Hoggard back in the swing for return to reality

In view of the most recent events regarding the England team it is almost tempting to vent the old rallying cry: "Bring on the Aussies". A moment's sober reflection – if that is possible given the season and the simple, unqualified relief at winning again – should make the urge disappear long before the Fourth Test of the Ashes series begins in Melbourne on Boxing Day.

Bringing on the Aussies has never been a good idea for any side these past 10 years and it usually leads to self-doubt, recrim-inations, calls for sackings including most of the present players, soul-searching about the sale of school playing fields, hand-wringing about the slow decline of the sport and yearnings on the collapse of empire. And then the leader writers get stuck in.

Two consecutive one-day victories against Sri Lanka constitute a roll on this tour, and nobody should doubt their significance to a party whose grip was slipping as rapidly as their players were being carted off to hospital. The cardinal lesson to be drawn from them, however, is that Australia are playing a different game from everybody else, and whatever it is, it ain't much like cricket used to be.

England must now play Australia again as the crazy itinerary reverts to the long version (though not that long with Australia involved) of the game. The timing and England's recovery in the one-day tri-series at least offer partial reasons for optimism: what is known in the world's stock markets as a Santa Claus rally, which might amount to taking the match into the fifth day. If Nasser Hussain's side were actually to win they would presumably think all their Christmases had come at once.

When the Ashes went down the Swan at Perth a fortnight ago the instant reaction was that England should start rebuilding immediately. This is not as easy as it sounds, although so many English cricketers are now gathered in Melbourne for Christmas that you wonder if there are any left at home for the chairman of selectors and chief executive of the Professional Cricketers' Association, David Graveney, to represent.

There are 21 with the touring party, some of them original selections. Seven stayed in Perth after the Test. This turned out not to be the thumb-twiddling exercise it had all the signs of being. Graham Dilley, the Test team's part-time assistant coach (why they don't elevate this thoughtful fellow to full-time is a mystery) stayed with the players.

"We had a couple of days' break to start but after that they have done a huge amount of work," he said. "Most of this has evolved around fitness, partly to get a break from cricket. But it has given the chance as well to do some serious one-to-one work with players, which I think has been helpful. It's easier with a small group, but it's also tough, because all of them want to be with the team. We've got to take a step forward from here. We know we're playing against the best side in the world, but we have got to be a better side than we have been."

The Rest of England, supported by four county cricketers playing club cricket in Perth, rounded off their stint in the western city with a four-day game against the England Academy. Get out the bunting again: England won. Well, winning in Australia as opposed to against Australia is an important start. There were runs for Mark Butcher (96) and John Crawley (55) but as importantly there were wickets for Alex Tudor (five) and Matthew Hoggard (eight), which did not leave much room for the off-spin of Richard Dawson. One of the two pace bowlers, perhaps both, might play at the MCG on Thursday.

"Hoggard bowled fast and he swung it," said Dilley. "He is instinctively one of those players you want to do well because he works so hard. He has a lot of spirit." The same goes for Tudor, though he has regularly driven English coaches to distraction.

England's priority now is to avoid their first 5-0 series defeat since going to the West Indies in 1985-86, and their first against Australia since 1920-21. It is not easy to see how they can do that with an old team, a new team or a mixture of both. In the end they will stick to what they came with. The batting line-up should include Robert Key at No 5 instead of the unfortunate Crawley. Presumably, Alec Stewart will stay at six because that position is too high for the tour's reserve wicketkeeper, James Foster. To have any hope of bowling out Australia twice, England will have to play five bowlers including their all-rounder, pray that they all stay on the field for the entire duration of the contest and then further try to invoke a miracle.

The bowling line-up will not give them as much food for thought as it might have done. The Lancashire fast bowler James Anderson has flown home for Christmas to attend a memorial service for his grandmother and will rejoin the team for the remainder of the VB Series in early January. Otherwise he might well have made his debut on Thursday and brought an end to Andrew Caddick's auspicious Test career. Anderson, 20, was originally in Australia this winter to attend the Academy in Adelaide but was called up to the one-day squad in the wake of continual injuries. He made the team and has come off with flying colours and a slower ball of genuine deviousness.

Caddick epitomises the English player who does well against everybody and then Australia come along – which does not make him a bad player. He will play, but for one of the last times. Hoggard (or Tudor), Stephen Harmison and Dawson will also be trying to halt the runs haemorrhage.

England are obliged to try to avoid the whitewash, but the same old thing will not do. Watching one of those small-town American hero pictures on the television the other day (much more comforting than watching England play cricket) I heard one character convey some cod philosophy which should now guide whoever picks England teams: "Despair looks only to the past. The future is now".