So Atherton has played McGrath markedly worse than any of his senior team-mates. Hussain and Thorpe are not openers, but Stewart is, and his record as an opener against Australia is good – he averages 41, as against 25 when he goes in lower down. Yet the idea that Atherton and Stewart might need to swap places does not seem to have crossed anybody’s mind.This state of affairs is unlikely to be changed by one cry in the wilderness – sorry, in The Independent. Atherton will walk out to open next week with Marcus Trescothick, as sure as ducks are ducks. And Stewart will keep wicket, which means he won’t open – even though his best innings in the last home Ashes series, a blazing two-hour 87, came in the one Test when he was asked to open as well as keep.However, there are crumbs of hope.

Atherton ran into top form last week with a large, leisurely, match-winning hundred for Lancashire. Stewart, who is even more of a form player than most, had such an awful sequence in the one-dayers that he must be about to come good again – and he showed signs of it with his 67 on Monday in the Benson and Hedges Cup semi-final.The spurs are all in place. Both men desperately want to win an Ashes series for the first time in their long careers. Stewart has been widely written off in the past fortnight, and the last time that happened, when he was left out of the one-day side for South Africa 18 months ago, there was hell to pay. Atherton is suffering the indignity of seeing his McGrath stats paraded in the papers (sorry Mike).And there is one encouraging precedent.

Gooch, their old opening partner, had been a Test cricketer for 15 years before Australia brought out the best of him. At the end of his most wretched Ashes series, against Terry Alderman in 1989, Gooch had an average against Australia of just 26. Thereafter, it was 44 – even though there was a late slump in his final five Tests.Anything Gooch could do, so can Ath and Stew.Tim de Lisle is editor of Wisden .. Clare Connor is an English teacher. So it will not come as a surprise that she has a fair grip of the language, borne out by her remarks when England went down to Australia by an innings and 140 runs an hour after lunch on the third day of their first Test here yesterday

Clare Connor is an English teacher. So it will not come as a surprise that she has a fair grip of the language, borne out by her remarks when England went down to Australia by an innings and 140 runs an hour after lunch on the third day of their first Test here yesterday.
The England captain’s dismay shone through as England were bowled out for 101 in 61 overs and she said: “We were outplayed.

We have a young and inexperienced side, but I never thought it was going to be as bad as that. Now we have to pick ourselves up for the three one-day internationals.” They start at Derby on Friday and will coincide with the arrival of John Harmer, the coach who groomed Australia into the side they are now and will be hoping to do the same with England. Until this series ends, with the second Test at Leeds on 6 July, his brief will be a watching one. But there is no need for him to rush for a return ticket just yet.Australia are still a hardened and honest team – still the best in the world. In Cathryn Fitzpatrick, who added three second-innings wickets to her first-innings haul of five, they have the fastest and most dominating bowler in women’s cricket. And as their older hands drop out, players like Michelle Goszko, who made an Australian record of 204 in her first Test innings, come in.England newcomers like Kate Lowe and Arran Thompson still have not played enough cricket at the top level to match the Aussies. But as Harmer said: “Some of the England girls have a lot of talent.

That’s one of the reasons I took the job.”* Kent have signed the Australian Andrew Symonds as their overseas player until the end of the season, to fill the gap left by the injured South African Daryll Cullinan.. This is a match that has three distinct perspectives. For the sun-baked spectators it has thus far been entertainment pure and simple. For the toiling MCC bowlers and fielders it has been something of a flog in unforgiving heat, although they have stuck manfully to their task

This is a match that has three distinct perspectives. For the sun-baked spectators it has thus far been entertainment pure and simple. For the toiling MCC bowlers and fielders it has been something of a flog in unforgiving heat, although they have stuck manfully to their task.
But for the Australians this friendly fixture has been something quite different. The first Test is now a week away and there is a frisson of anxiety disturbing the surface of the present leaders of the ICC Test Championship – namely the form of Justin Langer.Yesterday, when his captain Steve Waugh smacked the 64th hundred of his career, Langer failed again.