England followed my script for the morning session. Early wickets fell as Flintoff got Ponting, skying a hook, Hoggard bowled Hussey through the gate for his first failure of the series, and Harmison produced a snorter to dismiss Clarke with his second ball of the match. At that point Australia were 88-5, admittedly one of those wickets being Lee the night watchman. At lunch they had progressed to about 120-5. First ball after lunch Hayden hit the ball straight to Mahmood at mid off and set off for a suicidal run. Mahmood wasn’t really watching and fumbled the ball. Despite that he still had time to hit the stumps (and he had 3 to aim at) and Hayden would have been out by yards. Predictably his throw was wild and missed by a mile. This set the tone for the session. Symonds and Hayden batted very sensibly and slowly accelerated. Hayden got his ton first, then Symonds who got there with a straight six. Aggers on the radio commentary revealed that Boycott on the TV commentary had said he would eat his hat if Symonds got a fifty. What he will do now he is 150 not out I’m not sure. England looked all at sea for the entire afternoon session, totally devoid of invention and new ideas. Flintoff seemed too defensive, allowing the batsmen easy singles almost from the word go. Eventually as the scheduled close of play passed and with about half an hour of extra time remaining to be bowled my watching companions cracked and both Moz and Tutes decided to commit the cardinal sin of sports watching and left early. No sooner had they left their seats than Mahmood produced a pearler to remove Hayden. Moz then shamefacedly returned to see Gilchrist fail again (if he follows the pattern he should hit a ton in the second innings). Tutes did not return thereby proving that he is England’s bogey man - he did not show up until after lunch today after a late night last night, missing the early fight back. If he can be persuaded to stay away tomorrow perhaps England have a chance. Who knows - knock over the tail quickly tomorrow, bat for 2 days and get a 200 run lead and put the pressure on on a wearing last day pitch. Well a man can dream. The pitch is pretty docile still - not surprising really as it’s only the end of day 2. If we had bowled first we would be batting now in the best conditions. But let’s not go over all that again.