970-71. "Gee, I'd love a job like yours," said Lawry. "Reserve keeper? You never have to worry about playing. You can just go out and enjoy yourself." But, as Taylor continued, not playing only looks enticing when you are, and are perhaps under pressure or feeling for form. Otherwise it is like being cast in an endless rehearsal of a play that never runs. With modern tours featuring a preponderance of international fixtures, one can easily grow rusty with disuse. Matthew Hayden once went through a whole tour of Sri Lanka without playing a single game.

This was the Test which MacGill was always expected to play. He was brought along as Australia customarily picked an extra spinner for the West Indies to play at Port-of-Spain. A groundsman's preference may, as it were, have queered his pitch. It was the end of Colin Miller when he visited England without playing a Test four years ago. One wonders what this might mean for MacGill. A frustrating game, no?

The New South Welshman Stuart Clark, who has been playing for Middlesex, has been called up by Australia as cover for the injured Brett Lee: a county picking an Australian as a pro in an Ashes summer must always regard this as a possibility. Shaun Young was called up from Gloucestershire in 1997, a tour that also saw Darren Berry and Shane Lee reinforce the team from league cricket. It is also another step in the interesting history of Australians leading first-class careers in England

In these have-bat-will-travel days, we tend to forget the ambivalence, sometimes bordering on outright hostility, with which itinerant foreign professionals were once regarded. At the County Cricket Council meeting of December 1888, laughter greeted the possibility of the Australians Turner and Ferris joining Gloucestershire. Wisden itself heartily opposed Australian Test cricketers accepting the county shilling. Few aspects of the 1902 season pleased Sydney Pardon more, for example, than Victor Trumper's decision to decline overtures from Lancashire: "Incidentally I may express my extreme satisfaction that the efforts to secure him for an English county failed. It would have been a paltry and unworthy thing to deprive Australia, by means of a money bribe, of her finest batsman." Such remarks struck a strong chord with antipodean readers like Tom Horan, 'Felix' of The Australasian: "I am sure we all agree with Wisden in expressing extreme satisfaction that they failed."

Even then, though, there were pioneering professionals in English cricket, and the almanack was not only reporting their doings but applauding them. Albert Trott, who joined Middlesex in 1898 after his omission from the Australian team, was a great Wisden favourite. He was part of its first intake of Five Great Cricketers of the Season, while his unique straight drive off countryman Monty Noble at Lord's in 1899 inspired one of the more unusual advertising testimonials to appear for John Wisden & Co's cricket balls: "Dear Sir, You may like to know it was one of your Special Crowns, I hit over the Lord's pavilion in 1899. Signed Albert Trott."

Trott's example as professional cricketer was not immediately followed. Though he was succeeded at Middlesex by another Australian, the well-travelled Frank Tarrant, the likes of Alec Kermode at Lancashire, Alan Marshal at Surrey and Edmund Dwyer at Sussex remained out of the ordinary. For the three Oxford University Aussies Philip Le Couteur, Reg Bettington and Roger Kimpton, meanwhile, cricket was part of their being in England rather than being in England part of their cricket. The real harbinger of the imported superstar was Ted McDonald: a gilt-edged investment for both Nelson and Lancashire, worth rewarding with a stellar 500 pounds a year and a benefit after five years rather than the usual ten for his 1040 first-class wickets.

Not everyone became a VIP. Because of the rules of residential qualification, playing county cricket for many years involved renouncing Test opportunities. But this proved no disincentive. After World War II, county cricket abounded in transplanted Australians: Jock Livingston, George Tribe, Bruce Dooland, Ken Grieves, Bill Alley, Jack Walsh, Vic Jackson, Colin McCool, Jack McMahon, Jack Pettiford, Alan Walker and Keith Dollery. Livingston grew so attached to his surroundings at Northants, David Frith told me at Lord's, that half his ashes were sprinkled in England and half in Australia.

Relaxation of residential requirements in 1968 then presaged a new era. When Alley compiled his last century for Somerset that season, it was in the company of Greg Chappell: a young man to whom county cricket was not an end in itself, but part of a twelve-month-of-the-year cricket lifestyle. With Leicestershire's Westralian Graham McKenzie as its pioneer, it became the way of the future, with Tom Moody and Darren Lehmann among its most recent representatives. Stuart Clark may be a member of a new generation: an Australian to whom county cricket becomes, thanks to happenstance, the gateway to an international career.

Michael Kasprowicz has said that he will replay the final ball at Edgbaston in his mind forever. Apparently he's not the only one. Some sound and fury has been generated by a replay suggesting that Kasprowicz's glove may, as the ball glanced it, not have been in contact with the bat handle - the kind of sound and fury that signifies nothing.

It is an obscure part of the Law: I doubt the majority of cricket fans know it. It is also difficult to apply: as good an umpire as Shep got it wrong in 1987 when he upheld a caught behind by Imran Khan against Chris Broad. Umpire Billy Bowden made the judgment on the basis of his own eyes and ears, as he had to, not being permitted to consult the third umpire. No-one watching the game saw anything wrong with the decision at the time, and it may not even be wrong: the replay is not definitive, merely inconclusive.

Some barrack-room lawyers - perhaps it should be "dressing-room lawyers" in a cricket context - have been uttering the expression "benefit of the doubt" with the solemnity usually reserved for habeus corpus. This is meretricious reasoning. If you're going to be pedantic about the application of the Law, be prepared to have it pedantically pointed out that the extension of a "benefit of the doubt" to the batsman has nothing to do with Law: it is simply a custom, unwritten, and stressed to greater and lesser degrees by different umpires. If anything, umpire Bowden is a "not outer", while his Edgbaston partner Rudi Koertzen is an "outer". Not so long before his final judgement, Bowden spared Kasprowicz from an lbw appeal that looked as though it was missing off and leg...and you know the rest. On the third day, by contrast, Koertzen gave Pietersen and Bell adjudged caught at the wicket on the basis of evidence that might not have convicted had Bowden been its assessor. No, leave the replaying to Michael Kasprowicz, and even he shouldn't do too much of it. If you can't enjoy Edgbaston, you should find another game.