Like averaging 51 against them you mean?

Life for Cook.

86-2 at lunch, honours even and i'm done.

86-2 at lunch, fairly even but I'd say the Aussies just about edged it - hope Cook can make them pay for that missed chance.

Now I'm trying to decide whether to see it through or have a kip through the afternoon session and get up for the evening one!

KP gone c Ponting b Siddall 43

Collingwood is usually good for slow steady runs to steady up the ship.

You were saying?

Disappointing batting from England, poor shots throwing wickets away against an attack that doesn't seem to be especially threatening.

The track looks pretty flat, and we are throwing it away.

I can see us getting nailed here

We should have been looking at 400+ on this wicket, so we need these two to go on and make big runs if we are going to achieve at least par.

Cook's 50 up, at least he is playing a sensible innings.

172/4 at tea. Bell and Cook with 47 off 92.

Evening sesh just starting

2 in 2 balls for Siddle, England rocking at 197/6, looking well short of where we should be.

Broad bowled LBW - HAT-TRICK (being revised)

EDIT - OUT!!!

I think I'll need a beer before work after that.

Holding on until day 2 is the task now

I thought the Aussies squandered their referrals, but ours have been embarrassing.

There goes the 8th and thankfully so do the players for rain

And back they come.

We can't even get it to rain right

260 all out. Doherty with last 2 wickets.

Aus 25/0 at close of play

Been waiting for you to pop up on a England thread............just about sums up your knowledge of cricket.

About 90 runs light, some good bowling by Siddle but we thre wickets away, especially Strauss, Collingwood, KP and Prior.

The pitch looked ordinary when they batted.

Still it might quash some of the over confident bunch on here now

On that pitch and against that attack england should have scored more. It has been a weakness of England for a while that we dont score heavily enough like what the Indians or Sri Lankans do. We are 100 light i think.

Cricket is one place I actually back England. And my practical knowledge probably exceeds yours, but we won't get into that.

Depite all the hype about the Aussies being in disarray nine of their XI was nailed on once fitness issues had been resolved. The only marginal selections were Siddle for Bollinger and Doherty for Hauritz. It's annoying that one of these did all the damage, but I still think their selectors have blundered in dropping Hauritz (who did fairly well in the last Ashes series in England and was omitted from the Oval Test that decided that series) in favour of a 28 year old debutant with a career bowling average in the mid-forties. In fact it's an extraordinary selction of the type we used to see from England selectors in the last century.

We didn't get huge first innings scores in most of the pre-series games, yet still hit back to seize the initiative when our turn came to bowl, so we've just got to prove we can do this in the most important matches too.

Great bowling by Siddle. Only Bell and Cook got decent starts. Can't believe I made it until halfway through the afternoon session. We need some early wickets tonight.