On the contrary, Mitchell Johnson and Hilfenhaus made it look easy. As did Strauss and Cook to kick us off to another good start.

As a senior player, KP's irresponsibility never ceases to amaze me. He never should be playing a shot like that with 5 overs of the days play remaining, especially after working so hard to build a good partnership with Cook. What a waste!!!

Why batsmen insist on trying to hook Johnson I don't know, it's a hard shot to play against him. Still we are in good shape, we let them get 50/60 too many but if we can get a lead of around 100 then we will be in a good position.

Why batsmen try to hook full stop with a man waiting for a dolly amazes me.
It's asking for it.
I don't mind square pulls, but once the ball is over shoulder height, flailing about up there is too much like rounders.
Some of them can't resist it though.

We need to bat as long as possible now. If we bat all day and only score 250 it will put immense pressure on the aussies.

All of the bowling at Johnson and Hilfenhaus was terrible. Legside, short, all over the place, when decent, at the stumps bowling with the movement they were getting would have been perfect.

It's always been a failing of England's

Big first session tomorrow now. With Anderson in as nighchman we're likedly to lose another wicket within half an hour, and Bell will be coming in too low at 7 again.

One more decent partnership is the minimum requirement; that would ensure a first innings lead. Ideally I'd like us to be 100+ ahead on first innings. With Collingwood possibly on the verge of losing his place for good it would be typical if he came to the party at this point and made a decisive contribution.

Hope so, doubts over his place usually do the trick, was made up for him to get such a big wicket 'yesterday', good honest wholehearted pro.

I'm amazed at the fickleness and short memories of some England fans - reading some of the comments on the BBC Sport blogs about how yesterday's bowling at the tail was "typical England" and "a disgrace" made me laugh out loud.

Johnson and Hilfenhaus took some chances and in the most part they all came off, can happen to any tail ender on their day. They could just as easily have holed out trying to slog the bowling out of the ground and had them all out for 220.

Sachin Tendulkar hits century no 51.

Yes. "Typical England" in this series has been wiping out the bulk of the Aussie top order for not much more than 100. We've now bowled them out seven times in a row without conceding more than 309. By contrast England have made the three largest totals of the series for a combined loss of just 16 wickets, while the Aussies have only bowled us out four times in the first four Tests.

Tailenders batting together tend to chase the sort of short or wide balls that top order batsmen just leave, and they tend to hit hard rather than looking to nudge singles, so if a couple of them get their eye in they end up scoring quickly off short balls, length balls, straight balls, wide balls etc., and it makes the bowler look like he's all over the place.

I fancy Collingwood to call it quits from the Test side after this game after some of the things he's said recently. Hopefully he'll go out on a double high with runs to go with his catches and wickets AND the Ashes being retained.

Really entertaining day's play. Seemed to have everything, a brilliant ton by Tendulkar, ball hitting wicket and not dislodging the bail, fluke run out (although Harris deserved credit for taking the ball on his shin) and a couple of late wickets to make the game extremely well balanced.

If Cook completes his ton and there are runs from Bell and overdue runs from Colly we should be in a good position to win the match. Think Swann could have a lot of success in Australia's second innings.

However, Strauss is pretty negative and unless we're skittled out I expect him to bat Australia to death because he'll no doubt settle for a rain-affected draw.

We're still in a good position but I found some of our field settings to Johnson and Hilfenhaus a bit odd, but Strauss is naturally a bit cautious so it wasn't that unexpected.

Need to dig in tonight, bat as long as possible - anything above 350 is good, but if we could somehow muster 400+ then I think that would be it. Cook and Collingwood are the key men, they could dig in and frustrate the Aussies.

I'll be pleasantly surprised if that happens. There's no point even giving them a sniff of a chance if we can bat long enough. They're the team who trundled along at not much more than 2 runs an over on the first day when the onus was on them to force a win and square the series.