The ashes are alive and kicking

What a marvelous series this is turning out to be already! England, for all their bowling efforts, were pummelled in the first test by Mcgrath and Warne. If this was the English team under Athers or Stewie, there would definitely have been changes in the team, for no fault of the skippers whatsoever. However England retained their playing eleven, a step which has given all the confidence in the world to their players, not least of all, the much criticised Ashely Giles.

The moment England discovered that Mcgrath was not going to play in the test match they must have felt a huge sense of relief. For once, the luck was favouring them. Ask Nasser Hussain: Simon Jones suffered a terrible injury in Australia which put him out of the whole series, Flintoff and Thorpe hardly played against Australia, in fact this is Freddie's first ever series. The luck off the field soon spilt into it as Strauss was dropped by Warne at slip. From that moment on it was all England. It was a sensational day of test cricket with some of the cleanest hitting you will ever see. Marcus Trescothick played an innings full of gorgeous drives and took the attack to Shane Warne. The key to playing Warne, is to make him think harder by taking the attack to him, and thats precisely what England did. Pietersen and Flintoff came in at a crucial stage of the game and their partnership established England's dominance in the game. Flintoff used his power to good use, thumping some hige sixes. The shot of the day came from Kevin Pietersen when he flicked a delivery outside the off stump to the midwicket boundary with minimal effort. It oozed class and would have done VVS laxman proud.

England have bowled well and restricted Australia to 308 with Ashley Giles coming to the party. Under tremdendous pressure, Giles gave a fitting reply to his critics with 3 fine wickets and a good spell of left arm spin. England are now 124 runs ahead with 9 wickets in hand. This is too big an opportunity to be missed and England have to go to Old Trafford with the series level.