Cricket: Australia's turn to be butchered

Australia 485 England 299-4

AUSTRALIA ARE a nation of punters but few would have backed Mark Butcher to end his run drought with a century off their Test match attack. On a good day for England, the Surrey opener's superlative innings was one in the eye for form watchers everywhere as England passed their first benchmark and saved the follow-on.

With just nine runs from his five previous innings on tour, three of them noughts, Butcher looked a certain sitting duck against an attack champing at the bit. Indeed many locals felt he must have been going for the Olympic rings (five noughts) rather than glory.

Yet confronted by a pitch distinctly Oval-like in character (bouncy but evenly paced) and with the constant blessing of his captain, Alec Stewart, ringing in his ears, the left-hander's rehabilitation was instant. Team England may have a sport's psychologist, but nothing has the recuperative powers of feeling bat on ball. By square driving his fifth ball to the cover fence, Butcher achieved in a blink of an eye what no amount of sessions in the think tank could.

Confidence is a precious commodity among batsmen, and its passing is mourned far more than a favourite bat. Slumps can be short, medium or prolonged, but they are almost always due to mental rather than technical shortcomings.

"I decided that the best thing to do was to put bat on ball," said the 26-year old Butcher. "That's the way I prepared in the nets before the match. The two catches I took helped get me in the game and once I'd found the middle of the bat, any nerves disappeared very quickly."

Although officially denied by Butcher himself, the nasty clang above the eye in Perth, which required 10 stitches, would have played its part. Accordingly, his footwork suffered, particularly on the slow, low pitches at Adelaide and Cairns.

Much, of course, will have come from the spirit within, and Stewart's loyal mantra that his brother-in-law is a tough cookie and not a cause for concern, has been proved spot on. If there are still slight misgivings over his technique around off-stump, Butcher has a least proved he has a rock solid temperament.

"I tried to stay strong in my mind and tell myself that it was not a problem. After all I hadn't been batting long enough to tell if I was in bad nick. You can't tell when you keep getting out in the first over."

Finding your feet in the cauldron of an Australian Test arena is not for the faint of heart, but when you do it wins over many fans. No mean Test batsman himself, Dean Jones a commentator here at the Gabba, felt Butcher played with the same simplicity and resolve as Allan Border. From an Aussie that is praise indeed.

With barely a blemish during his four and a half hour stay, Butcher did, however, enjoy some fortune when he was on 92. Mick Kasprowicz is a tall strapping pace bowler and he forced Butcher into playing on off the inside- edge. Fortunately for the opener, as well as his team, Kasprowicz had overstepped the crease and a no-ball was called.

Mark Taylor, normally an uncompromising captain, played his part in allowing England to settle, by opening the day with his leg-spinner Stuart MacGill. It is true that England have tended to have a weakness against leg-spinners, but they have been working hard with their spin guru, Peter Philpott.

While improvements have been made, MacGill is no Shane Warne, despite his better disguised googly. For one thing, he offers little subtlety in flight and bowls at least one rank ball an over, generosity gratefully received by Butcher and Nasser Hussain who took 22 runs of the leg-spinner's opening three overs to give a potentially tricky morning crucial momentum. If MacGill is the rung below Warne and a potential match-winner, then England should consider giving Ian Salisbury a reprieve.

A nervy character, MacGill is apparently a profuse sweater, a problem that makes gripping the ball difficult. This, of course, may explain the excessive number of full tosses, one of which, somewhat fortuitously, accounted for the England captain. When he took nine wickets against Pakistan in Rawalpindi, both the ground and wind were very dry, conditions not apparent at the Gabba, where a humid morning eventually gave way to the thunderstorm that curtailed the day's play just before 4pm.

While it is undeniable that Butcher played the major innings, both Hussain and Graham Thorpe played important cameos. Hussain in particular took the attack to the Australians. His back foot play, a requisite for success in Australia, was both punishing and a joy to watch as he raced to his fifty off just 68 balls.

The cavalier to Butcher's roundhead, Hussain's downfall came after he and Butcher had added 134 for the second wicket. Following a nip-backer to the batsman, with one that held its own around off stump, Kasprowicz forced Hussain to play a shade inside the line of the ball, an error that saw a faint edge carry to Ian Healy.

It was a deserving piece of bowling, something that could not be said about the next dismissal. Never his best starting against spin, Stewart offered a sharp chance to short leg, when he turned MacGill off his toes. Not long after the leg-spinner sealed the matter when Stewart carted a high full toss straight down deep square-leg's throat.

At this point England were 168 for 3 and 118 runs short of the follow- on target. No matter. With Thorpe now keeping him company, Butcher returned to the task of compiling his second Test century, a milestone that arrived when he cover drove MacGill to the rope.

Hampered by a bad back, which he tweaked in the morning session when his studs got caught, Butcher had equalled his previous best score of 116 when he offered a window of opportunity to Mark Waugh, Australia's fifth change bowler. A remarkable athlete, Waugh dived high to his right to take a brilliant one-handed catch.

The dismissal handed the Surrey baton to Thorpe who passed 50 just before tea. An hour later the heavens opened and play was abandoned for the rest of the day.

THE GABBA SCOREBOARD

Third day; Australia won toss

AUSTRALIA - First Innings 485 (I A Healy 134, S R Waugh 112, D W Fleming 71no, A D Mullally 5-105).

ENGLAND - First Innings

(Overnight: 53 for 1)

M A Butcher c and b M Waugh 116

278 min, 236 balls, 16 fours

N Hussain c Healy b Kasprowicz 59

141 min, 99 balls, 10 fours

*A J Stewart c Kasprowicz b MacGill 8

17 min, 9 balls, 1 four

G P Thorpe not out 70

192 min, 142 balls, 6 fours

M R Ramprakash not out 29

91 min, 75 balls, 1 four

Extras (b1, lb7, nb9) 17

Total (for 4, 370 min, 94.2 overs) 299

Fall (cont): 2-145 (Hussain), 3-168 (Stewart), 4-240 (Butcher).

To bat: D G Cork, R D B Croft, D Gough, A D Mullally, A R C Fraser.

Bowling: McGrath 24-7-66-1 (nb2) (7-2-13-1, 7-2-25-0, 5-1-13-0, 2-0-10- 0, 3-2-5-0); Fleming 22-5-62-0 (4-2-10-0, 3-0-10-0, 5-0-26-0, 7-3-5-0, 3-0-11-0); Kasprowicz 18.2-2-61-1 (nb5) (4-1-14-0, 7-0-26-1, 3-1-10-0, 3-0-9-0, 1.2-0-2-0); MacGill 16-2-57-1 (nb1) (4-1-22-0, 10-1-32-1, 2-0- 3-0); S Waugh 3-0-17-0; Ponting 3-0-10-0; M Waugh 8-1-18-1 (nb1) (one spell each).

Progress: Second day: 50: 68 min, 17 overs. Close: 53-1 (Butcher 23, Hussain 23) 19 overs. Third day: 100: 120 min, 30.2 overs. 150: 163 min, 39.4 overs. Lunch: 179-3 (Butcher 93, Hussain 6) 47 overs. 200: 218 min, 53.3 overs. Tea: 262-4 (Thorpe 50, Ramprakash 13) 82 overs. New ball taken immediately after tea. 250: 292 min, 74 overs. Bad light stopped play at 3.54pm.

Umpires: K T Francis and D B Hair.

TV replay umpire: P D Parker.

Match referee: J R Reid.

Compiled by Jo King