Harmison must learn from wily old competitor Glenn

SO, we can expect a slow seamer of a pitch at Edgbaston for Thursday's Second Test, thanks to all the rain of last week.

That may not be exactly music to the ears of the quick men, especially Steve Harmison and Andrew Flintoff who really banged it in at Lord's, and is likely to mean they have to bowl a fuller length.

But while England's tactics with the ball may need modifying to suit conditions it is absolutely vital - from the home team's point of view - that Michael Vaughan's two trump cards reproduce the passion and the commitment they showed during the First Test.

Paul Collingwood has been called up and could play instead of Ashley Giles.

It's Harmison and Flintoff, though, who must set English pulses racing again.

I think we were all stunned by that opening day at Lord's. We knew everyone was fired up for the Ashes after all the hype but I still couldn't quite believe the ferocity and the intensity of the players, especially on that first morning.

Maybe some nervous energy came into play. Even so, it really was something else and I'm sure those of us lucky enough to be at Lord's that Thursday will never forget what we saw. Seventeen wickets on the first day of a Test is something pretty rare but, despite that, there were some fairly amazing shots played as well.

Twenty20 Ashes!

Harmison and Flintoff bowled with real venom. But as well as England performed with the ball to dismiss Australia for 190, they probably could have done even better. Maybe they should have got them out for 160.

I'm sure it won't be lost on them that Glenn McGrath hit a fuller length later in the day during his sensational spell with the new ball.

But there is no doubt about it - these are the best two bowling outfits in world cricket.

Australia knew they were in a real battle from Harmison's opening over and that's the first time for a long while their batsmen have been made to jump around. And the response was to try to play the same way as they have done against everyone else - by bullying the opposition's attack into submission.

It took them a while at Lord's to realise they needed to be tighter in defence. They've been used to getting through the new ball and then just imposing their will on the opposition while scoring at four and five runs an over.

At Lord's, Australia still scored quickly in the first innings but lost wickets quickly, too. Look how they learned, though, come the second innings.

There's no doubt England ended the First Test looking - and feeling - pretty down. And, ever since, at least some of their players have been reading and hearing how they should be axed from the team.

In fact, England can take a fair bit out of Lord's because they were able to match Australia for certain periods of the game. I'm sure Michael Vaughan and Duncan Fletcher will be emphasising that between now and start of play on Thursday morning.

But what they have to do is find a way of going with Australia through the whole match.

Dropping six or seven catches just can't happen if you want to do that.

Kevin Pietersen, for all his good work with the bat, let Michael Clarke slip through his fingers at a crucial time. If that chance had stuck, England know they could have been chasing around 300 in the last innings.

As for Geraint Jones, if he keeps dropping a couple of chances an innings then he's going to have to score 150 every time he goes out to bat to stay ahead.

On the plus side, Pietersen's two half-centuries were highly impressive. He looked good from the start, clearly had a plan and England's other batsmen would do well to study his approach.

Australia will have spent a fair bit of time looking at the videos and talking about Pietersen's technique before they bowl at him again.

McGrath and Shane Warne have not achieved all this success over the years without doing plenty of homework. England's new batting star can expect them to be prizing his wicket even more highly now.

Still, from what we've seen and heard so far of 'KP' I reckon he will continue to relish the challenge.

While England must hope that Pietersen is only one of several home batsmen to make big impressions at Edgbaston, keeping McGrath and Warne at bay will remain their main objective - however the pitch plays.

The accuracy of McGrath never ceases to amaze me. He's a phenomenon, one of the best there's ever been without a doubt.

As for Warne, I had him down as the leading wicket-taker in the series before a ball was bowled.

Nothing I saw at Lord's has forced a rethink. In fact, that was the best I've seen Shane bowl for a long time and, more important, Ricky Ponting reckoned exactly the same.

He probably bowled only one flipper at Lord's and no googlies at all.

So that leaves him with the slider, the one that comes out of the front of the hand, and his huge variety of legbreaks. But it looked more than enough, didn't it!

England know now, if they were in any doubt before, that they'll need to dig deeper as players than they've ever dug before to beat Australia.

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