It is barely 3 weeks since Brett Lee splattered Steve Harmison's stumps to wrap up the third Test and the Ashes, yet it seems an eternity.

Much has happened since then. England players have come, gone and been forgotten - were Chris Silverwood, Ashley Giles and Andy Flintoff really here? - and those in the one-day squad have played in five different time zones while the remainder of the touring party indulged in "active rest", the oxymoronic equivalent of a temperance party.

In that time, too, Harmison has been reacquainted with the run-up that went missing, and Shane Warne has had his series ended by a shoulder dislocation. Through all this Nasser Hussain, as far as one can tell, has retained his sanity.

The recent interval between Tests to incorporate the opening exchanges in the one-day series has taken yet more heat out of this Ashes series. Ticket sales remain exceptional - and why would people not want to watch one of the finest sides of all time? - but the fourth and fifth contests have taken on an irrelevance. A five-set tennis match would be over by now; in golf matchplay, Australia would have won 3 & 2 and been back in the clubhouse.

Relieved of the burden of Ashes expectation, though, England have always had a tendency to perform better in the dead matches. Four years ago they came to the MCG with the Ashes lost but the series still alive, and against the odds won memorably. Australia have never since been beaten at home.

This time around, though, life may not be so sweet for the tourists, for much as Steve Waugh puts energy into charity work it does not extend to England. Besides which he has his own agenda, for if, as seems increasingly likely, this series is to be the Australia captain's last hurrah, then he would like to go out with a whitewash, something not achieved by the 1948 Invincibles and which has happened only once before in a five-match Ashes series, back in 1920-21 when Warwick Armstrong's Australians beat Johnny Douglas's England.

On Boxing Day those numerous England supporters who have been to the MCG before will find a different ground from the imposing arena they remember. Gone is the Ponsford Stand, part of a massive rebuilding project, leaving the ground gap-toothed much as it was 12 years ago when the Great Southern Stand was under construction.

Surface-wise, demands made on the venue by other sports have meant the introduction of portable drop-in pitches, although the characteristics of the half-dozen used here are different from, for example, the soggy creation encountered by England in Christchurch last winter.

These Melbourne pitches have been in place for three months and prepared in normal fashion since. So the Test pitch, rather than starting damp and improving, is sure to show normal characteristics of wear as the match goes on.

In this respect England will be wary of the inclusion in the home squad of the New South Wales leg-spinner Stuart MacGill, who played the first four Tests against them four years ago while Warne was recovering from his shoulder surgery, taking 27 wickets for spit including seven in the Boxing Day Test.

MacGill does not carry the mystique of Warne but is no less dangerous for that, particularly because he has a point to prove in not having been viewed as Warne's possible replacement for the World Cup. He spins his leg break hugely and is sufficiently fiery to have been censured after his 12-wicket haul in Sydney last time for taunting England with his own version of Midnight Oil's Beds Are Burning: "Poms are ------ when the decks are turning."

Less so this time around, as it happens. England's batsmen have played Warne better than ever they have done, losing out instead to the relentlessness of Glenn McGrath's Chinese torture, Jason Gillespie's incisiveness and Brett Lee's posturing at the tail. At the top of the order Marcus Trescothick's batting has been exposed as lumpen - here he must make the ball come to him rather than go looking for it outside off - but the return of Michael Vaughan, recuperating not so much from his knee injury as the blow he took to his shoul der from Gillespie in his Adelaide epic - will be a tonic.

England have a choice now between Robert Key and John Crawley, who is also fit again. Key deserves to continue.

In Perth England employed seamers, with Richard Dawson included in the side and then largely ignored. That will not be the case in Melbourne, where two changes can be expected from the Perth side.

Andy Caddick has, once again, driven Hussain to frustration. His energetic bowling against Sri Lanka last Friday, coming after he was dropped for the previous one-day match, merely reinforced the captain in his view. With Hussain's patience exhausted, this may be Caddick's last Test but he must surely replace Silverwood in the line-up here.

Alex Tudor, unimpressive in Perth even before his eye injury, ought to make way for Matthew Hoggard, who, if appearances are any guide, has regained confidence from the coaching he has had while sidelined for the past month. Matthew Hayden and Ricky Ponting will test that to the full.

England (from): Hussain, Trescothick, Vaughan, Butcher, Crawley, Stewart (wkt), White, Caddick, Hoggard, Key, Tudor, Harmison, Dawson, Silverwood, Collingwood.

Australia (from): Waugh (capt), Langer, Hayden, Ponting, Martyn, Lehmann, Gilchrist (wkt), MacGill, Gillespie, McGrath, Bichel, Lee.

Umpires: D L Orchard (SA) & R B Tiffin (Zim).

TV: live on Sky Sports 2 from 11.30pm tomorrow

Guardian Unlimited ' Guardian Newspapers Limited 2001