CRICKET: Relentlessly and not a little ruthlessly, drawing on the high-octane batting of the first day, England bowled their way into what, by all that is right, should be a commanding position after two days of the second Test.
To do so they had to overcome an innings of abandon from Ricky Ponting, who might have been run out before he scored but then batted sublimely for 61, and one of immense courage and character from Justin Langer, who took Australia into the final session before succumbing to Simon Jones.
There was a typical flourish from Adam Gilchrist, too, as the innings was in its death throes, but he had to battle for his unbeaten 49.
However, with Australia dismissed for 308 - with not a single six in that total and just 39 fours - England were able to embark on their second innings with a lead of 99, and the knowledge that the pitch, dried out increasingly not so much by sun but by a buffeting crosswind that sucked the moisture from the ground, was already holding up for Ashley Giles.
There is genius abroad, however. In the evening sunlight, Marcus Trescothick and Andrew Strauss had added 25 against the new ball with some panache when Ponting summoned Shane Warne to the City End for what might be the last over. His second ball, to Strauss, projected from round the wicket to the left-hander, turned prodigiously from out of the rough and, as the batsman padded up, spun across and behind him and pegged back his leg stump.
It was an omen to take into today, the most emphatic of punctuation marks. Warne, with the bit between his teeth, is the most potent weapon in the match. Australia still have to bat last, but this match is by no means England's.
England had bowled well as a unit, a significant factor in their success of recent times. There were no wickets this time around for Steve Harmison but he made himself felt with the new ball and created his own brand of self-doubt.
But Matthew Hoggard removed Matthew Hayden with his first ball of the match, the first time in the Tests that the opener has succumbed for a golden duck. Jones produced a decisive spell late in the afternoon when he mixed reverse and orthodox swing cleverly, and Andy Flintoff nipped out Simon Katich and then finished off the innings clinically with a brace of fast, reverse-swung yorkers that Waqar Younis in his prime could not have bettered.
Yet no sight will have been more pleasing for England or the Edgbaston supporters than that of Giles twirling away from over the wicket and creating problems for all the Australians who faced him. He finished with the wickets of Ponting, Michael Clarke and Warne at a cost of 76, lending Michael Vaughan the kind of control from one end that has been such a factor for England, and, perhaps, going some way towards earning the respect that the Australians have appeared so reluctant to concede.
As England left the pitch, Giles's colleagues moved aside to allow him to lead them into the pavilion, recognising as they did not just his statistical contribution but how much it meant to him.
The King of Spin knows this ground and its quirks well enough, but this was a test of character after the press ding-dong of the past week. There was a vote of confidence of a sort in the picture of him on the front cover of the match programme and he could carry into the match the memory of his nine-wicket performance here last year.
Still, he was a man with something to prove and he did so immaculately, using the breeze cleverly, varying his pace and creating trouble for left-handers from the rough outside their off-stump.
What confidence can he now take into the second innings where he knows that, whatever Warne achieves, it is within his compass to win the match for his side?
Guardian Service
