England relive nightmare

Mike Atherton was desperate to avoid Australia building up a big lead so that they had the opportunity to steam roll the England batting in the second innings. That is exactly what happened at Old Trafford and the dose was repeated at Headingley. The recurring nightmares must be vivid and horrid for the England skipper.

This will be a hard trend for England to reverse as it involves mental scarring for both the batsmen and bowlers. The only issue Australia now have left to resolve is Mark Taylor’s recurring failures seeing they have ignored them for so long, it is reasonable to assume they will continue to do so.

The Australian camp will more likely spend their time in delighting that most of the ground work for this victory was done by the younger brigade. The contributions of Jason Gillespie, Matthew Elliott and Ricky Ponting were the equal of those provided by the senior members of the team at Old Trafford.

This not only broadens Australia’s base for uncovering match winners, but will also allow the senior members to relax a little and enjoy their cricket.On the last morning it was Shane Warne who started Englands downward spiral with a wonderful piece of leg-spin bowling. He deceived Nasser Hussain with a well flighted over spinner and the off-dirve finished in mid-off’s hands.

From there, Paul Reiffel applied the grease to the pole, by bowling an exceptional spell of seam and swing bowling. He bowled England’s other big hope John Crawley with a prodigious off cutter and then first ball after lunch started the celebrations by getting Robert Croft.

Reiffel had another five wicket haul at Headingley and in the process had done everything to embarrass the selectors who left him out of the original party.

England’s slide was helped by the magical Mark Waugh in the slips. He took two sharp catches the first one being a typical Waugh effort. He caught the ball behind him (as if traditional slip catching isn’t difficult enough) and then showed Graham Thorpe how the fast moving ball is caught in front of the eyes. The scary thing for England is that Mark’s contributions in the series so far have been extremely minor and that can’t keep happening.

After the match, it was time for Jason Gillespie to receive his Man of the Match award and the traditional champagne shower. Then once again the England team would have been subjected to another raucous rendition of the Australian dressing room ringing out with, “Under the Southern Cross”.

I wonder, how many of this party will hear it again and how many more times Atherton can stand to hear the final line, “Australia you …. beauty”?SCOREBOARD

England (1st Innings): 172

Australia (1st Innings): 501 for 9 decl.

England (2nd Innings): Mark Butcher c Healy b McGrath 19; Michael Atherton c Warne b McGrath 2; Alec Stewart b Reiffel 16; Nasser Hussain c Gillespie b Warne 105; Graham Thorpe c Mark Waugh b Gillespie 15, John Crawley b Reiffel 72; Mark Ealham c Mark Waugh b Reiffel 4; Dean Headley lbw Reiffel 3; Robert Croft c Healy b Reiffel 5; Darren Gough c Mark Waugh b Gillespie 0; Mike Smith not out 4; Extras (6b, 4lb, 13nb) 23; Total: 268

Fall of wkts: 1-23, 2-28, 3-57, 4-89, 5-222, 6-252, 7-256, 8-263, 9-264.

Bowling: Glenn McGrath 22-5-80-2, Paul Reiffel 21.1-2-49-5, Jason Gillespie 23-8-65-2, Shane Warne 21-6-53-1, Steve Waugh 4-1-11-0