A poor start from England, was rescued by Bairstow & Woakes as Englands opening issues continue. 

Roy is clearly not a test match opening batsman. His natural game is as an aggressor, not to be patient and build an innings. With Englands ‘Key player’, Joe Root, at 3 it exposes him to the new ball. If Root goes cheaply then it just leaves a shaky middle order, just like we saw today. It’s not like we don’t have options. Dom Sibley and Sam Northeast are scoring bundles in the County Championship, what have they got to do to get a gig in the England test side. In an ideal world, their Test debuts wouldn’t be in the Ashes but it is getting seriously close to slipping away from England and something drastic needs to happen. 

Burns looked good again, scoring another half century before getting out to a stunning catch from Bancroft. Catches like that are the reason he is in the Australian side, any runs he scores is a bonus for them. Denly got in and got out shortly after. Personally I don’t think he has done enough to keep his place in the side and he has surely had enough opportunities now to prove himself.

Buttler seems like a fish out of water. Not really knowing whether to play at deliveries or not and his average against the Aussies is woeful at just 12.72. He seems confused what his role in the side is and unsure whether to play his natural game or go against the grain and stick around. 

Bairstow finally dug in and scored a well-earned 50. Well needed for him and hopefully he builds on that to score some more runs in the series. It was disappointing the amount of starts in the England line up today and all of them failed convert to a big score. 

Although more runs would have been nice, all is not lost. Recovering to 258 a/o could have been a lot worse considering we were 138/6. Gives us something to bowl at and hopefully not let the Aussies get a big lead. 

Considering it is really only day 1 of the test, the pitch doesn’t look like it is going to hold up too well. It looks slow and dry already, so batting on the 4th day will be interesting. It looks like the longer the game goes on the more the pitch will turn, so hopefully Jack Leach can find them dry rough patches and cause the Aussie batsman some trouble. At what first looked like a good toss to win could turn on its head with a good bowling performance from England tomorrow.

Archer looked sharp on debut and hopefully he can continue to bowl gas throughout. He needs to bowl slightly fuller and get the batsman playing a bit more, especially while the ball is doing a bit. 

Broad needs to keep doing what Broad does. What an absolutely beauty that was to dismiss Warner. He has sent Warner on his was in all 3 innings of the Ashes so far, while Warner has only compiled 13 runs in 3 tests. The longer we keep him out of the game the better. 

I would put the Aussies as slight favourites at the moment but a good start with the ball tomorrow from England all could change. The forecast doesn’t look good for tomorrow afternoon, hopefully some of that weather stays away. Having a bit of weather around will definitely favour England and the ball will do a bit. Few early wickets on Day 3 and getting Steve Smith out early, the favour switches to England. An interested day ahead tomorrow.