Australia retains Ashes in style

By Ted Corbett

NOTTINGHAM, AUG. 4.As the third Test teetered on a knife edge at Trent Bridge on Saturday, Steve Waugh, the Australian captain, had to be carried from the ground with a right calf injury which will almost certainly keep him out of the fourth Test at Headingley next week.

It would be a mighty blow for any team even as Australia boldly upped its game a couple of notches and 90 minutes later had won by seven wickets with two days and a third remaining.

It has taken them only ten days - of the 15 allocated to three Tests - to build up a 3-0 lead and no-one can deny it is the worthy holder of the Ashes which has been in its possession since 1989 - positive, imaginative, always ready to attack and so full of self belief it bubbles out of their star-dusted halos.

Mark Waugh and Damien Martyn scored the last 41 runs of the 158 needed for victory in 20 minutes, a mark of their superiority, even though the winning run came from a no-ball.

Waugh received the injury as he set off for a short single, collapsed as he reached the other end and, after being treated on field by his own physio Errol Alcott was put on a stretcher and carried from the ground. Australia, still needing 61 to win this low-scoring Test, had seven wickets in hand but it was clear from the statement that came out of the dressing room an hour later that he would only bat in an emergency.

His departure coincided with the second rain break of the day but afterwards Australia gained the upper hand when a miserable over by Tudor went for three fours. The pace of its run-scoring was extraordinary for a side under pressure. It had 117 in two hours off 24 overs; then came the third storm. Hardly a worry for Australia with two days to play.

Australia had begun its chase for 158 knowing that twice at the Oval in the last two tours and at Melbourne in 1998- 9, it had failed to make small totals against England in the fourth innings.

Michael Slater and Matthew Hayden went straight into top gear, hit the edges so hard that they scorched through the slips and the unprotected third man boundary for four and put 36 on the board before Slater was caught at third slip off Caddick. Hayden should have been caught by Trescothick in exactly the same position in the next over but by lunch his determined driving had gather 35 out of 68 for one in 13 overs.

The Aussies seemed ready to cruise to victory but in the first over after lunch Robert Croft, bowling only his third over of the match, was smashed for four by Ricky Ponting, the out-of-touch, out-of-place No. 3 who was stumped off the second ball.

The whole tempo of the game changed from that moment. At 88 Hayden was lbw to Tudor and in the next over the Steve Waugh injury meant that Australia was, to all intents and purposes, 89 for four and the game was back in the melting pot. We dreamed it might deter these magnificent Aussies. We were wrong.

The end of the England innings had nothing of the spirit of the final moments of the Australia first innings when 85 came in 90 minutes. England batted only 49 balls - 50 minutes with a 20 minute rain break - and lost three wickets in 14 balls to Jason Gillespie for six runs. Only Alex Tudor, last out to Shane Warne, put up any worthwhile resistance - his eight was the fifth highest score of the innings.

Ian Ward, surely an easy victim if the selectors swing their axe, was out from the fifth ball of the day, lbw on the back foot to Gillespie, Robert Croft lasted only four balls for nought and Andrew Caddick was Gillespie's 100th Test wicket.

They cannot be accused of letting the side down after Mark Ramprakash's wild charge down the pitch and Alec Stewart's cross- batted shot to his second ball. The fault lies not with England's tail-end batting nor with their bowlers but with the batting which - lacking Graham Thorpe, Nasser Hussain and Michael Vaughan - is weak, even alongside the Australian line-up which might have looked sorry without the explosive Adam Gilchrist.

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