confident we can retain the ashes now..my 7/4 looks rather good..well done england

Don't understand Strauss's declaration really. It didn't rub their noses in it as it prevented them having to field all day as people above have suggested he should have done, and it didn't give them any chance of winning, which made it pointless. If anything, it just gave Ponting the chance to smack our attack around a bit...

The best reason I can come up with is that he did it as soon as Cook passed Bradman's ground record. Though I doubt the Aussies will be at all ar$ed by that.

Still, I'm on 3-0 and 4-0 England, so musn't grumble. The toss at Adelaide could prove very important indeed.

brilliant start to the 2nd test..seems we have the aussies on the back foot..ponting exchanging words with strauss at the end of play.just hope we get a good lead and put the pressure on the whining aussies

I'd settle for 325-0 by stumps on the 2nd day

Was a decent 1st over to start with Great effort in the field yesterday just need to capitalise now and get a 400+ score in the 1st innings which we seem to struggle with.

Apparently this was down to Anderson's sledging of Haddin. LMAO.

all the years of aussie sledging they get a bit back and they dont like it..anyway looks like we`ll get well over 400,pressures well and truly on the aussies when they bat again..keep sledging em jimmy its clear they are feeling the pressure....brilliant knock by cook,its time pieterson chipped in with a ton as well

I was so wrong about Cook, i thought it would take him 3-4 innings to get going, he's been amazing! albeit the aussies bowling attack is laughable, Xavier Dohety looks like a village team bowler he's that poor.

Doherty is terrible.....I thought we used to have problems trying to find our own Warne during the Aussie glory years, but the likes of Croft and Salisbury were spin kings compared to this new Aussie fella.

Australia are a mess. Johnson may have been garbage in Brisbane, but there's always the chance he might click. Can't see Doug the Rug producing a game-changing spell.

Doherty does indeed look out of his depth. If Hauritz wasn't going to be picked, they should have gone for Smith as their spinner.

The thing is, that if they get a good hiding here as seems possible, where do the selectors go next? Bring back Johnson and Hilfenhaus, or scour their 6 first class sides for other options. Goes to show how lucky they were to have Warne and McGrath at the same time.

Some of our spinners back in the day, were not that bad. Peter Such was a good steady bowler as was Richard Illingworth, but we were too busy trying to find our own Shane Warne so we wasted time with guys like Salisbury. The arrival of Warne and Murali meant that we had got the idea we needed a spin bowler who would be a heavy wicket taker, but only a very few spin bowlers in history have been like that, most of the time England have done alright with guys like Underwood or Emburey. Duncan Fletcher realised that and thats why we had Ashley Giles during our most successful period.

Salisbury and Chris Schofield were rubbish, and I didn't think Croft was that good either, he wasn't as good as Such or Illingworth but I suppose at least he wasn't a massive liability like Salisbury or Schofield, those two bowled more short balls than Courtney Walsh. A good over from them was one with only one four hit in it!

I thought Graeme Hick could have been used more as a spinner, I would have kept him in the side throughout the 1990s rather than dropping him, because his bowling was at least as good as guys like Croft, I remember him on a tour of India bowling 40odd overs per innings and keeping it tight.

Our only credible wicket taking spinner was Tufnell but he was too unpredictable a character, but he was another who was always in and out of the team, but he managed to win a few matches for us over the years.

I met Ian Salisbury once. He was a complete and utter c0ckend.

just had a feeling pietersen would chip in with good knock,class act..its up to you bowlers now....

Eng 620-5dec

Aus currently on 53-0

Only Hussey and Haddin seem to be causing us problems, get them two out and the rest should be easy