da gbg bet： England’s fighting spirit was frayed by another class performance from theAustralians, spearheaded by Glenn McGrath who captured his 350th Test wicket
da bet7： Kate Laven18-Aug-2001England’s fighting spirit was frayed by another class performance from theAustralians, spearheaded by Glenn McGrath who captured his 350th Test wicket.By the close of an entertaining third day, cut short by rain and bad light,the tourists were 207 runs ahead with nine wickets still in tact.Michael Slater was England’s only second innings success, after Darren Goughforced him to play on having reached 16 and Ricky Ponting had anotherescape, for the second time in the match, when he was dropped by MikeAtherton on four.A capacity Headingley crowd were kept spellbound by the action and drama provided throughout the day, with Alec Stewart playing a whirlwind innings down the order and McGrath reaching his milestone to become the third Australian in history to take 350 wickets.A sense of theatre was created with the dismissal of England captain NasserHussain, just 11 minutes into play. After his valiant effort on the secondday’s play, he was cornered by a ball from McGrath that kept low and nippedback to hit him on the pad.He had added a single to his overnight total but his departure came as amajor blow for England after he and Mark Butcher had raised hopes with astand of 91 that promised a serious and hefty response to Australia’s firstinnings total of 447.Butcher went nine balls later, calling for an impossible single and fallingfour feet short when Brett Lee broke the wicket. He made 47 but the prospectof another England collapse looked likely with the score 158 for four, twonew batsmen at the crease and the follow-on target still 90 runs off.Mark Ramprakash produced one of the highlights of the day by reacting to apainful blow on the wrist from Jason Gillespie with a powerful punch throughthe covers for four, to the great delight of a supportive crowd.When Australia took the new ball, he had reached 40 and looked settled andconfident but his innings was brought to a premature end when he edgedMcGrath to the wicket-keeper, Gilchrist taking it in front of his nose.Meanwhile, Stewart was starting to gain momentum, showing his habitual likingfor the new ball despite his demotion to number seven. He exploited awayward spell from Lee, hitting him for three fours in one over.He saw Alex Tudor come and go then watched as Andrew Caddick was pummelledby Lee, who had clearly singled him out for some special hostility. For thecrowd, it provided some of the best entertainment of the day as Caddickretaliated to a knock on the elbow by square cutting him for four.Lee was bowling as fast as he has ever bowled, his fastest ball reaching aremarkable 92.6mph and his next ball careered straight into Caddick’s stumpsbut as the bails went flying, up went the umpire’s hand to signal a no-ball,to huge cheers all round.With the score on 299 for nine, the players left the field for bad light andreturned to add another ten to the total before Alan Mullally becameMcGrath’s seventh victim of the match and the 350th of his career.It left Stewart unbeaten on 76, having faced 83 balls, and after a difficultseries it marked a welcome return to form.
