If, as seems likely, England find themselves chasing over 350, I think they should play with the batting order. Given that a result in the game is almost certain, England may as well bat positively in search of a miracle. Currently, the batsmen split into two groups. We have grafters at 1,2,3 & 4 and aggressive players at 5,6,7 and, I think, need to mix them up a bit. In my opinion, England could have done this in some measure by seaparating Pietersen and Flintoff.

Anyway, I'd punt for (in this innings only) an agressive batsmen at number three. Personally, I'd go with Jones. Give him a chance to save his Test career with a hundred. If he fails what, really, have England lost? For all his deficencies, he's got some talent with the bat. Clearly, I know this isn't going to happen. Jones will probably get 35 in a losing cause at 7 and 'justify' his place. Wouldn't it be great to see England do something left-field. Or is this just nonsense?

You might have a point - England have nothing to lose, the Ashes are slipping away hor by hour.

Australia are a much better batting side than England, Englands bowlers have on the whole done Ok, but the batting has let them down.

So Englans have to surprise Australia, this might also focus he England players.

Flintoff
Strauss
Jones
Cook
Pietersen
Collinwood
Mahmood
Bell
Harmison
Hoggard
Panesar.
Could not do worse then the present line up, and could get off to a flyer.

__________________
Ern

The only move I'd make would be moving Pietersen up to 3 or 4. He's clearly England's best batsmen so they may as well get him in quicker. Stop him running out of partners anyway.

Strauss
Cook
Pietersen
Collingwood
Bell
Flintoff
Jones
Mahmood
Harmison
Panesar
Hoggard

If this was the team selected, this is the batting order I would go in with. I would still open with Strauss & Cook and see where they got England to. England can still retain the Ashes if they draw this test - but will loss it if they are beaten. The depending on the game situation then play with the order - but to me this seems the better batting list.

Oh, by the way - Yes I know I have Hoggard in at 11 - Reason for that is that he is a blocker, he may stay around for a long time, but he will not score any runs either - a blocker should not bat above stroke players, keep the score board ticking along you do not want to bog the scoring down as it creates more pressure.

You think we will only be chasing around 350?

Personally i reckon 500 will be the target.

The point about playing Hoggard at 8 is that whilst he survives.... the senior batsman can bat with restraint. Once he's gone the chances of a big partnership diminish... and with strokeplayers the other end, pressure mounts on the senior player is to slog and hope.

Right now I'd play Hoggard above Flintoff and Jones: he's got more clue about supporting someone of Pietersen's class!

So Rachel but having Hoggard just blocking actually promotes slogging at the other end.

Start of the over, First ball to Pieterson - Pushs it into the empty spaces and takes the single.

2,3,4,5,6 - Well blocked there by Hoggard

Do this after 10 overs and the score advance by 10 runs of the last 60 balls - Guess whats going to happen?

First up... in this Test match the time taken to score the runs is of no consequence: right now we're hearing suggestions of a result (one way or the other) inside 4 days (I'd still back a draw, but that's not a common view).

Second up... the senior batsman should be good enough to try for twos and fours on the first three balls of every over: ending up with an early single may happen... but few bowling plans work reliably... and this should be no exception... and if every over that sees just one score is interspersed (alternately) with overs including a two or a four... the typical sequence might read 1-3-1-5... which is keeping the scorecard ticking along quite nicely.

Edit: I've just re-visited the text commentary and the sequence with Pietersen and Hoggard reads 2-1-1-6-0-3-8-3-1-1: that's nice, steady scoring, expecially given the context.

ps. I've just checked.. and Hoggard and Pietersen scored more quickly in this midst of this England crisis than England did when building a healthy first innings total in the first 60 overs at Adelaide.

Wrong. At this point of the match it was crucial for England to keep the runs ticking along at a good pace, this reduces the pressure on the batsman as the difference in the scores come down. If you take along time to score runs and you get out you then place extra pressure on the batsman coming in. The situation in the game at the time was to reduce the margin as quickly as possible. Blocking the ball out was not the way to go as it was only a matter of time before a wicket would fall.

Well this comment comes down to not actually watching the game.

So I will go over it for you so you will understand why your comment is incorrect.

The Aussie fielders where placed in such a way to give an easy single to Pieterson who took it first ball on the 42, 43 & 44th overs while Hoggard then blocked each ball of the remaining 5 deliveries. The only way Pieterson would have scored anything else was to increase the risk of getting out. If he gets out and Hoggard is just blocking how do you reduce the margin?

In the 45th over once again Pieterson took the first ball single, but in this over Hoggard actually managed to score a run with a defensive shot, this allowed Pieterson to score a boundry as the field was moved off the boundry to prevent Pieterson getting a single to gain the strike next over.

This is why the 46th over is a maiden as Hoggard once again blocked away. However, at the end of the 45th over Read came out with a message to Pieterson - Basically it was stop taking a single ofF the first ball.

Hence on the first ball of the 47th over, Pieterson refused the single. He then started playing shots that had a higher risk of getting out, driving the ball on the up for the second delivery he was able to run a quick two and then took the easy single on the third - for Hoggard to Block the ball for the remainder of the over.

By this time 6 overs have gone and only 13 runs added with the majority of deliveries faced by Hoggard, and in the 48th over of McGrath's over Pieterson started advancing up the pitch and creating shots to hit the ball. This was Englands best over to date in the partnership with 8 runs - and was the most risk taken by Pieterson.

Why would he take this risk? Because the scoreboard was not ticking over and if wickets fell then there would be even more pressure on the batsman.

The 49th over Lee came on and Pieterson tried to smash him but only got it away for a single and left Hoggard for the reaminder of the over - which he defensively got a two run bonus.

The 50th over saw Warne come on and Pieterson wanted to attack him, but to Warne's credit Pieterson was unable to and got a single on the 4th ball and Hoggard took the rest.

Lee's 51st over saw the same result with a 4th ball single to Pieterson.

Warne's 52nd over, and now you could see Pieterson was wanting to hit out with only a couple of runs coming in the last few overs. Took the single on the 5th ball and Warne produced the perfect Leg spin wicket getting Hoggard caught at slip.

Now Pieterson had to protect the tail in the 53rd over with Harmison in and Lee bowling, so he took the decision (The correct one) to play the over and get a single late in the over.

Pieterson, now seeing only 28 runs in the last 72 deliveries and still about 90 runs behind went on the attack. Warne's 54th over and his first ball was smashed but only to long mid-off and Pieterson refuses the run. His second ball Pieterson tries to smash him over the fence and only manages to mis-hit but gets two runs. The Third ball is smashed straight and should be caught but is dropped by McGrath and the ball goes to the boundry for four instead. Pieterson then goes about smashing another 9 runs from the over.

Lee's first ball of the 55th over is smashed for four, and then he tries it again and is now out caught.

Now the difference when you have two stroke players (and these are tailenders) together can be seen from the 56th over to the 64th over;
1
10
6
3
2
5
7
5
1
41 runs off only 54 deliveries and taking an enormous amount of pressure from England.

So if Pieterson was batting with Harmison first and then Monty, there would have been less pressure on him to score and the strike would have been rotated. He would also have the knoweldge that Hoggard was in at 11 and would be able to hang around while he threw the bat at everything.

The obvious counter to the first point is that if you bat for a long time and do NOT get out you serve the side far better than batting for a short time and then heading for the pavillion: Test batsmen should not be thinking "it's only a matter of time" (perhaps true of second-rate through-the-line merchants like Symonds and Gilchrist but not of genuine Test batsmen). The point of decent Test batting is surely to prize your wicket and make sure it takes a LOT more than time to take it.... and on this current pitch there's no reason to belive that a 10 hour innings is out of the question (or to doubt that players in the Hoggard / Gillespie mould could stick around in support.That's > 2 an over... and when you onsider that England's superb 1st innings performance at Adelaide saw 150 added in >60 overs at <2.5 / over (and that top Test bowlers almost invariably have an economy rate of 2.5-2.8... that was fine: all that was needed was more of the same on the sort of scale managed by Atherton in SA!The point of batting with a dependable blocker the other end is backing yourself and him to be good enough to just go on, and on, and on: it's only once the walking-wickets of Harmison and Panesar come along that you need to throw patience out the window and start making the most of every delivery.