The Essex all-rounder discusses England's shortcomings in attack, salutes a classy statement from Australia's captain and reveals the calmest player he has ever shared a crease with...

Although Australia had control of the first Ashes Test at the end of day three, I expect England will have enough to avoid defeat even without the help of the weather.

However, the host's position demonstrates the importance of those last couple of partnerships in the first innings. If England had only got 350 then they would be fighting a steep uphill battle right now.

In my pre-match column I said that spinner Nathan Hauritz would play for Australia even though that was not really a popular opinion. But he bowled steadily and did get some turn. England selected both their spinners, which was a brave decision, and signalled that they wanted to win the game. But, while the ball has not turned as much as expected, Monty Panesar and Graham Swann have not performed particularly well either.

Still, there are two days to go and if it does come to the last couple of sessions and Australia are chasing a score then they will simply have to bowl tighter.

It is still important that England don't let Australia get too far ahead too quickly. But even if they do, Ponting's men will still struggle to bowl out England in three sessions or so to set up a victory.

Certainly these first few days have demonstrated that the Australians are not as undercooked and inexperienced as people thought. When I matched up the two teams before the series I saw it as pretty level with England edging it in the spin department. However, Australia have put down a big marker themselves by responding to England's very decent score and giving themselves a handy lead with wickets in hand. The momentum is with them.

Psychologically, England have been bowling for two days so they will feel these guys can really bat. The difference is that Paul Collingwood and Kevin Pietersen were out for mid-range scores in the England innings having done the hard work while Simon Katich and Ricky Ponting got stuck in to make big hundreds for Australia.

In the past year or so, the visiting captain has not seemed to be the batsmen he was so setting an example like that this early on is a classy statement. He is the backbone of the batting line-up and he has proven himself once again. If you think that 500 runs is a big achievement in an Ashes series, then he is about a third of the way there already. He is still the benchmark for the Aussies.

I am currently on international duty myself. Holland are hosting back-to-back one-day internationals against Canada at Amstelveen.

I darted over the North Sea on Friday night having helped Essex cling on to a draw against Glamorgan at Chelmsford.

The Welshmen won the toss, batted and hit 515-9 declared. We had a slow start in our first innings and were dismissed for 200. That has been our problem all season. It was a challenging but not impossible wicket and we left ourselves a hell of lot of work to do to save the game after following on. In the second innings Hashim Amla, our new overseas signing, got stuck in with 181 while myself (88 not out) and James Foster (54) played the supporting roles. It was superb to bat with the South African - he has fitted in well and is the probably the calmest person I have every shared a crease alongside. He also talks a good game and is a great bloke to discuss batting with.

We fought very hard for an extra four points but we are trying to turn around our season. When Glamorgan put that many on the board in the first two days you are going to struggle to win the game but you want to put up 450, put the pressure on them and get all your batting points. We did not do that. It was all very frustrating on the back of the great win at Kent.

But there are positives from Friday's display after only losing two wickets. So it was a successful salvage operation.

England will do well to follow our example.

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