Five things I took out of Old Trafford

Well, well, well. How frustrating was that? The first time in this series that Australia are genuinely on top of a Test match, with victory fully within reach - and the match gets rained out. I don't know if England fans reading this appreciate how incredibly frustrating this is for us Aussies, that the weather (God?) denied us even the opportunity to get back into the series, handing the Ashes to England by default, in a match in which Australia inarguably outplayed England.

But such is life. Here are some things I took out of the Third Test.

Australia's batsmen have finally come good. Four successive top-order batting collapses in the Trent Bridge and Lord's Tests had seen Australia's batsmen derided and disparaged. They were weak. Incompetent. Not Test quality. Easy pickings for the likes of Anderson and Swann. But now the weak, incompetent Pommy-fodder have finally come good. A sterling 187 by Michael Clarke - the highest individual score so far in the series - was complemented by muscular scores of 84, 89, 65 and 66 by Chris Rogers, Steve Smith, Brad Haddin and Mitchell Starc, respectively, to bring Australia's first innings total to a menacing 527. This, dear chaps, is the real Australia. This is what Australia can do when they're on song, and against the likes of Jimmy Anderson and Graeme Swann no less.

Australia aren't rubbish. Australia out-batted England and out-bowled England in this Test match. This is what Australia are capable of. If Australia play like they did in Old Trafford at Chester-le-Street and The Oval, the scoreline for the series will be 2-2. There is a good chance it would have been 3-2 if not for Day 5 of Old Trafford being washed out. Be under no delusion: Australia, when playing their best, are more than a match for England. Australia aren't rubbish. What Australia are, though, is a relatively young Test side finding their feet, with few players of genuine experience in the international arena. Chris Rogers, Usman Khawaja, Steve Smith, David Warner, Shane Watson, Phil Hughes, Ed Cowan, Brad Haddin, Michael Clarke - there are no real mugs in this batting pool; they're all good batsmen, just inexperienced. The same goes for the bowlers - Ryan Harris, Peter Siddle, Mitchell Starc, James Pattinson, Jackson Bird, James Faulkner, Nathan Lyon: no spot-fillers here (except perhaps Agar, although at 19, he shows promise for the future).

Steve Smith is rather good. Yes, The Cricket Hooligan loves talking about Steve Smith. The Cricket Hooligan was doe-eyed over Steve Smith before it was cool. The Cricket Hooligan isn't sure why he keeps talking about himself in third person. But seriously, as Russel Jackson says in The Guardian, Steve Smith is developing into a mature Test cricketer, and a genuinely exciting prospect for the future of Australian cricket. Since returning from his two-year exile from Test cricket earlier this year in India, he has continued to impress. Almost making his maiden hundred at Old Trafford, we perhaps saw a glimmer of the old Steve Smith - the one that was dropped after the 2010-11 Ashes - when he got impatient to get his century and lobbed a Swanny delivery high into the air, gifting a comfortable catch to Tim Bresnan. He won't make the same mistake next time - of that you can be assured.

Watson, Watson, Watson. One Australian batsman who didn't share in the fun at Old Trafford was Shane Watson. With an average of 14.6 for this Ashes series so far, even I, the ardent Watsonite that I am*, have to admit that my faith in Shane Watson has been sorely shaken. I thought moving him back to opening the batting would unleash his natural flair. Not so. I thought being released from the burden of vice-captaincy would take a weight off his shoulders and, consequently, free his game, à la Ian Botham. Not so. So where does that leave me, the last Watsonite standing? Give him until the end of this Ashes series, it doesn't matter where in the batting order. If he continues failing to deliver, he must be told he's to be sent back to Sheffield Shield, and won't be accepted back in the Test side until he's genuinely improved his first-class game. A two year exile might do him good; it will come as a shock, but will rightly humble him and focus him. He might return as a reformed cricketer, like Steve Smith.

There needs to be a royal commission into third umpiring. There were so many shockers in this Test that I can't remember them all. The Usman Khawaja decision by the third umpire in Australia's first innings was obviously the big one: just about everyone apart from - tragically - the third umpire seemed to know that was not out, even Kevin Rudd. Needless to say, a lot of people came out of that Test match very much disillusioned with the fallibility of third umpires and even the DRS system as a whole. I'm not suggesting that the third umpire was corrupt or that there is skulduggery afoot in the third umpiring fraternity (England got just as many shockers as Australia), just that this particular third umpire was particularly incompetent. This kind of ineptitude should really not be entertained in such high-profile international fixtures as Ashes series, where a wrong decision could potentially sway the outcome of an entire match. There must be some change in third umpiring.

*Is it because I'm a Queenslander?

On Stuart Broad, walking and the DRS

I didn't actually see the Stuart Broad not-out howler last night. I expect I was asleep. But when I woke up and hopped onto Twitter this morning to see how the cricket went, just about every cricket tweeter I follow was going on about this controversial decision of Aleem Dar to give Stuart Broad not out after edging one right into Clarkey's hands. Not only this, but there was heated discussion about Stuart Broad's decision not to walk when Dar gave him not out.

I had my reservations about making a judgment when I read all this, having not actually seen what happened. I tend to give the batsman the benefit of the doubt on walking until the following question is answered: did the batsman actually see the catch? Did he watch the ball into the fielder's hands? Simply put, did the batsman know he was out? I immediately set to finding a video of the incident to have these questions answered.

It was quite stunning. A thicker edge I cannot remember witnessing. A more regulation catch there never was. Only Broad's being clean bowled would have been a more straightforward dismissal. The Aussies shouldn't even have needed to appeal the catch. Yet, he was given not out. You couldn't make it up.

More to the point, Broad's eyes never left the ball: he watched it right off the bat into Clarke's hands. That, for me, finally satisfied me of Broad's guilt. No one can say he didn't know he was out. He should have walked.

Yes, I am one of those "sanctimonious idiots", as Twitter's legsidelizzy calls us, who think a man should walk if he knows he's out. I don't accept the argument that the players should "let the umpires umpire" irregardless of whether they make a decision that is clearly wrong. The umpire isn't the only person on the field who is able to know whether a batsman is out or not - umpires are only human, after all. A batsman who knows he's out, but is given not out by the umpire, has a duty to correct the wrong decision. He has a duty to walk. Not to do so is blatant cheating, plain and simple.

It's the spirit of the game. It's sportsmanship. It's cricket. No, the batsman is not obliged to walk strictly under the rules of the game - he is entitled to stand his ground and wait for the umpire's decision, and if the umpire gives him not out, he's entitled to stay put under the rules of the game. That still doesn't make it right. This is the gentlemen's game we play. "Cricket" is, or at least once was, synonymous with integrity and fair play. Every time a batsman refuses to walk he compromises the spirit of the game.

And let's not have any of this "we all know an Aussie would have done the same thing" stuff. The argument that it's okay not to walk if you're playing against Australia because everyone knows, obviously, that Aussies never walk, is pathetic, and a pleading excuse at best. I don't think the people who make this plea get it: Stuart Broad refused to walk off a blatant catch. Broad's defenders don't have a moral high ground to stand on; they are defending the indefensible. England are now as much tainted by the stain of non-walking as Australia is.

Of course, this whole incident wouldn't be as much a controversy if Australia had not already used up (wasted) all their reviews. Clarke would have promptly asked for the decision to be reviewed, the DRS would have shown a straightforward edge and catch at first slip, and Broad would have been sent on his merry way with no more questions asked. But Clarke had wasted Australia's last review on a complete non-starter, a review for an LBW off a ball of Pattinson's that was clearly going down leg side.

This incident should really bring home the need to reform the way DRS works. Giving the reviews to the captains encourages the teams to waste their reviews like this, on iffy LBW chances that might (but probably won't) go their way if reviewed, leaving them high and dry when a real howler goes against them. This was the original object of introducing the DRS - to get rid of howlers.

Mark Taylor often mentions his idea which would improve the DRS: to take the decision to review completely out of the hands of the players and to let the third umpire intervene unilaterally, as many times as he wants during the match, if he thinks a decision is wrong. This would get rid of dodgy, time-wasting reviews and let the DRS resume its proper function - that of getting rid of howlers. There's nothing controversial about this; this arrangement is already in place to allow the third umpire to check for no-balls at any time. This would, as they say, let the players get on with playing and the umpires with umpiring.