Australia roar back into First Test

First Test, Day Two: England 435; Australia 249/1. Australia took control on the second day of the first Ashes Test, overhauling half the deficit that England had posted by the end of the final session.

Earlier England's bowlers had put on almost 100 runs for the last three wickets, as Stuart Broad (19), James Anderson (26) and Graeme Swann (47 not out) had helped the home side pass 400.

Australia got back into the game after the early dismissal of their opener Philip Hughes for 36 by Andrew Flintoff, as captain Ricky Ponting (100 not out) and Simon Katich (104 not out) both posted centuries after tea.

WHAT THEY ARE SAYING
Mike Selvey, the Guardian: "Two days gone and already the first Test has not so much twisted and turned as writhed. Today, for the most part anyway, was Australia's day as relentlessly, playing the conditions without risk or frippery, Simon Katich and Ricky Ponting redressed the balance of the first Test for Australia after a morning in the fieldthat bordered on red-faced embarrassment for them. Katich, a latecomer as an established Test match batsman, the pragmatic unobtrusive left-hander given the task of helping fill the breach left by one of the great opening pairs in history, became the first to register a century on the newest Test ground when he pulled Andrew Flintoff's bouncer for a single to fine-leg."

Mike Atherton, the Times: "There was a time just after lunch yesterday when English cricket was transported back to 2005. Andrew Flintoff was bearing down upon the crease, releasing thunderbolt after thunderbolt, seemingly unchanged over the four-year period even though much water has flowed under the pedalo since then. The crowd was alive to the possibilities, chanting its hero’s name ball after ball, and Australia were under the hammer. It proved to be illusory, nothing more than a fleeting remembrance of a time that Ricky Ponting, for one, has no intention of embracing again."

Derek Pringle, Daily Telegraph: "Ponting’s pedigree is that of cricketing royalty and he showed the preening peacocks among England’s batsmen the difference between an eye-catching cameo and an innings of substance, passing 11,000 Test runs in the effort. With only eight fours the self-restraint was obvious, but there was also a gimlet-eyed purpose that recalled Steve Waugh at his cussed best. This was Ponting’s 38th Test hundred and its appearance looks ominous for England. In 2005, he passed fifty just once in the first innings of the Test series. This time he has done it at his first attempt with the power to add interest, today."