On the Brink - Day Four at Sydney

For Australia to entertain any thoughts of getting out of Sydney with even a whiff of respectability then they were going to have to bowl well this morning and then bat with the kind of application that they haven’t shown since the Hussey – Haddin stand at Brisbane, which feels an eternity ago. They did neither.

Matt Prior started the series by being the meat in the sandwich of Peter Siddle’s first day hat trick, but his batting has improved as the series has gone on and he was at his imperious best again today, moving effortlessly on from his overnight fifty-four to one hundred and eighteen. When he is batting well he is a joy to watch, rather in the style of his original mentor Alec Stewart, driving through the off side in particular with power and grace. He found good support, too, in Tim Bresnan, who is a more than handy batsman and, after a steady start, produced some thumping shots of his own. With Graeme Swann then enjoying himself hugely at the expense of the wilting Mitchell Johnson England’s innings finally closed at a startling six hundred and forty four, their second score of six hundred in the series and the fourth time that they have passed five hundred.

Australia started pretty well in reply with Shane Watson playing some trademark muscular shots and Phillip Hughes hanging on in there, but Watson’s departure to a farcical run out rather summed up Australia’s series and Hughes played a typical firm handed prod outside the off stump not long afterwards. Khawaja and Clarke both played nicely for a time, but both perished in the manner that has typified Australia’s batting approach over the last few weeks, pushing with hard hands at balls moving away from them. With Hussey perishing to a cut shot and Tremlett then producing two wickets in two balls there is no way back fro Australia. Haddin and Johnson were both undone by excellent deliveries, but this as Johnson’s eighth duck in his last eleven tests and he was, as so often, firm footed against the moving ball.

England took the extra half hour but Smith and Siddle, showing rare character in an Australian side that has none of the mental toughness of its predecessors, survived to the close. England’s champagne, however, is on ice. They have outplayed their opponents in every single department and tomorrow morning should be the first Ashes side ever to win three tests in a series by an innings. Bring it on.