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It was nice winning the final One-dayer against Australia after losing the first six games. Now the real challenge for us is to keep the momentum going. It has put us in the right frame of mind for the upcoming Champions Trophy and will help our cause immensely.
We need to keep up the spirit of winning and the result will take care of itself. Going into the tournament , one thing that we want to change is the record of English ODI teams.
We have not won anything major in this format and have not even featured in a major Cup final since 1992. So heres the challenge for us.
One of the factors for our poor record is that we do not play as much One-day cricket as a team as the subcontinent teams do.
Besides, we have had different coaches in the last decade who have different thoughts about the One-day format.
While other teams have increased their quota of games, we havent . All this put together could be a reason for our struggle.
We have got some good young players, who have got nothing to lose. We just need to board the flight and go to South Africa and express ourselves fearlessly.
Of course, we do miss the likes of Kevin Pietersen and Andrew Flintoff. They are among the top ten players in the world. But we have to move forward and its an opportunity for young players to fill those big shoes.
My own form was down a bit in the last seven ODIs against Australia , but in West Indies and in the English summer I was hitting the ball really well. It was bit of a shame that I did not score many runs against Australia, but now comes the time to turn the corner.
Readers in India may wonder how despite having a county system where we play so much oneday cricket we still do not produce results at the international level.
One reason for that could be that at the county level we are in different teams working with different ideas. It is a matter of England ODI team working together and spending a lot of time to create an understanding and transform the results. I am sure with the new players coming in this is the start of a new One-day team.
Of course leading the way are two men I know very well. Andrew Strauss and coach Andy Flower. They instill confidence in us by looking at the positives.

Amid scenes of delirium unwitnessed in South London since the unforgettable summer of 2005, England’s cricketers reclaimed the Ashes on a tumultuous fourth afternoon at The Oval, as Australia’s brave resistance – led by a century of incredible mental fortitude from Michael Hussey – was unpicked, wicket by wicket, minute by minute, until, at 5.47pm, and with an expectant crowd willing on the moment of glory, Hussey prodded Graeme Swann to Alastair Cook at short leg to spark the celebrations into life.  At the moment of victory, all of England’s players rushed into a huddle on the edge of the square – all except for one, that is. In his moment of Test retirement, Andrew Flintoff’s first instinct was to seek out and console the crestfallen centurion Hussey, whose 121 from 263 balls had given his side a hope of salvation, but whose careless running between the wickets during a fraught afternoon session had been the single biggest factor in their demise. By calling for the single that led to the run-out of his captain and resistance-leader Ricky Ponting for 66, Hussey is unlikely to recall this particular innings with any fondness whatsoever.

Inevitably, it was Flintoff who stole the show from the Australians. He could not be the tub-thumping batsman of old in this series, while his bowling – though thunderous at Lord’s – faded cruelly as the concerns about his right knee began to mount. But as a presence, and as a man who can make things happen on a cricket field, his spell has scarcely diminished. In a moment that is sure to be replayed for years on end, he gathered a firm clip from Hussey, steadied himself as Ponting hesitated fatally, then unleashed a fast, flat, unerring swing of the arm that plucked out the off stump with Ponting a foot short.

Though the decision went to a replay, Flintoff was in no doubt. He raised his arms in his now-habitual Kodak pose, and waited to be enveloped by his jubilant team-mates. It was a moment eerily reminiscent of Gary Pratt’s series-turning shy at Trent Bridge in 2005, when Ponting once again was the fall guy, and it uncorked the tensions in the crowd as surely as the champagne was uncorked in England’s dressing-room some three hours later. It brought to an end an unnerving stand of 127, and it shattered Australia’s collective will.

Five balls later, their batsman of the series, Michael Clarke ran himself out for a duck after a clip off the pads ricocheted to Andrew Strauss at leg slip, and Australia could not recover their poise. Though Hussey was badly dropped by Paul Collingwood at slip on 55 off Swann, in Swann’s next over, Marcus North dragged his back foot out of the crease as he swung at a big ripper, and Matt Prior, having gathered well high to his left, flicked off the bails almost as an afterthought. Their target of 546 had become a distant figment of their imagination, and at 236 for 5, their only remaining hope was to bat out the final four sessions of the series.

Brad Haddin chose pugnacity as the means to reboot Australia’s innings, and he signalled his intent with two fours in his first nine balls, including a fizzing cover-drive as James Anderson overpitched. But Anderson might have dismissed him three times in a single over, including a regulation clip to short midwicket that was spilled by the substitute, Graham Onions. As he and Hussey took their seventh-wicket stand to 91, an ever-anxious crowd began to shuffle in their seats. On 34, however, his luck finally ran out, as he advanced down the track to Swann and picked out Strauss with a lofted flick to deep midwicket.

It was to be the game-breaking moment. Strauss, usually the coolest of characters in the field, celebrated euphorically as The Oval erupted once more, and seven balls later, the end truly was nigh. Steve Harmison – hitherto muted on a pitch that did not suit his style – extracted enough life for Mitchell Johnson to fence to second slip, where Collingwood, to his relief and joy, finally held on. Then, when Peter Siddle played around his front pad to lob a simple chance to mid-off, Harmison had his second scalp in the space of 12 balls.

That quickly became three in 13, as Stuart Clark fenced nervily to Cook at short leg, and though Hilfenhaus averted the hat-trick with a stabbed defence straight back down the track, there was no longer any way to stem England’s tide of emotion. With Harmison stalking to the crease with a predatory menace unseen in Ashes cricket for four long years, the crowd finally dared to proclaim the Ashes were coming home. Fifteen balls later, they were.

Some six hours earlier, England’s day of destiny had dawned with more than just a frisson of anxiety in the air, thanks to the ease with which Australia’s openers had pushed along at four runs an over on the third evening of the match. But Swann soothed the nation by claiming the initial breakthrough at the end of his second over, tweaking a succession of sharply spinning offbreaks past Simon Katich’s edge, before nailing him plumb lbw with the arm-ball.

Swann bounced for joy in the middle of the pitch as a massive roar of relief and ecstasy erupted from the stands, but almost immediately the fervour morphed into a respectful standing ovation for the incoming Ponting, in his 136th Test and almost certainly his last in England after four memorable Ashes tours.

Before he had faced a delivery, however, England had struck again, as Broad this time hurried Shane Watson on off stump and beat the inside-edge of his defensive prod. Watson did not seem best amused at the decision, but replays suggested there was nothing wrong with the appeal at all. For all of Watson’s impressive form in five innings at the top of Australia’s order, it was nevertheless the fourth time this series he had fallen in such a manner. Food for thought as he works on his new career as an opener.

At 90 for 2 and with a jittery Hussey at the crease, England swarmed onto the offensive, with Swann camping four men around the bat at all times and at one stage sending down 28 dot balls in a row as Hussey prodded and smothered with desperate determination. At the other end, Ponting’s eagerness to play the pull was tempered by his wariness of the vagaries of the wicket, although whenever he was tempted, he executed the stroke with the mastery that has made it his calling-card for the past decade.

In the first over after lunch, Ponting laced a first-ball full-toss from Broad through the covers for four, then tickled Swann around the corner to bring up a battling and brilliant half-century from 76 deliveries. Broad subsequently received a warning for running on the pitch to deepen the crowd’s growing concerns, who had just seen Collingwood at slip parry a rare Ponting edge with his left boot. But then up popped Flintoff, and once he’d had his say, there was no holding back the inevitable.

Ricky Ponting and Shane Watson compiled more in a single second-wicket stand of 119 than England’s entire line-up managed in 33.5 overs of abject surrender, as Australia built on the efforts of their four-man seam attack to seize control of the crucial fourth Test at Headingley. Though England battled back in the final session by claiming three wickets in as many overs, including Ponting for 78, nothing could gloss over their humiliation in the opening exchanges of the day. A single pitiful session could well have cost them their chance to reclaim the Ashes.

Shorn of the services of Andrew Flintoff, whose damaged right knee failed to respond to treatment, and already lacking the aggression and presence that Kevin Pietersen brings to their middle-order, England went into a Test without either of their kingpin players for the first time since the tour of Bangladesh in October 2003, and duly played in a manner befitting their opponents of six years ago. They had been handed a late fitness scare when Matt Prior suffered a pre-toss back spasm, which required the toss to be delayed by ten minutes as England finalised their starting XI, and the bewilderment in their ranks was as plain as it had been at 5 o’clock that morning, when a fire alarm at the team hotel had left them shivering in the Leeds drizzle during a mass evacuation.

For most of the summer, Australia have been the team seemingly lacking in direction, but with a sniff of uncertainty in their opponents’ ranks, they at last had a bowling attack to exploit the situation. The decision to recall Stuart Clark for his first Test of the summer, in place of the spinner Nathan Hauritz, was a gamble that paid rich dividends. He marked his comeback with a pre-lunch spell of 3 for 7 in 6.5 overs, while Peter Siddle followed up after the break with 4 for 3 in 14 balls, to finish with the stand-out figures of 5 for 21. Each of the four bowlers claimed at least one wicket, with Ben Hilfenhaus desperately unlucky not to have pinned Andrew Strauss lbw with the very first ball of the match.

As it turned out, Strauss survived a mere 17 balls before squirting a fat edge off Siddle to Marcus North at third slip, whose stunning one-handed reflex catch was the catalyst for the performance that followed. Strauss had spent the final minutes before the start fretting over the fitness of Prior, who injured his back while playing football in the warm-ups, leaving Jonathan Trott on the verge of a debut and Paul Collingwood pencilled in for the wicketkeeping duties, and his mind was evidently some way from the action in the middle. The confirmation of Flintoff’s lack of fitness ended up being the very least of his worries.

In the event, the only England batsman to show any spine was none other than Prior, who was out in the middle at least two sessions sooner than he might have anticipated, but gritted his way to 37 not out from 43 balls before running out of partners. One other batsman managed double figures – Alastair Cook, who was the mainstay of a flimsy top order with 30 from 65 balls – while the middle-order triumvirate of Ravi Bopara, Ian Bell and Collingwood showed worrying shortcomings in temperament and technique respectively.

Hilfenhaus accounted for Bopara, earning due reward for his line, length and consistent swing when Michael Hussey collected a loose back-foot punch in the gully, and at 16 for 2, the stage was hardly set for the fragile Bell to make his mark. Mitchell Johnson responded to his arrival with his best and most hostile spell of the series. Threatening to bend the ball back into the right-hander at will, and finding a superb line to complement his subtle changes of length, Johnson tormented Bell’s outside edge before slipping in a wicked bouncer that was gloved through to Brad Haddin.

Next in the procession was Collingwood, whose returns have faded alarmingly since his match-saving performance at Cardiff in the first Test. He couldn’t negotiate Clark’s sharp outswing, which he prodded limply to Ponting at second slip for a fifth-ball duck, and Clark claimed his second scalp in the space of 11 balls when Cook’s resistance ended with a low edge to Michael Clarke at first slip.

Prior did his best to rally the innings in his standard counter-punching style, but Stuart Broad found the going extremely tough in his over-promoted position of No. 7, and was extracted on the stroke of lunch when Katich at short leg scooped Clark’s third of the innings. Then it was over to Siddle to make mincemeat of a tail that had wagged regularly in the series so far, but was unable to make any headway at all with the momentum all in the bowlers’ favour. Graeme Swann laboured to a 15-ball duck which ended with a snick to first slip, while Harmison – back in the side at Flintoff’s expense – edged to the keeper to notch the 20th duck of his career, an England record he now shares with Mike Atherton.

James Anderson did at least manage to extend his duckless run to 53 innings, but the scampered single that preserved his world record culminated in a leg injury that visibly reduced his subsequent effectiveness with the ball. He and Graham Onions were bounced from the crease in consecutive Siddle deliveries, whereupon Shane Watson clattered Anderson’s first two deliveries of the reply through point for a brace of fours in a style reminiscent of Michael Slater. Though Harmison responded by extracting Katich at leg gully with the fourth ball of his comeback, Ponting emerged to put his personal seal on the day with a smouldering and initiative-seizing cameo.

Once again, Ponting came to the crease to a chorus of boos, but true to form, he turned the animosity to his advantage. Latching onto the slightest error in length, he pulled Onions’ first ball through midwicket for six, in an over that eventually went for 17 runs, as Australia’s fifty was brought up in just 39 deliveries. Ponting’s only let-off en route to his 63-ball half-century came on 32, when Bell missed a shy from the covers that would have run him out by five yards.

For as long as he and Watson were in tandem, Australia’s dominance was absolute. Watson, revelling in his new opener’s role, cracked his third half-century in as many innings, and battered Harmison for four fours in nine balls as England’s bowlers completely forgot about the virtues of line and length. But then, almost without warning, they finally remembered to pitch the ball up, and with a hint of movement around that habitual 30-over mark, they succeeded in stemming the tide.

First to strike was Onions, who pinned Watson lbw for 51 as he whipped across the line, whereupon Broad – for the first time this summer – opted to follow suit. Twice in four balls he angled the ball in from a full length, first to end Ponting’s stay on 78, and then to remove Hussey before he could get going. England created opportunities as the shadows lengthened, not least when Harmison, in a furious final spell, cracked Michael Clarke on the helmet and the glove from consecutive deliveries. But by the close, Australia’s hold on the Ashes was looking as sprightly as it has done since Cardiff.

Michael Clarkes unbeaten century guided Australia to a draw against England in the third Ashes Test at Edgbaston here on Monday. The result kept Australias defence of the Ashes alive, although it also meant England remained 1-0 up in the fivematch series ahead of the fourth Test at Headingley , which starts on Friday.
The Australian vice-captain was 103 not out in a second innings total of 375 for five, a lead of 262, when a draw was agreed in the fifth days final session without England needing to bat again in this rain-marred match.
Together with left-hander Marcus North (96) he shared a fifth-wicket stand of 185 that made the game safe. The duo had come together with Australia just 48 runs in front at 161 for four and still in danger of defeat after Michael Hussey was caught behind for 64 off paceman Stuart Broad before lunch.
North was in sight of his second century of the series when he was brilliantly caught right-handed by a leaping James Anderson in the gully off Broad to end a 159-ball innings featuring 15 fours. But Clarke, who made 136 in Englands 115-run second Test win at Lords , pressed on to a hundred in 192 balls in nearly five hours with the match ending when he pulled occasional medium-pacer Ravi Bopara for his 14th four to go to three figures.
Clarke did have two lucky breaks in the 90s. On 92, a ball from Broad flicked the outside of his off-stump without disturbing the bails. And Clarke was caught by Anderson at slip on 96 off a Bopara no-ball . Hed previously been dropped on 38 off a difficult chance by Andrew Strauss. That England had a shot at winning was remarkable given that, in effect, two days play had been lost to bad weather, including Saturdays wash-out . But the swing that had been so potent for them earlier in the match proved elusive and, in good batting conditions , Englands attack struggled. Clarke, whose footwork was a feature of his innings, stiffened Australias resistance with several driven boundaries off Graham Onions.

Barring an act of God or Duke, England should enter the home stretch of the Ashes series in the ascendancy. When Andrew Strauss and Ian Bell accepted the umpires’ offer of bad light at 5.45pm, the hosts packed their kitbags content in the knowledge that their dominant day two performance, coupled with the bleak forecast for days three and five of the Test, had made Australia’s task of squaring the series at Edgbaston difficult in the extreme.

James Anderson

 Much of the credit for England’s position of strength belonged to James Anderson (5 for 80) and Graham Onions (4 for 58), who claimed Australia’s last nine wickets for 137 runs in 40.4 overs on Friday. Their mastery of Birmingham’s conditions reopened old Australian wounds against quality swing bowling, and wrested back the momentum claimed by the tourists the previous evening.

 Strauss and Bell reinforced England’s advantage in the final session with an unbroken 56-run stand that owed something to fortune. Bell was somehow deemed not out by umpire Rudi Koertzen to a Johnson delivery that replays suggested would have thundered into middle-and-off, and the Warwickshire batsman made the most of his reprieve to advance to stumps unbeaten on 26.

 His captain, Strauss, experienced no such heart palpitations to finish the day on 64 not out in an innings marked by stoic defence and fluent driving. Strauss was seldom flustered as Alastair Cook and Ravi Bopara fell by the wayside to Peter Siddle and Ben Hilfenhaus respectively to further pad his lead atop the series run-scorers’ list.

 Earlier, Anderson collected his seventh career five-wicket haul and his best return against Australia on a morning that left the raucous Edgbaston faithful in thrall. Ricky Ponting may have usurped Allan Border as Australia’s leading Test run-scorer in the first session, but the morning well and truly belonged to Anderson and Onions, who more than made amends for a wasteful evening session on Thursday.

 Onions began in the most emphatic manner imaginable, removing Shane Watson and Michael Hussey with the first two deliveries of the second day, while Anderson bookended the first session in a similar fashion with the wickets of Marcus North and Johnson in consecutive deliveries on the stroke of lunch.

 Anderson’s spells either side of lunch produced figures of 5 for 35, and Onions’ 4 for 37 – an analysis which might well have been enhanced if not for several dropped catches off his bowling – as Australia’s age-old problems against the swinging ball resurfaced. With heavy rain predicted for much of the next three days, England appear the only team capable of forcing a result, short of a major change in weather and Australian fortunes.

 Onions played a lead role in the only first-class result at Edgbaston this season – taking nine wickets to guide Durham past Warwickshire – and continued his love affair with the ground. Exploiting the heavy overhead conditions to full effect, he bowled unchanged for nine overs, during which he swung the ball extravagantly into both the right- and left-handers and threatened off the seam.

 He struck with the first ball of the day, beating a lunging Watson for pace to trap him lbw for 62. The dismissal served as an underwhelming exit for Watson, who the previous evening had gone some way to justifying the faith of Australia’s selectors in his first outing as a Test opener with an assured half-century.

 The tremors intensified for the Australians the next ball when Onions angled a delivery into Hussey, who obliged by hoisting his bat high above his head and watching helplessly as the ball cannoned into the top of off-stump. Hussey has twice been bowled this series without offering a shot – the other to Andrew Flintoff at Lord’s – and now possesses the modest record of 81 runs at 20.25 this series. Many more muddle-headed performances like this, and Australia might well ponder more changes to their XI moving ahead.

 Onions’ would-be hat-trick ball might have been his most disappointing of the morning – a short, leg-side offering to Michael Clarke – but could not detract from an otherwise fine spell of bowling in which he probed the Australians’ pads and proved a constant menace. The visitors steadied just long enough for Ponting to notch his 11,175th career run to overhaul Border’s long-standing national record, but he could not capitalise on his historic moment, top-edging a hook off Onions to Matt Prior for 38.

 Clarke appeared the only man capable of sparing Australia’s blushes, and fortune briefly smiled upon him. The vice-captain was blessed to have been ruled not out to an exceptionally close Onions lbw shout on 18, and again when dropped off the same bowler by Flintoff at second slip. Interspersed with these reprieves were some fine periods of batting in the cauldron-like atmosphere, however his hopes of leading a middle-order fightback were dashed when Rudi Koertzen adjudged him leg-before to an Anderson delivery that appeared to be slipping down the leg-side.

 Thus commenced a superb sequence of swing bowling from Anderson. Finding the aerial movement that eluded him at Cardiff and Lord’s, the Lancastrian crashed through for the wickets of North to a superb, one-handed catch by Prior and Johnson to a dubiously high lbw decision in consecutive deliveries. He rounded out the session by comprehensively bowling Graham Manou, the Australian debutant who had been presented with his baggy green cap prior to play.

 Australia coaxed a valuable 60 runs from their final two wickets, padding the total to a reasonable 263, but they would not emerge from the second session. Anderson prompted Peter Siddle into a feathered edge to Prior shortly after the lunch break to complete his first five-wicket haul side against the Australians, while Onions returned for the scalp of Hilfenhaus for a career-best 20.

Andrew Strauss has provided a telling insight into thegrowing confidence within the England team by insisting Ricky Ponting’s squad has lost its aura of invincibility. Ten days after England ended Australia’s 75-year unbeaten streak at Lord’s, Strauss leapt onto the offensive on the eve of the Edgbaston Test, suggesting Ponting’s youthful band do not possess the intimidatory powers of their predecessors.

“I don’t think this Australian side has got an aura about it to be honest with you and prior to this Test series starting we didn’t feel they had an aura about them,” Strauss said. “That’s not disrespectful to the players they’ve got because they’ve got a lot of very good players but I think the aura came with the likes of Warne and McGrath and Hayden and Gilchrist, all those sort of guys.

“This Australian team over time might develop an aura, but right at the moment you’ve got a lot of guys who are at the start of their Test careers. It doesn’t mean you are any more likely to beat them or anything like that but it feels like you are playing against any other Test team.”

Strauss’ comments are someway short of revelatory – Graeme Smith and Anil Kumble have previously commented on Australia’s decline following the retirements of Shane Warne, Glenn McGrath and Adam Gilchrist, to name but a few – and even his opposite number, Ricky Ponting, conceded that there was a grain of truth in his sentiments.

“Any feeling of aura that you get against opposition sides is something that is built up over a period of time,” said Ponting. “There are some reasonably fresh faces around our group who are just starting to find their feet at international level, so it’s inevitable that the aura of our side is going to change. But it’s okay for him to say that now, I’m not sure he was saying that after Cardiff – we had it well and truly over most of their batsmen down there.”

Since last year’s tour of India, Ponting’s side has won five, lost six and drawn three Test matches, and is fighting to repel South Africa’s bid for their No. 1 ranking. Australia’s crown has already slipped in the shorter forms of the game – the South Africans are rated the world’s top-ranked 50-over side, while Australia suffered an embarrassing first-round exit at the World Twenty20 – and Strauss insisted the rest of the world was fast reeling them in on the Test front.

“An aura is when the opposition teams, even though they are on top, are not confident they are going to beat you,” he said. “They always expect something dramatic to happen that will bring your team back in the game and put them under pressure again.

“We certainly felt that in 2006-07. Even when we had good days, we were thinking what is going to happen now. Is Gilchrist going to blast a hundred or Warne take five wickets from nowhere? It only comes with a large consistent level of performance for a long period of time. Australia had that, personally I don’t feel that’s where they are right at the moment.”

Strauss conceded England would not establish its own aura without a sustained period of success; a point that was met with agreement by Ponting at his ensuing press conference. “You create aura with a group of guys on top of their game, all heading in the same direction, and with stand-out performances,” he said. “It’s generated over a period of time with some excellent play, and England’s current Test rating would probably indicate that they don’t have one.”

Key to England’s hopes of achieving success in this series is Andrew Flintoff, a man who possessed an aura all of his own at Lord’s, and despite not training on Wednesday, Strauss was confident his allrounder would be fit for the third Test.

In the lead-up to Lord’s, where he took five second-innings wickets, Flintoff had scans on the injury and it has required regular pain killing to provide him with the chance of repeating his 2005 Ashes triumph. “He bowled two good spells [on Tuesday], one in the middle, one in the nets, and he seemed to come through those okay,” Strauss said. “It’s always the case, you’ve got to see how he responds to bowling more than actually what happens when he’s bowling. But we are optimistic at this stage.”

Given the overcast conditions, the only reasons England will have to change their second Test line-up are if Flintoff is injured or they are desperate to bring in Steve Harmison. “The guys who played at Lord’s all performed pretty well so we’d have to be sure the conditions were going to help someone else if we were going to make that change,” Strauss said. By confirming that Monty Panesar has been released from the squad, the likelihood of an unchanged attack has increased.

The England dressing room is a quieter place since Pietersen’s foot surgery and Ian Bell has tip-toed back into the XI after being dropped during the West Indies tour. Strauss said the entry of Bell, who will bat in Pietersen’s spot at No. 4, was reassuring.

“He’s a proven Test performer, he’s played in the Ashes before and he’s done that spell out of the side that a lot of us have been through,” he said. “It’s not much fun when you are out of it but it makes you very, very hungry when you come back in. And also, you’ve got a kind of mindset that you’ve got nothing to lose. You’ve been out of the side, this is another opportunity for you. I expect him to grasp that with two hands and play some really good innings in the coming matches.”

For Ponting, however, the absence of Pietersen provided an undoubted boost to his hopes of making in-roads into their batting. “They’ve lost some skill out of their middle-order,” he said. “I think [Pietersen] is one of the better and more dominant players in world cricket, and I firmly believe England look to him to give them something with the bat, so we’ll see over the next five days whether anything has changed.

“Bell is a good player, as we’ve seen through his career, but he hasn’t played as well as he would like against Australia, so it’s a great opportunity for us. If we can get the openers out early and get the middle-order out there against a relatively new and shiny hard ball, we can do some damage.”

Strauss said it would be “massive” if England could enter the fourth Test in Leeds next week with a 2-0 advantage. “One thing we are very conscious of is not resting on our laurels now we are 1-0 up,” he said. “We’ve got a fantastic opportunity this week to build on that. Complacency is the furthest thing from our minds at the moment. We are expecting a much harder Test match this week and we’re ready for it.”

England captain Andrew Strauss has admitted that his controversial catch of Australian opener Phil Hughes at the slips in the Lord Test could have been grassed.

Though Strauss firmly maintains he grasped a clean catch off Hughes, he conceded video replays may have revealed a different story. “On the slow motion it looks like it hit the ground,” Strauss was quoted saying in the Daily Telegraph.

“But I still maintain that I caught that ball. At times it looks like it hasn’t carried but I still firmly believe it did. This is one of the real problems with technology as it is. I don’t know what the solution is, to be honest with you.”

Strauss was speaking as match referee Jeff Crowe attempted to defend Umpire Billy Doctrove’s decision not to refer the Strauss catch to the video umpire. Doctrove, standing at square leg, maintains it was a fair catch.

Ricky Ponting has labelled Duncan Fletcher a “hypocrite” after the former England coach’s comments that Australia had no right to claim the moral high ground on Spirit of Cricket issues. While Ponting maintained he had not complained excessively about the hosts’ “ordinary” time-wasting late on the final day in the drawn Cardiff Test, Andy Flower, the current England mentor, said the captain “made a meal” of the incident.

As England’s last two batsmen held on they sent on the 12th man Bilal Shafayat and the physiotherapist Steve McCaig to prevent the visitors from delivering more overs. “[Fletcher] is sort of saying he didn’t condone what they did the other day,” Ponting said. “It seemed a little bit hypocritical, some of the stuff he had to say.”

Fletcher wrote in the Guardian about Ponting putting pressure on the umpires at Sophia Gardens and their sledging. “If any side in the world doesn’t play within the spirit of the game it’s Ponting’s Australians, yet here he is sitting in judgment on England because he’s frustrated that his bowlers failed to complete the job,” he said. “Ponting getting frustrated – does that remind you of anything?”

Ponting yelled at Fletcher on his way to the dressing room after he was run-out by Gary Pratt, the substitute fielder, at Trent Bridge in 2005. “We are good mates, Duncan and I,” Ponting said wryly at Lord’s. “I’m not one little bit worried at all about what Duncan has had to say. He is an irrelevant person in my world and probably in the cricketing world right at the moment.”

The chapter adds more tension before Thursday’s second Test at Lord’s, but don’t expect any reduction in the number or intensity of exchanges between players. On the final day in Cardiff Kevin Pietersen and Mitchell Johnson argued during the warm-ups and Stuart Broad and Peter Siddle bumped shoulders in the middle before the emotional finish. Siddle also hit Graeme Swann with a series of painful short balls, but Swann responded with an incredibly valuable 31.

“It is not an Ashes series without a few of those [incidents],” England’s captain Andrew Strauss said. “As pressure builds, that strains people and once they are put under pressure they react in a number of different ways. One thing which I think is important is that the series continues to be played in a good manner and I certainly think on those first five days, it was played in that manner.”

The Australians are often accused of pushing – or breaking – the rules but maintain they adhere to the over-riding Spirit of Cricket and their own stricter code. Steve Waugh has been at Lord’s this week and felt neither team was particularly out of order in Cardiff.

Ponting is Waugh’s successor and has no problems with the conduct of his team. “I don’t think I have ever been pulled up for anything outside of playing within the spirit of the game,” Ponting said. “We have always had the finger pointed at us about that sort of stuff. But we never seem to get in too much trouble from the authorities about the spirit of the game.”

He said the fall-out from the time wasting had been “overcooked”. “There is so much hype around the series that little things like that can turn into really big things,” he said. “The entire game, I felt, was played in terrific spirit, it was on for young and old out on the field as we saw with the Siddle and Swann battle. But otherwise it was a great Test match.”

In 2005 the Australians were considered too friendly with their opponents and fell to a 2-1 series loss. Strauss said the circumstances and personnel for this contest were different and the dynamic from previous battles had changed. “Players do what feels natural to them,” he said.

After some more terrible umpiring decisions, Michael Clarke and Brad Haddin have kept Australia in the second Test and the Ashes series with an unbeaten 185-run partnership for the sixth wicket, but they and the Australian tail will have to bat out the entire last day… or maybe make another 209 runs for a record-breaking victory.

The day’s play started with an England declaration overnight on six for 311, to leave Australia 522 runs to make in the fourth innings, and with Simon Katich (6) hitting a typically uppish shot to Kevin Pietersen in the gully off an Andrew Flintoff delivery that was shown on replay to have been an uncalled no ball, it looked like Australia’s poor run of umpiring and bad luck was going to continue.

The headlines for the day looked like being centred around the next dismissal, which was started by Phillip Hughes (17) edging Flintoff to Andrew Strauss’s bootlaces where he claimed a catch off the grass stalks. The umpires convened, central umpire Rudi Koertzen asked square leg umpire Billy Doctrove whether the ball had bounced, and the umpires mystifyingly did not take the option of going to the video umpire.

The video evidence showed more than enough evidence to suggest the ball hit the ground. However, Hughes was given his marching orders.

As if that wasn’t poor enough, Michael Hussey (27) was then given out caught at slip by Paul Collingwood from a Graeme Swann delivery that hit rough outside off stump and deviated strongly. Unfortunately, Hussey had not hit it, but Doctrove’s finger went up regardless, much to Hussey’s amazement.

The dismissals of Ricky Ponting (38) inside edging a ball from Stuart Broad that kept low and Marcus North (6) also inside edging an arm ball from Swann were more pedestrian, but the day was saved by Clarke (125 not out) and Haddin (80 not out) who batted together more more than two hours.

Day five will be a big task for the Australians but if the English bowlers can produce the sort of spells they were churning out in the first innings and at times during day four, they should wrap up the innings before any talk of Australia setting a new world record for Test fourth-inning comebacks.