CRICKET/Ashes Series - Fourth Test:It is barely three and a half weeks since Brett Lee splattered Steve Harmison's stumps to wrap up the third Test and the Ashes, yet it seems an eternity.
Much has happened since. England players have come, gone and been forgotten and those in the one-day squad have played in five different time zones while the remainder of the touring party indulged in "active rest", the oxymoronic equivalent of a temperance party.
In that time, too, Harmison has been reacquainted with the run-up that went missing, and Shane Warne has had his series ended by a shoulder dislocation. Through all this Nasser Hussain, as far as one can tell, has retained his sanity.
The recent interval between Tests to incorporate the opening exchanges in the one-day series has taken yet more heat out of this Ashes series. Ticket sales remain exceptional but the fourth and fifth contests have taken on an irrelevance. A five-set tennis match would be over by now; in golf matchplay, Australia would have won 3 & 2 and been back in the clubhouse.
Relieved of the burden of Ashes expectation, though, England have always had a tendency to perform better in the dead matches. Four years ago they came to the MCG with the Ashes lost but the series still alive, and against the odds won memorably.
Australia have never since been beaten at home.
This time around, though, life may not be so sweet for the tourists, for much as Steve Waugh puts energy into charity work it does not extend to England. Besides which he has his own agenda, for if, as seems increasingly likely, this series is to be the Australia captain's last hurrah, then he would like to go out with a whitewash, something not achieved by the 1948 Invincibles and which has happened only once before in a five-match Ashes series, back in 1920-21 when Warwick Armstrong's Australians beat Johnny Douglas's England.
England will be wary of the inclusion in the home squad of the New South Wales leg-spinner Stuart MacGill, who played the first four Tests against them four years ago while Warne was recovering from his shoulder surgery, taking 27 wickets for spit including seven in the Boxing Day Test.
However, England's batsmen have played Warne better than ever they have done, losing out instead to the relentlessness of Glenn McGrath's Chinese torture, Jason Gillespie's incisiveness and Brett Lee's posturing at the tail. At the top of the order Marcus Trescothick's batting has been exposed as lumpen but the return of Michael Vaughanwill be a tonic.
England have a choice now between Robert Key and John Crawley, who is also fit again. Key deserves to continue.
In Perth England employed seamers, with Richard Dawson included in the side and then largely ignored. That will not be the case in Melbourne, where two changes can be expected from the Perth side.
Andy Caddick has, once again, driven Hussain to frustration. His energetic bowling against Sri Lanka last Friday, coming after he was dropped for the previous one-day match, merely reinforced the captain in his view. With Hussain's patience exhausted, this may be Caddick's last Test but he must surely replace Silverwood in the line-up here.
Alex Tudor ought to make way for Matthew Hoggard, who, if appearances are any guide, has regained confidence from the coaching he has had while sidelined for the past month. Matthew Hayden and Ricky Ponting will test that to the full.
England (from): Hussain, Trescothick, Vaughan, Butcher, Crawley, Stewart (wkt), White, Caddick, Hoggard, Key, Tudor, Harmison, Dawson, Silverwood, Collingwood.
Australia (from): Waugh (capt), Langer, Hayden, Ponting, Martyn, Lehmann, Gilchrist (wkt), MacGill, Gillespie, McGrath, Bichel, Lee.
Umpires: D L Orchard (SA) & R B Tiffin (Zim.
TV: Sky Sports 2, 11.30 p.m. tomorrow.
