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.

Are there any highlight programmes or radio bits with Geoff Boycott on. I love listening to him as he always says it as it is. I bet he is calling Peterson every idiot under the sun

I'm sure the Beeb do a TMS highlights special and PODcasts.

have you got a digital radio - 5 live sport xtra do kinda of rolling highlights / analysis after the end of play

Boycott has been on the TMS daily podcast everytime I've downloaded it.

cheers for that. Found TMS podcast.

I think it would be in Collys best interests to retire from Test Cricket. He's a decent player at that level but he's a better one day player and he could hold down a place in Englands 50 and 20 over sides aswell as making some cash out of the IPL each year.



It would be good for both England and Collingwood if he calls it quits. We have guys like Morgan, Bopara and Hildreth knocking on the door so we're not short and he'll add a year or two to his one day career.

cheating aussie filth

Embarrassing.

Blatant cheating from Hughes there. He knew he hadn't caught yet decided to go up when the rest of them did.



Desperate and very poor from the Aussies that.

Cook not denied another hundred though, great stuff.

Fantastic batting again from Cook, a magnificent series from him.



As for Hughes, that was shockingly embarrassing, he knew he had not caught it then just reacted to those around him, appauling!

Appealing.

Commentators claiming the Aussies didn't join in the applause for Cook's century.



Instead of feeling bitter maybe you should get your bowler to keep his foot behind the line, and not claim catches that are nothing of the sort.

Colly flops again unfortunately, Beer finally gets a genuine wicket.