Hussain will go with dignity

The history of Test cricket is littered with tales of courage. Yesterday, Nasser Hussain wrote his name into that history with an innings built not on extraordinary skill or luck, but on pure determination. Hussain's 103 not out will surely stand as one of his finest innings.

The man himself may have played his last innings, and now the media can't get enough of him. He is a player who became captain, one who, in tandem with Duncan Fletcher, changed the way the England team played cricket, who stepped down when he felt a better leader had been found, and somewhere along the way became a hero.

At the end of New Zealand's last Test in England Hussain, then the newish captain, was booed by the crowd as he stood on the pavilion balcony. This time round, as he collected the winning runs with a crashing drive through the covers, the spectators filled the ground with a roar of celebration.

"With pressure on his place increasing with every run Andrew Strauss made," said Derek Pringle in the Daily Telegraph, "Hussain has answered his critics in the most emphatic way possible, so you would think the immediate pressure on him was off."

For the time being, yes. There will be a case for including seven batsmen at Headingley. At Trent Bridge, however, the selectors will have to choose which of the top six batsmen, none of whom have really put a foot wrong, to drop. Hussain may make the decision for them before then, having hinted that he wants to bow out at the top of his game, not fade away.

"There were clues that something strange might be afoot," added Pringle, "as he acknowledged the crowd, still roaring its approval after he had belted Chris Martin for three successive boundaries; the first to show he could still hit over the top, the second to bring up his ton, the third to bring home the bacon. Yet as he waved his bat to every corner of the ground, there was more than a suggestion that this could be his last Lord's Test. If it is, he will not attain the 100 caps he craved this time last year."

"I shall go away now," Hussain said after his innings, "and think about things for the next couple of days. There are issues for me personally. I have got to make some decisions in my life. The last thing I want to do is hold someone up in their career. The most important thing to me is to end on a high, like I did with my captaincy."

The Guardian's Mike Selvey agreed: "It would be typical of Hussain's unswerving devotion to the England cause that he would recognise Andrew Strauss as a player of unquestioned international class and therefore the catalyst for his own retirement."

The day could have ended very differently. Hussain had made just 29 when he pushed a ball into the off side and called for a run that was never there. Halfway down the pitch he realised Strauss had not responded. Hussain stopped and turned, but in a gesture of self-sacrifice Strauss ran past him, run out just 17 short of a second debut century.

Strauss remained philosophical, saying after the match had been won that, "It was just one of those things and to dwell on it after such a victory would be wrong. Nasser came in at tea and said, 'Sorry, mate', and it was fantastic that he went on and won the game."

New Zealand can take some positives from this game, despite their loss. Mark Richardson's 13-hour vigil meant that he was a close second to Strauss for the Man-of-the-Match award, while Jacob Oram's allround performance, Brendon McCullum's 96 and Nathan Astle's 64 and 49 meant that New Zealand were still very much in the game going into the last session.

"New Zealand had their noses in front for a fair share of a memorable Test, only to see two middle-order collapses and a lack of bite in their bowling attack prove the difference," observed Mark Geenty in the New Zealand Herald. "This week, the heat will go on batsmen Scott Styris and Craig McMillan, while the indifferent form of pacemen Daryl Tuffey and Chris Martin will also be under the spotlight."

But the last word belongs to England. This was their best winning effort in a fourth innings at Lord's, exceeding the 218 for 3 they made way back in 1965, also against New Zealand. Needing 282 to win, they lost two wickets early on before Hussain and Strauss's 108-run partnership. When Strauss was out, Hussain added 139 more with Graham Thorpe, who finished on 51 not out.

"Two old stagers, who have fought long and hard together, brothers in arms at the end," concluded Selvey in The Guardian. "If Hussain goes, there can be no better way."