Waugh answers his critics one more time

CRICKET/Ashes Test: How many more times? You do not play mind games with Stephen Waugh. You do not bandy words with him, or offer a challenge. Jeer him as he leaves the field on a stretcher and he comes back on one leg and gets a hundred.

Above all, though, do not threaten him with the sack.

It is not England's fault, of course, but the constant debate on the future of the Australian captain is starting to rankle with him; it is all getting out of proportion, he feels. When he goes, sooner rather than later, it will be with his boots on, last man standing - as they have called the latest of his limited-edition memorabilia tat.

So just for the hell of it he came out yesterday, shrugged off the standing ovation from the capacity crowd of almost 65,000 and blazed the stuffing from an attack which had already suffered centuries from Justin Langer and, inevitably, Matthew Hayden.

Having reached a half-century in less than an hour and at more than a run a ball, Waugh might have had a hundred by the close yesterday, had the adrenalin level not subsided a little and given circumspection a shout. The captain took a couple more boundaries against the second new ball to go with the 10 he had already hit and picked his way gently to stumps to be unbeaten on 62.

With him Langer, unbeaten on 146, had batted the day through for what is already the third highest of his 13 Test centuries, the pair having added 91 for the fourth wicket.

As much as anyone in the Australian side, Langer has needed runs because, prolific as his alliance with Hayden is proving, he is the straight man of the pair, struggling to keep up. So while the big Queenslander has been rattling up hundreds so readily that he has now taken to playing some strokes perched on one leg - like Jethro Tull in concert, so ridiculously simple has he made the game - Langer has been struggling for his own credibility. A wombat could partner Hayden at the moment and share a century stand.

Langer's joy, then, when he belted successive deliveries from the off-spinner Richard Dawson for four and then six into the ranks of the Barmy Army to reach his hundred, was almost as unconfined as Hayden's half an hour earlier on reaching his own.

Hayden was simply brutal, happily surfing one of the biggest waves of batting success the game can have seen. He might have been caught from his first ball, had Steve Harmison at long leg been on the rope rather than 10 yards in, but the hook dropped over his head. It was his eighth century in his past 13 Tests.

There were, besides, a couple of reputable lbw shouts which on another day, with more sympathetic umpires, might have been given out; and a wonderful wrong-handed run-out attempt by Michael Vaughan. Soon after the latter, Hayden slogged Caddick in the air to bring his innings of 102 and an opening stand of 195 to a close.

Curiously, England did not have a bad day of it. They made changes, enforced by the hand injury to Alec Stewart, bringing in a keeper, James Foster, and a batsman, John Crawley, to replace someone who would like to think he did the job of two men.

It meant only four bowlers but they bowled tolerably well, especially in the pre-lunch session where the openers were kept on a short rein.

Despite the bowlers' efforts, in the afternoon session 147 runs came in 27 overs and the initiative, always with the home side, was wrenched out of reach.

The wickets of Hayden, Ricky Ponting and Damien Martyn in relatively quick succession lent England vague hope of making a comeback. Waugh, though, had other ideas, offering hope only when on 56 he edged the second new ball low to second slip, where Mark Butcher rolled over and may or may not have made a clean catch.

He shrugged his shoulders and expressed his uncertainty while Waugh, not surprisingly given the demeanour of the catcher, stood his ground.

Guardian Service