Time you Poms got it together

The real question, looking ahead to the Ashes, is just how much damage have Australia inflicted over the past couple of week? Okay, England will have a few guys to come back such as Mike Atherton, Graham Thorpe, Nasser Hussain and perhaps Craig White - if he's fit enough to play again by next month.

But that still leaves quite a few blokes, such as Alec Stewart and Michael Vaughan, who have copped a real flogging which they won't be able to forget just because the cricket is five-days instead of one.

And those on the outside looking in have seen some pretty handy bowling and batting from Australia. I don't care who you are, that still registers and can lead to some negative thoughts.

But things could change even now because there is still time ... just.

If England can put together a good performance tomorrow - and I accept that's a really big 'if' at the moment - then people will soon forget all the defeats. Memories are handy like that. You can recall what went right and bin the rest.

Having offered you a bit of hope, though, I'm sure Australia will be pushing hard to keep England down at The Oval. Believe me, I know how these Aussie guys operate. They never want to give the opposition a break. They won't be mucking around, for sure, and yesterday's defeat by Pakistan at Trent Bridge will make them even more determined.

I expect they thought England would be tougher nuts to crack in these one-dayers, but the tournament hosts just haven't got off the floor after losing their first game and a lot of the batting has been shocking.

Those two young blokes, Owais Shah and Ben Hollioake, haven't done badly. But it's all fairly small stuff when you look at some of the performances put together by the opposition.

Nothing they have done can compare with Ricky Ponting's form, for example. He had a lean time of it on Australia's tour of India earlier this year but now appears to be seeing it like a football. Either that, or else his bat is suddenly three feet wide.

In fact, all the batters are in good nick now that Adam Gilchrist has come good with last night's innings of 70 against Pakistan.

Everyone will say that Test cricket is different. And that's true, of course, in so many ways. But I think England have been roughed up pretty badly during this tournament and they've got a big job ahead of them to recover.

It's really vital they make a decent start tomorrow.