In my preview I commented that Australia needed early wickets and England needed to bat as long as possible. Whilst Australia got the 5 wickets in the session they needed they came at a cost of nearly 100 runs. England are now in the box seat in this match.

The obvious highlight from the first session was the bowling of Ryan Harris. 7 for carrying this otherwise ordinary, in this game, pace attack was an effort of Herculean stature.

The other fast bowlers seemed innocuous and bereft of a plan to stop the runs scoring. Australia missed the bowling of S Watson desperately and Captain Clarke seemed to just let the game get away from him by being stagnant in the field when either attack or defence was called for.

Tim Bresnan’s cameo has turned the game to England’s favour. He is a quality cricketer Bresnan who runs in hard all day with the ball and is “sneaky” sharp whilst he has developed into a quality batter at number 8 in the order.

At lunch Australia is 0 for 11 and now need 288 runs in the five remaining sessions of the game.