England on the brink of joining the immortals

On a day when that doughty fighter Paul Collingwood announced his retirement from test cricket, England are on the verge of gaining admittance to the cricketing equivalent of Valhalla after once again dominating a pathetic Australian side on day 4 at the SCG. If Adelaide and Melbourne were good, Sydney has been even better. Other than Perth and the first innings at Brisbane, England have utterly dominated this series and a final scoreline of 3-1 will provide the gloss that their efforts have deserved.

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Plaudits have been plentiful for the performance of test debutant Usman Khawaja yesterday. One of the very few Australian batsmen (the first since Justin Langer in 1992) to make his debut at number three, Khawaja did look fairly solid and seemed to have a good temperate. However, with a score of merely 37, it shows the state of Australian cricket that he is already being heralded as the next big thing. He should, of course, be congratulated for making a fairly decent score, but it is worthwhile noting that not so long ago a debut score in the thirties would not have been met with such celebration.

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England 332 and 373 for 9 dec (Trott 119, Strauss 77, Swann 63, North 4-98) lead Australia 160 and 80-0 trail by 465 runs

Trott and Swann piled on the runs for England setting Australia a mammoth 545 runs for victory. Trott becomes the 18th Englishmen to score a century on debut following in the footsteps of fellow teammates Ian Bell, Alistair Cook and Matt Prior.

The day started in sensational fashion as the first ball of the day saw a huge appeal call for caught behind. It looked out and Trott looked a guilty man too. However replays shows it flicked his back leg, producing a very woody sound.

Strauss soon brought up his 50, the longest of his England career; it was a testing time though, requiring a steely grit and determination that typifies the England captain.

Trott shortly afterwards brought up his fifty with a crisp whip through the on side. His timing impeccable as it would prove throughout his composed innings.

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