The Ashes: The Vicar and the Choirboy Toll the Bell for Gillespie's Once Illustrious Career

While the vicar was delivering his most uplifting sermon of the summer, casting aside all those who had doubted him, the chief choirboy was not making a bad fist of it either. Michael Vaughan was Australia's scourge but, beneath his shadow, Ian Bell proved that he possesses the temperament and technique for Test cricket.

For Bell to arrive at the crease when Shane Warne had just taken his 600th Test wicket was his own journey into the valley of death. Warne was so full of devil-may-care psychological ploys that Bell might have fortified himself with a quick swig of the communion wine.

With an unbeaten 59 by the close Bell proved not just that he is tougher than he looks - which, to be frank, he does everytime he dares to tie his own shoelaces - but that he is tougher than many people imagined.

When he is so overblown with theatrical gestures, Warne's bowling should best be judged on one of those theatre billboards - "Colossal Achievement: The Guardian" - when the truth was that he failed to add further wickets to his colossal achievement because Bell was desperately blocking him out, first mentally then physically. He needed to do the first to achieve the second and Bell ignored much of Warne's ham acting by strolling off impassively towards square leg.

At Lord's he had padded up to a straight one. It was first assumed to be Warne's slider, but was later identified as a non-turning leg-break, which at least proved that the Great Man was not infallible. At Edgbaston, promising second- innings resistance was ended when he was mistakenly given out caught.

Yesterday, he faltered only once, Glenn McGrath spilling a return catch when he was 18, and immediately fasted for 45 minutes before tucking Warne through square leg to supportive cheers. Against Warne, he yearned for little more than survival, but the two overpitched balls that he stroked for offside boundaries told of growing conviction. In a period awash with enterprise, Bell's patience is a rare attribute.

First Vaughan, then Bell: to win the Ashes, England needed them to make an imprint and even Kevin Pietersen's penchant for ending Test innings caught on the deep midwicket boundary (that is three times and this time, as he was batting for the close rather than for the tail, it was madness), did not overly deflate England's day.

Australia had spent so long planning miracle cures for McGrath and Brett Lee that no one had thought to fret about Jason Gillespie. McGrath's ankle and Lee's knee were insignificant compared to Gillespie's general malaise.

Such was Australia's desperation to get McGrath fit that, if necessary, they would have propped his crutches up against the square leg umpire and strapped him on a skateboard.

The gamble was obvious, but one look at Gillespie and the need was undeniable. McGrath and Gillespie have been the most potent opening partnership around, but while McGrath's measured tread should be with us a good while yet, his partner bears a haunted look.

Gillespie's shaggy mane would be almost as grey as Gandalf's if he went easy on the hair colouring, but a remedy for aching bones is harder to find. He is falling into the bottomless pit, as fast as Gandalf when he was pulled down by the Balrog, and looks less likely to make a surprise comeback.

It is an awfully long time since an Australia cricketer elicited so much sympathy in England. You probably have to go back to Mike Brearley's kindness towards Kim Hughes, his rival captain, when England won the Ashes in 1981. "My mum and dad are still talking to me, and my wife, but who else?" Hughes asked.