As the Australian media rounded on our under-performing Test team
over the weekend, there was also emphatic denials we’re coming apart
off the field, following UK reports of a row between skipper Ricky
Ponting and Shane Warne. But first the really bad news!

After Australia were all out for 302 in the opening session with
Shane Warne’s dismissal on 90 ending his quest for his first Test century,
England later declared at 6-280 (McGrath 5-115), and with Australia needing to
survive either a tough last day draw or, even more improbably, make a world record
423 to take a 2-1 series lead, our openers knocked off 24 runs without loss at
stumps in fading light against mandatory slow bowling.

Now we must contemplate the truly unthinkable – that England is not only a superior team right now – but
very likely to take a 2-1 series lead into the Fourth Test at
Nottingham.

To say the wheels have well and truly fallen off the Australian
bandwagon at Old Trafford is something of an understatement. Shane
Warne’s “bunny” Andrew Strauss not only helped himself to his sixth
Test hundred, but helped set Australia a world record run chase. This
at a ground where no team has made more than England’s 3-231 against
the West Indies last year. On the basis of England’s ebullient and
aggressive attack and our out-of-sorts batsmen, including an injured
Michael Clarke, how could it not be a walkover? But if we can
rediscover some of the grit shown by the likes of Shane Warne and our
tail-end batsmen during the past two Tests – maybe there’s yet one
final twist to this looming Old Trafford tragedy.

As Christopher Martin-Jenkins notes in The Times, fans of both countries will be expecting yet another eventful
roller coaster ride as Australia desperately tries to hang on for a draw, while
England goes for the jugular.

The media is also reporting whispers supposedly emanating from
the England dressing room; team members were rumoured to have overheard a difference of
opinion amidst our own ranks – namely that Shane
Warne had a row with Ricky Ponting over his decision to send England into bat
on the opening day of the Second Test at Edgbaston.

However, as reported in today’s Age, both team management and the players concerned are having none of
it, with Ponting and Warne strongly denying the row happened: “and vice-captain
Adam Gilchrist, who was reported to have intervened in the dispute, was
understood to be particularly incensed.”