England Leave Australia With Much to Ponder After Dominant Ashes Start

There was a period during the first Test, as Joe Root was playing the innings of his life, when the air of invulnerability that surrounds Australia, one founded on their own capacity to talk themselves up and that of England supporters to take pessimism as a default, fell away. The bowling was wayward, Brad Haddin was being forced to fling his ageing body this way and that, fielders were chugging after the ball and the captain started to look bereft of ideas. They looked diminished in stature, the mystique gone. In The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy discovers that the wizard is in fact nothing more than a middle-aged man. It might stand as a metaphor for these wizards in the first game. (Darren Lehmann Confident of Quick Aussie Turnaround)

Whatever happens from here England - brain, heart and courage intact - know there is nothing to fear. Australia have won one match, at Headingley in 2009, and lost eight of their past 15 in England and Wales. Cricket Australia's immediate response was to put its fingers in its ears, go 'nah nah nah' and announce the dates of this year's Big Bash in time for its morning bulletins. (Also read: Aussies confident of Starc's full recovery)

Australia were outplayed in every department of the game. They attempted to match the panache of Root, Ben Stokes and Moeen Ali with the bat but foundered against skilled bowling that adhered rigidly to a game plan for each batsman - across the dangerous David Warner, fifth stump to Steve Smith and Michael Clarke, inevitably straight to Shane Watson, all to a length that encouraged the drive but made it a real risk-reward shot. Australia's bowling was wholehearted but could not come to terms with the conditions or the Duke ball (which incidentally they had been using in the West Indies prior to coming to England). (England name squad for 2nd Test)

In the field England were athletic and sharp, the single chance missed that from Chris Rogers by Root on the final morning. There was a willingness to stand closer on a slower pitch, something that they had not done in West Indies or against New Zealand. During their pre-series Spanish get-together, the team had practised nothing but fielding, which has always been a focal point of the Trevor Bayliss creed, and it showed. (Lehmann Hints at Australia Changes After Cardiff Loss)

Australia, too, held some excellent catches but they were also pedestrian at times, age showing its hand. Haddin's dropping of Root before he had scored in the first innings will be right up there with Shane Warne missing Kevin Pietersen at The Oval in 2005, Michael Carberry dropping Haddin in Adelaide two winters ago and Ashley Giles dropping Ricky Ponting on the same ground in 2006-07 in the litany of expensive missed Ashes chances. (Aussie Media Calls for Watson, Haddin Sacking)

Most telling of all was the manner in which Clarke was out-captained by Alastair Cook. It is, as Cook readily admits, pretty easy to captain a group of bowlers who know their roles to perfection and perform beautifully: they know what they want and the captain responds to that. But knowing when to ring the changes is something else altogether. Cook was proactive and obviously in charge, which has not always been the case. The decision to bowl Stuart Broad on the third morning, for example, despite the proximity of the second new ball would have been a combined management decision but not the instinct that gave Moeen the last over before lunch on the final day in which he claimed Warner's wicket and kick-started the Australian slide to defeat. Clarke's bowlers let him down but he appeared to do little to lift them and towards the end of the second England innings looked devoid of ideas, standing aloof, arms folded. With his form a worry along with his back he was exposed as much as anyone in this match.

There is precious little time for Australia to regroup, with the second Test starting at Lord's on Thursday, and they will find England no more accommodating than they were at Cardiff. The idea that visiting teams gain more inspiration from playing at the ground than England do is risible, a myth. Indeed England's record there since Australia won the first Test of the 2005 series shows that of 19 matches they have lost only to South Africa and, last year, India with nine of the past 13 games won.

Unsurprisingly England have named the same squad of 13 players and will no doubt play the same XI, the only debate being perhaps whether Ian Bell and Gary Ballance might swap places in the order if only to break up the sequence of left-handers.

For Australia questions abound. Before the series started it looked, as with England in Australia last time, that they were trying to squeeze one last series out of a flagging unit. Already Ryan Harris has gone and there are concerns about Watson and Haddin. There also remains a question mark over the fitness of Mitchell Starc, although they seem confident enough that his ankle problem will improve sufficiently in time for the match. A guess would be that Mitchell Marsh will replace Watson, whose value as an all-rounder is diminished if he does not bowl more than a few overs, but that Haddin will retain his place for now. Yet making changes would be an early and uncharacteristic admission that they got things wrong.

There is work to do for the Australian bowlers, however. Although rather too much is made of it, Lord's is still a demanding place to bowl, with its vagaries of slope and consequent geometry. Some of the bowling angles will not come naturally to those who have not experienced it and for some reason left-armers appear to have more trouble than their counterparts although there is no obvious reason why this should be. None of Starc, Josh Hazlewood or the spinner Nathan Lyon has played at Lord's. On the other hand Mitchell Johnson has and it has not been pretty, with four wickets in two Tests, against England in 2009 and Pakistan the following year, for an average of 76 and an economy rate of almost five runs per over. He has sharpened up his technique since those days but the thought will still linger, particularly after a modest first Test in Cardiff. Australia need to get some control from somewhere and Peter Siddle cannot be there just for the ride.