England will not have Glenn McGrath to push them around any more in this series. Given the fight they put up on the final day of the fourth Test, Nasser Hussain and his team will be encouraged to believe they can avert the whitewash after the fast bowler pulled out of Australia's squad for Thursday's fifth Test in Sydney.
McGrath strained his left side on the fourth day here at the MCG and was unable to take the field after tea. The Western Australia paceman Brad Williams has been drafted into the squad as cover.
Australia's physiotherapist Errol Alcott said: "Glenn has suffered a left-side strain to his 'grunt' muscle. It is a soft-tissue injury and we are confident it will resolve over the short term but I felt it was prudent for him to miss this next Test match." McGrath said: "I guess it's a question of looking at the bigger picture as I did something similar in 1992, played on with it and was eventually sidelined for three or four months." For once England gained some honour in defeat. They lost by five wickets but Andy Caddick and Steve Harmison bowled their socks off on the final morning and had Aus tralia reeling before stumbling over the line shortly before lunch yesterday.
"Lose an early wicket in chasing a low total and you start to doubt yourself a little in the dressing room," said Australia's captain Steve Waugh. "Then lose a couple more and all of a sudden it's game on." The pace, confidence and skill with which Australia play generally preclude a fifth day, when pitches begin to misbehave. "Any side is vulnerable under pressure," Waugh added. The trick for England, then, is putting them under it.
Matthew Hayden had fallen pulling, Ricky Ponting blazed and made 30 before he and Damien Martyn were caught behind in one over from Harmison, and when Waugh gloved Caddick to second slip and Justin Langer, after 92 minutes, was leg-before two overs later, Australia were 90 for five. Only 17 were needed now but one more wicket would have exposed the bowlers, and who knows? It did not happen, though, and Adam Gilchrist bashed the winning runs over point.
It is 52 years since Australia last won the first four Tests of a five-game series against England and with a turning pitch in prospect for Stuart MacGill in Sydney, Waugh can match Warwick Armstrong's 1920-21 side's Ashes whitewash.
Even five-day matches can turn on a single moment, and one came in Harmison's seventh over yesterday. Fending at a short ball, Waugh got an edge to James Foster, but there was no appeal until the keeper had seen a big-screen replay.
To give him out on that basis would have been unethical, Hussain admitted. "Jamie had seen a deflection and even from mid-off I saw one. I was spewing when we didn't appeal. But any noise was drowned by the spectators roaring Steve Harmison in. You can't expect to get people out if you don't appeal." The next ball Waugh drove furiously but low to Hussain, who took a superb catch. But the umpire had called no-ball although again no one had heard it, least of all the batsman, who had set off back to the pavilion.
"It was the turning point," Waugh said. "It was an excellent catch all right, and at that stage - 66 for four as it would have been - England would have been on a bit of a roll and may have gone on to win."