I had remarked in my last post that England should not abandon their aggressive stance if they have to bring the urn back to England. Unfortunately, they have done so and its effects are there to see. First, their batsmen did not carry on in the aggressive vein that had been so effective in the last three tests. That momentary lapse of reason was enough to let Warne rip through the top 4 with only 131 runs on the board. Secondly, and most importantly they replaced their most effective bowler with a batting allrounder. Had Collingwood come off as a batsman, this mistake would have been less obvious. But as things stand he was dismissed cheaply albeit via a debatable decision. Now England has to defend an okay total with a less than full-strength attack.
Another thing to be noted is the Aussie plan for this test match. Quite obviously Hayden has decided to eschew all attack and accumulate. This has paid off so far. On the other hand, there was a definite plan to go after Giles early in his spell and nullify one of Englands weapons. If Giles is rendered ineffective, it increases the pressure on the other 3 bowlers. It will be interesting to see how this plays out on the third day. England is lucky that the weather is on their side and hopefully for them it might have a role to play on the third day. At this point of time, at the end of the second day, the advantage is solidly with Australia and it will be interesting to see how they execute in the next few days.
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