What a shame, I was really hoping I got a nice tasty piece of humble pie, but in the end every single one of my gripes before this test came true except Jones keeping fallability, and even then it was not like he was ever tested.
It was exactly this situation that demanded Panesar, a lot of overs needed against a strong middle order, and Giles yet again showed that he doesn't possess the skill to pick up the key wickets. I don't think he turned the ball once all day, and never once beat the bat.
As for the rest of them, Freddie bowled excellently, but his captaincy was yet again suspect, tailenders new to the crease, and he set pretty defensive fields, just as he did in India and against Sri Lanka. You CAN'T just bowl short at tail-enders without sticking someone in short-leg or silly point. The bowling itself was fairly dire, Hoggy did a good job in a long spell, and despite the various decent balls from Anderson, there was always a pressure relieving four ball in every over, more often than not two of them. Harmison did bowl better, and got a couple in the right areas, but was still quite simply well below international standard.
When they did finally get to the tail-enders they just kept throwing the ball in the slot, instead of looking for the yorkers and short balls at the batsmans throat, even when two chances were created the fielders didn't back them up, and the moment Cook dropped that catch I could see him being out before the end of the day.
All in all, another excellent day for Australia, and a poor one from most of the England team. The batsman looked desperately short of match practice on thes bouncier pitches, not seeming to trust the bounce and needlessly playing at everything, whilst Strauss' pull shot to a ball that was moving away from him was incredibly irresponsible. First Hayden and then Hussey and Ponting showed that all it takes is to see off the new ball and it gets a lot easier, but the English batsman except Cook seemed determined to play with needless risk.
Collingwood showed worrying signs that the speculation that his batting isn't suited to these pitches with absolutely no footwork and when you look at the England batting lineup that is left, without a big partnership from the current two, they will almost certainly fall well short.. barring of course a big double hundred from Giles
