England MacGrilled by Stuart8217;s seven

Mark Ramprakash battled hard as he had done all series, but he played a shot which appeared to be an afterthought and guided the ball into the safe hands of Mark Taylor. That catch gave the Australian captain the world record, a deserving reward for a player who has made very few mistakes in a long and successful career at first slip. Ramprakash8217;s form had tailed off and he paid dearly for not capitalising on his early series good form with a really big score.

Graeme Hick is a talented player, but not a thoughtful one. Hick appears to have no plan when he bats and strangely lacks confidence. He certainly failed to learn anything about Stuart MacGill8217;s bowling during the series and the leg-spinner picked him up for the fourth time 8212; bowled behind his legs sweeping. That was the start of the downhill slide as John Crawley meekly padded up to the off-spinner; Warren Hegg managed to just reach an attempted cut and Ian Healy took a marvellous reflex catch in the webbing of his glove.

Down the other end, Nasser Hussain was fighting with grim determination to keep England afloat. He8217;d batted purely for survival on the third evening as his form deserted him, but he was a lot more fluent on the final day, square-driving with something like his usual authority. Eventually, he was deceived by MacGill, who drifted the ball into the pads and this resulted in a caught and bowled chance.

Fittingly, MacGill finished the match 8212; an unusual caught and bowled giving him 27 wickets for the series. Peter Such smashed a short ball into the boot of Michael Slater at silly mid-off and it ricocheted back to the bowler who grabbed the sharp chance and then immediately doubled his souvenir collection by lifting a stump. Bowling together for only the second time in a Test, MacGill had taken 12 wickets to Shane Warne8217;s two. Is the tyro six times better than the master, or has Warne slipped alarmingly?

In Warne8217;s case, batsmen should be wary as he8217;s far from a spent force. It could well be that MacGill8217;s success will act as the spur that gives Warne8217;s career a second life. He8217;s certainly starting to bowl well and the lay-off has probably only served to make his acute bowling brain even sharper. The thought of the pair working in tandem should be sending shock waves through the already shell-shocked West Indies batsmen.

After winning their sixth successive Ashes series Australia finally received an urn, albeit a Waterford Crystal replica of the original. They also have the satisfaction of knowing there8217;s a good chance they8217;ll retain this travelling urn, as even though England have the nucleus of a good pace attack, they are deficient in batting and the spin bowling is threadbare, which should add up to another Australian win in 2001.