Shaky Soothog hangs in there

How did England not win the game? The Aussies have their tail to thank yet again for an invaluably gritty rearguard after another laughable performance by the top order - with the exception of Ricky Ponting (Shaky Soothog in predictive text) of course.

I think Vaughan made a mistake in taking the new ball as soon as it was available. Simon Jones was getting noticeable reverse swing with the old one and Freddie - who is quite adept at reverse himself - was relatively fresh for another go. That probably was the decisive point of the game - with new batsman Warne just in, a bit of reverse might have got him. Instead, the new ball came on to the bat quite comfortably on the fifth day wicket and Warne hung on and killed a valuable ninety minutes.

What does this draw mean for the remainder of the series? Well, I think the Aussies will definitely take heart from this and use the ten day break to regroup and devise a better ploy against England. Dizzy will get his marching orders and Kasper or Tait will come in. I have a feeling this makes it advantage Australia, at least from a psychological point of view.

Well played, Ricky