When Graeme Hick hauled Shane Warne dismissively over midwicket to move within two runs of his first England hundred against Australia, he might have imagined in the hurly-burly the ghostly figure of Michael Atherton signalling an immediate declaration.

It was Atherton's inflexible logic, taken with the team's best interests at heart, in the Sydney Test four years ago, which left Hick bewildered and seemed to capture a Test career doomed never quite able to reach fruition.

England, defending a total of 282 for four yesterday, held off Australia by seven runs to return to the top of the group in the series, a position they can augment by beating Sri Lanka in Melbourne tomorrow. Australia, who set an SCG record by chasing 260 against Sri Lanka last week, came within a whisker of raising the stakes; Sydney, where 220 has long been regarded as a challenging total, is suddenly behaving like a sub-continent flattie.

Hick was not England's only batting success. The stand of 190 in 34 overs between Hick and Nasser Hussain - who had never before passed 50 in 21 one-day knocks but who insisted upon his own one-day calibre with a smooth and discriminating 93 before he was yorked by Damien Fleming - was an English thirdwicket record against Australia.

To defend 282 was not as automatic as it sounds. England had picked two spinners, imagining non-existent turn, and both Robert Croft and Ashley Giles came under the cosh. To remove both Waughs in one over is quite a feat, but Adam Hollioake achieved just that. England needed such respite. Lehmann looked every inch a matchwinner until Alan Mullally floated one up to strike the base of off-stump, and Stewart, using combative final spells from Darren Gough and Mullally to drag his side back into the game, was forced to return to Giles' leftarm spin with 42 needed from five overs.

Giles yorked Greg Blewett, for a run-a-ball 32, and underlined his temperament in his three closing overs. But it was the approach of Bevan which encouraged most Australian debate. An unbeaten 45 in 59 balls, as Australia failed to hit a boundary for the last 11 overs, was safe husbandry writ too large.