A session or two into the fourth day of the fourth Ashes Test match should have seen the Ashes been retained by England at the Melbourne Cricket Ground tomorrow. Unless the Aussies can come up with a miracle of extraordinary proportions.

At the end of the third day’s play at the MCG, Australia had lost six wickets for 169 runs and were still 246 runs away from making England bat again in the Test match. The series is tied at 1-1 and a win in the game will mean that England would have taken an unassailable lead in the series.

The day had begun well for Australia as they snapped up the last five English wickets for the addition of 69 runs only. Matt Prior missed out on a century as Peter Siddle ran through the lower-order to get the English side out for 513. Overnight not-out centurion Jonathon Trott remained unbeaten till the end, scoring 168.

With a lead of 415 to their name, England would have known that it was only a matter of time before the wickets started to come. The opening pair of Shane Watson and Phil Hughes added 53 for the first wicket but once Hughes left, scoring became difficult for the Aussies.

Watson and Ricky Ponting added 46 for the second wicket but took more than 20 overs to do so. Once Watson was sent back by Tim Bresnan, there was a flurry of wickets. Ponting failed yet again in a painstaking innings of 20 while Michael Hussey (0) and Michael Clarke (13) departed soon after.

Steven Smith did his bit with the minimal of technique that he possesses but he was bowled for 38 at the fag end of the day to leave the Aussies in a virtually hopeless position.

England are obvious favourites to wrap up the game now, with SkyBet offering 1/250 for their win. More importantly, it will be interesting to see if Australia can level the series at Sydney (9/4 at BetFred) or if England will win the series (4/9 at Stan James) with either a draw or a win.