Taylor's rallying call reaches outback and beyond

In the first moments of this Old Trafford Test, Mark Taylor showed why he should be left in charge of the Australian cricket team, even if his personal batting form resembles the Admiral's Cup course in a force- eight gale - he won the toss and batted.

That one decision, a difficult and much-criticised one, told us a great deal about Taylor the captain: he is single-minded in his determination to set up a winning chance and has unbending faith in his team, no matter how the odds may be weighted against them.

What goes through a captain's mind at the toss, when he looks down on a piebald Test pitch and up at slate grey, heavy skies, the conditions that prevailed at Manchester? In the case of Taylor, there must surely have been a memory, however brief, of Edgbaston, 118 all out and one-down in the series. And, remember too, this was a captain who knew that personal failure with the bat would mean another round of "Sack Taylor" headlines.

It must have crossed Taylor's mind to take the soft option and send England in to bat, therefore protecting his own batsmen - and himself. That's merely human nature. His refusal to yield underscored Taylor's strength of mind and his commitment to a game plan devised around a more favourable weather forecast - some sunshine - and a pitch that was clearly going to deteriorate.

Modern Australian cricketing history shows that on a low, wearing, dusty and pitted pitch, as Old Trafford seemed likely to be by the fifth day, Shane Warne can bend a batsman's mind better than anyone else in the bowling business.

Taylor might easily have justified to outsiders any decision to send in England - the pitch looked like a minefield, the light was dim, the likelihood of rain showers would mean interruptions to a batsman's concentration - but he could never, in light of the plan, have justified it to himself, nor to his team-mates. Such a change of mind would have sent entirely the wrong message to them: "I don't think we can handle a pitch that's likely to do a bit," is about as negative as you can get. Worse than that, he would have given up on the plan that was expected to get Australia back into the Ashes picture. In short, he would have "lost" his team.

Instead, the captain created "the tingle", the winning feeling, the edge. His confidence in them invaded their psyche. In those circumstances, and it has always been Taylor's way, they believe themselves to be if not invincible then nigh- unbeatable. Taylor's "we'll bat" might make more interesting reading if put this way: "Warney, despite your indifferent form, for most of the time grunting like Monica Seles and getting similar results, I think you can win this Test for us."

If the sight of Old Trafford, scene of that ball circa 1993, had not sent a tingle through Warne's spinning finger, his captain's confidence, and the sun on his back, surely would have. England's first-innings methods against Warne's around-the-wicket line suggest such confidence was not misplaced: Mark Ealham, standing to attention and forgetting why he's got a bat in his hand, Nasser Hussain and John Crawley waving theirs like an outback stockman would a cattle prod.

Compare that indecision with Steve Waugh's absolute precision on that difficult first-day pitch. Can there be in world cricket a batsman more focused than Waugh? More courageous? More selective in the dispatch of the loose ball? A cold- blooded bowler killer is Steve.

His was an innings of inspiration to his team just as much as Taylor's toss decision was inspirational. Warne's bowling has been memorable, and we should never forget Ian Healy's wicket-keeping, most notably his textbook- perfect legside stumping of Mark Butcher. This has not been an easy year for Healy. At the beginning of the Australian summer there was a silly little attempt to have him moved aside as Australia's keeper for the younger Adam Gilchrist, and before this tour he lost the vice-captaincy because he lost his cool in South Africa when an umpire's decision did not please him.

Taylor, of course, is still the butt of a relentless media campaign to bring him down. Waugh went through his trough a few years ago. All of them have survived, a credit to their talent and their mental toughness, to inspire the next generation, of which Warne is one.

Taylor, Waugh and Healy are to this team what Greg Chappell, Dennis Lillee and Rod Marsh were to Australian teams a decade and a half ago. When they go, and one hopes it will be when they decide it's time, Australia will miss them as badly as we missed the Big Three.