Cricket: Hussey's lean run in tune with team

For a split second, Mike Hussey wondered if even gravity had deserted him.

He had been having that sort of Ashes series.

At Cardiff, he fell for three during one of the rare times in the match the ball was actually doing anything.

At Lord's, he left an Andrew Flintoff ball on 51 that just clipped the top of his off stump before being handed his marching orders in the next innings after missing Graeme Swann's sharply turning ball on 27.

But it was at Edgbaston that it all really threatened to turn pear-shaped for the determined left-hander.

With Shane Watson having been trapped in front on the first ball of the day, Hussey made the briefest and most embarrassing of appearances.

He offered no shot to Graham Onions' second delivery of the day and it hit the outside of his off-stump.

So with that in mind, there was no chance that Hussey was going to leave his first ball in the second innings if it pitched anywhere near his off peg.

That Australia were 2-53 late on day four made it interesting.

That it was Onions coming into bowl the first ball of his innings made it doubly so.

Hussey pushed forward, inside-edged the ball on to his pad and it ballooned up in the air and Onions charged down the pitch in pursuit.

"I just wanted that ball to come down," said Hussey.

"It just seemed to be hovering up in the air forever and I saw him coming closer and closer and I thought, 'Oh no surely not'. Then I was thinking that if he catches this I am probably going to have to hang myself in the dressing room somewhere.

"But thankfully it fell short and it was really nice to get through that pressure situation which is what I really enjoyed."

That Hussey did, making 64 to play his part as Australia revitalised their Ashes fortunes in the five-match series by drawing the third test.

"There was probably a moment where you are thinking please give me some help from upstairs," he said.

"But that is the game of cricket and you have to take your good times with your bad times.

"Sometimes it does feel like the game does not go your way but other times it all goes your way, so you just have to make sure you really enjoy those times."

The frustrating aspect for Hussey is that he has been in cracking form in the tour matches but hasn't translated enough of that into the tests just yet.

And with his lean run since the start of the Australian summer, some scores for Mr Cricket would be timely.

But ever the optimist, the West Australian shrugged off concerns about being bowled shouldering arms in consecutive tests.

The 34-year-old said that he still knew where his off stump was located.

"Most of the time I do," he said with a laugh.

One thing the entire Australian batting lineup needs to get their head around in the fourth Ashes test at Headingley is handling the prodigious swing of James Anderson

Hussey likened the Lancastrian to a quicker version of former Australian and Queensland swing bowler Adam Dale.

- AAP