Maybe the rains will come to England's help, maybe

By Ted Corbett

NOTTINGHAM, AUG. 1. The four-day weather forecast tells us there will be either showers or heavy showers over Trent Bridge for the duration of the third Test. My pal on the Nottinghamshire committee says the pitch will be perfect and that the Australians are so busy with their propaganda that they may not have time to practice cricket.

Does that mean the pivotal match in the Ashes series will be a draw? Maybe.

More likely we will see more of the pattern set at Edgbaston and Lord's in which Steve Waugh won the toss, required his three magnificent fast bowlers to smash the England first innings to smithereens, played a major role in setting up a large lead and then sat back, if that is the right expression for such an intense man, and waited until England was bowled out a second time. The result of this strategy-yes, if Hitler's blitzkrieg in 1940 was a strategy so is the Australian bombardment-has been two victories by an innings and eight wickets that should have been 10.

Do you still want to back the draw?

Since Lord's England has ceased to pretend that a broken finger can heal in three weeks and left Nasser Hussain out of its calculations for this Test and Graham Thorpe for the fourth. Although the selectors have kept their heads in the face of lost tosses, broken bones and heavy defeats there is not a basement filled with talented, hard men back in the county circuit and another injury may bring a fit of weeping instead of a committee meeting.

England will play virtually the same team that lost at Lord's with Robert Croft bringing his off-spin in place of Thorpe's classy left-handed batsmanship. It is no insult to Croft-who is, at 31, often spoken about in derisory terms as if he had just taken up the art of tight spin bowling-to say that Thorpe would be a happier choice. Once again Phil Tufnell, the finest spin bowler in the country, has been ignored but told that he would be taken to India next autumn if he behaves himself. As Tufnell became bored in India eight years ago-``seen the beggars, seen the elephants, time to go home'' he had said then-we may expect an outbreak of Philomania at any moment.

Of course Australia has had a bad experience since the last Test. It was beaten by Hampshire, a county with style, according to its former captain Mark Nicholas in Wednesday's newspaper. That style included the famous phrase from one leader who said he insisted that all his players were in bed by eight before a match. He clearly meant 8 a.m. which gave their bunch of rogues ample opportunity for nights of fun and may explain why they have won only two championships since 1863.

Not fit to play against the all-conquering Aussies, you might think, much less find a path to victory. That Australian defeat was more down to Waugh's declaration and his insistence on attacking throughout than a moment of weakness.

Nor is there any reason to think that, if they can squeeze in three and-a-half day's play, the Australians will falter at Trent Bridge where five of the last 10 Tests have been drawn but where the Aussies have won two of their last three. Super-optimists, a vanishing breed in the English cricket community, remember that England's revival against South Africa in 1998 gained momentum from victory at Trent Bridge. That is as likely in 2001 against this bunch of Untouchables as a prolonged

English heat wave. If they achieve a series victory from this point it will be remembered as long as, well, a similar comeback in India just a few months ago.

* The teams:

England: Michael Atherton (captain), Marcus Trescothick, Mark Butcher, Mark Ramprakash, Alec Stewart, Ian Ward, Craig White, Robert Croft, Alex Tudor, Andrew Caddick, Darren Gough; Chris Silverwood, Usman Afzaal.

Australia: Steve Waugh (captain), Michael Slater, Matthew Hayden, Ricky Ponting, Mark Waugh, Damien Martyn, Adam Gilchrist, Shane Warne, Brett Lee, Jason Gillespie, Glenn McGrath.

Umpires: John Hampshire and S. Venkataraghavan, India. Match referee: Talet Ali, Pakistan.

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