Dreadful

Notwithstanding the coruscating but ultimately irrelevant batting of Stuart Broad and Graeme Swann this morning, just about the best that can be said about England's dreadful performance at Headingley is that they held their catches. There was little else, apart perhaps from Stuart Broad's six wickets, although these only came after a long period during which large amounts of unrelieved dross were served up to a series of grateful Australian batsmen.

This has been a series of punch and counter-punch, but now Australia have all but floored England, and it'll be astonishing if England can come back to win at The Oval.

Much the strangest and most surprising aspect of this massacre has been the way in which, like some of the first Test at Cardiff, it's felt like being transported back to any of the series between 1989 and 2001 in which Australia routinely humiliated England. The interim contests at Lord's and Edgbaston, in which England carved out an advantage which looked like it might see them home, might as well never have happened.

It always looked as though England might be in trouble if Australia started to bowl well. In this match they have, with the returning Stuart Clark, the resurgent Mitchell Johnson, the resilient Peter Siddle and the redoubtable Ben Hilfenhaus holding the aces. The fact that this renaissance has been coupled with some awful batting and naive bowling by the home side has cooked England's goose very thoroughly indeed.

Underlying causes are difficult to pinpoint at times like these, but, in this match, and at times earlier in the series, the key distinction between the sides has been the level of discipline, maturity and technical expertise displayed, in particular, by the Australian batsmen. They seem to be less inclined to believe their own publicity and they understand the game - and their part in it - in a way which hardly any of England's players (Strauss fully excepted) do. In part this is because players like Marcus North are older and have been around the block (if not in Test cricket) in a way that Bopara and Bell simply haven't. Although, given the way that England players tend to think and react, you wouldn't bet on either of them ever emulating the type of all-round class which North has shown over the past few weeks (let alone that of Ponting or Clarke).

So many words have been written about the contrasts between the countries' systems (most recently by Justin Langer) that I'm reluctant to go there once again, but it's that which is at the heart of England's failure to produce large numbers of players who can perform consistently well at the game's highest level.

Is anything much ever likely to change? Even if you're at Headingley and the bookies are offering you 500-1, don't bet on it.

Nicely Poised

With the last-day Edgbaston stalemate starting to fade from the memory and eyes turning to Headingley via the current (very shaky) state of Andrew Flintoff's fitness, the Ashes series looks nicely poised. England are ahead on points and look the more potent side, at least as far as bowling in helpful conditions is concerned. However, as more than one person elsewhere has pointed out, when the ball isn't doing a lot, Australia have the batsmen to cash in big, something exemplified by North and the sublimely orthodox Clarke on Monday.

With the ball Australia don't quite have it and it remains to be seen whether they have the faith in Lee's fitness or Clark's ability to make the changes they surely need.

As Matthew Hoggard helpfully reminded people on the radio here in the UK last night, the Headingley pitch isn't the seamers' paradise it once was, and The Oval is never anything other than a batsman's track (although it will reward you if you bowl well on it), so taking another forty England wickets over the next couple of weeks isn't going to prove easy.

If you want to see them try to do it, it may be worth going along to here, where you can get a voucher which'll entitle you to 5% off Ashes tickets bought here.

Mind you, having seen some of the prices people are charging, you'll need it.