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Adelaide, South Australia

Before we begin, a new definition of awkward for you. Picture the scene. You've just boarded a flight from Brisbane to Adelaide, laptop open on your knees, a half-written Word document entitled 'Australia player ratings' on the screen. Clearly visible are phrases like "Michael Clarke: 2/10" and

With a two-hour flight ahead, you're intending to use the time to finish the piece off - but just as you settle into your seat, you notice some chaps in pale blue tracksuits coming down the aisle towards economy. It is the Australian cricket team. Leading the way are Clarke and Johnson.

One by one the seats fill up around you. On your immediate left, an inquisitive Clarke; directly in front of you, Simon Katich, Mike Hussey and Johnson; to your right, the team media manager; just behind you, able to see directly over your shoulder, Ricky Ponting and Brad Haddin. I'll be honest: I bottled it. You've never seen a laptop shut so fast.

ENGLAND

Andrew Strauss: 7
England's skipper described his dismissal for a duck to the third ball of the series as "one of the worst feelings I've ever had on a cricket pitch". and helped his side salvage a draw from a position that appeared hopeless. In the field, he was his usual steady self; in his media appearances, a beacon of calm in an unsteady sea of hype and excitement.

Alastair Cook: 10
Came into the Test with an Ashes average of 26 from 19 innings and with question marks over his technique and form. Left with an aggregate of 302 runs and a great heap of batting records stashed in his kit bag. Even in a game when one player took a hat-trick and another made a wonderful 195,

Jonathan Trott: 8
Scratchy in the first innings and out to a horrible wide-gated drive across the line, he dug in alongside Cook in the second to score his second Ashes ton in successive matches and take England from the edge of defeat to a position of total dominence. Has the best average of a recognised England number three in memory and has made his own a position that has been a problem for years.

Kevin Pietersen: 6
Played beautifully for 43 in the first innings, looking utterly dominant. But that's the issue. He only made 43 when there appeared no reason why he shouldn't have gone on to score a big hundred. Ambled around in the field missing the limelight as England bowled and was then forced to sit with his pads on for more than a day as all three batsmen above him compiled centuries in that record-breaking second innings. Needs more in Adelaide - and wants it desperately.

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The Gabba, Brisbane

It was like stepping into some surreal parallel universe, a dream-like place where everything was the exact opposite of what you had come to expect.

England, not just untroubled but . Records tumbling at such a rate that it almost set a record in itself. Australia spilling simple catches, flinging down gaping wides, shuffling around with heads bowed.

For the record, England scored 517 runs for the loss of a single wicket in their second innings - 235 not out for Alastair Cook, an unbeaten 135 for Jonathan Trott, an unbeaten partnership of 329. It meant England salvaged a draw in the first Test after trailing by 221 runs on the first innings.

At over England, there was non-stop noise from a cavorting travelling army and barely a squeak from the home support. From Gabbatoir to Gabba-dabba-do in five sunny sessions.

On Saturday it had been a rocky horror show; on Monday, welcome to the pleasure-dome. No wonder England fans around the three-tiered stands were at times laughing with giddy delight.

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The Gabba, Brisbane

What a Test match this is turning out to be, and what a series it promises to become.

Sunday might have been the day England capitulated - worn down by the travails of the first three days, 221 runs in arrears on first innings, the Australians clambering all over yet another Gabba win.

But nothing in this gripping contest has gone to the established script. . A batsman horribly out of form and on the point of being dropped smashes 195. that suddenly they are the ones with momentum and mojos working.

Andrew Strauss went from first innings duck to swashbuckling century. Alastair Cook - Ashes average of 26 from 19 innings going into this match - hit an unbeaten 132 to add to his 67 on Thursday.

Between them they put on the biggest English partnership in history at this famous old ground in Brisbane, only the second time in 20 years that both of England's openers have hit centuries in the same Test innings.

When Strauss fell for 110, Jonathan Trott came in and added an unflustered 54 of his own, constructing an unbeaten partnership of 119 in the process. The last time the first two England wickets both put on century partnerships in an Ashes Test? (Athey and Broad, Broad and Gatting). And we all know who won that series.

How did England's batsmen manage to produce such a remarkable turnaround?

hit seven centuries and averaged 45 as an opener in four successful Ashes campaigns, and he is at the Gabba as an expert summariser for Test Match Special.

"It can be so difficult as an opener in this scenario - sometimes you can feel like you've got more to lose than gain," he says. "The first thing that helped England was the quick turnover between innings that they had (the last five Australian first innings wickets went down for 31). That can be easier than having to think about it for hours; you can just get on with it.

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The Gabba, Brisbane

As an England cricket supporter in Australia, you become accustomed to dealing with all sorts of misery - the stabbing pain of a sudden collapse like Thursday's, the overall melancholy of a long-term losing record, the attritional agony of having all hope slowly squeezed out of you.

was a classic of the latter kind. After an opening hour when England bowled beautifully for absolutely no reward, Mike Hussey and Brad Haddin did what Australian batsman seem to have been doing for time immemorial - piling on the runs, hour after hour, until the idea of a wicket ever falling again seems utterly impossible.

When the two came together, Australia were 143-5, 117 runs in arrears and in deep trouble. When they were finally parted, well over a day later, they were 450-6, 190 runs in front and in seventh heaven.

It was the highest partnership in Test history at this famous old ground, blowing away the 64-year-old record of and Lindsay Hassett. More than that, it was a brutal lesson in top-class batting - hanging in there when times are tough, starting to accelerate, and then grinding the opposition into the dirt.

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Brisbane, Queensland

Two days gone, and clear themes are starting to emerge in this Ashes series. As in 2005 and 2009, this is shaping up as a battle that will decided by small margins and one or two outstanding individual performances.

At the Gabba on Friday that margin was two inches, the distance that Mike Hussey's first-ball edge fell short of Graeme Swann's grasping fingertips at second slip. The outstanding performance followed on shortly afterwards.

Hussey, on a dreadful trot and seemingly on the brink of losing his hard-fought place in the national side, will resume in the morning 81 not out. On an afternoon when England's bowlers hit back hard after the disappointments of the first day .

If he's still in after lunch on day three, he may be guiding the home side towards a priceless series lead.

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Brisbane, Australia

How did you celebrate your last birthday - a slice of cake, perhaps, or a long lie-in followed by a nice meal and a few relaxing beverages with friends and family?

Maybe on his next birthday, Peter Siddle will do the same. For his 26th, .

England probably thought there could be no moment more calamitous than the dismissal of captain Andrew Strauss for a duck to the third ball of the day. They were wrong.

Having already accounted for a bristling Kevin Pietersen and shuffling Paul Collingwood, the man nicknamed blitzed through Alastair Cook, Matt Prior and Stuart Broad with consecutive deliveries. God save the Queen indeed.

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Brisbane, Queensland

There's been talk of little else - a team of English stars, exposed to the toughest challenges Australia can throw at them, battling enormous pressure and a huge weight of expectation back home in Blighty.

Still, enough of . After months of bellicose build-up and fluctuating form, the Ashes are finally upon us. And for England fans both at home and here in Brisbane, there's an unfamiliar sense of optimism in the humid Queensland air.

It's not normally this way. At this stage of an Ashes ding-dong Down Under, England are usually being ripped apart by a caustic local media and mercilessly taunted by cocksure Aussie fans. It shouldn't even make sense. The hosts haven't lost a Test at in over 20 years; England haven't won a series here for almost a quarter of a century. They've only won three of the last 24 Tests on Australian soil.

But this time around, the established order appears to have been turned on its head. Australia are the ones coming in with injury problems and ropey form, England are the team with wins under the belt and a settled side. So far the media scorn has been aimed squarely at the Australian selectors. The mood among home fans is positively downbeat.

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Brisbane, Queensland

When in the messy aftermath of the Kevin Pietersen and Peter Moores saga, it was almost by default. He was not only a safe pair of hands, he was the only pair.

Less than two years later, Strauss leads his country into an Ashes series not only in possession of the coveted urn but more heavily fancied to beat Australia on their home patch than any England skipper in almost quarter of a century.

If it is a headline-grabber of a transformation, the man himself is almost the polar opposite. From the first moment he arrived at , fresh from Durham University and Radley College, Strauss has been personified by the virtues of hard work, steady self-improvement and composure under fire.

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It's become a familiar story in the British sporting autumn: just after the clocks go back, so will the Wallabies' scrum.

The simple reading has it that Australia's pack has been in reverse since . With the Welsh front row performing a similar demolition job in Cardiff last weekend, it might seem like the script remains unchanged.

Except, with the Wallabies limbering up for their annual visit to Twickenham this Saturday, it's not quite so straightforward. England might have rumbled their old rivals in the famous World Cup quarter-final win in Marseille three years ago, but 12 months later Baxter and his front row comrades returned the favour with interest as the Wallabies triumphed 28-14 and Sheridan was forced off injured.

Even when Australia have struggled in the set-piece, it's often made little difference to the final score; despite being mangled in Perth and Sydney in the summer, they won the first by a street and were a missed Matt Giteau penalty away from claiming the latter.

All of which means that, down at England's training headquarters at Pennyhill Park, the unsung heroes of the front row are enjoying their annual excursion into the spotlight.

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On the bright side, .

At 3-17 down at the interval, with New Zealand conducting a quiet masterclass in ruthlessness and efficiency, a familiar tale looked set to unfold - Dan Carter tugging the strings, the visitors stretching their legs, and lead, the points piling up and the home heads hanging lower with every passing minute.

That England ignored the script and instead fought back with character, closing to within 10 points with nine minutes still on the clock and their opponents down to 14 men, warmed the home cockles as supporters streamed away to bonfire parties across the home counties.

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Autumn might not be the traditional time for sunny optimism, but with piles of dead leaves heaped up around the trees of Twickenham there is an unseasonal spring in the step of England rugby supporters.

Never mind that their opponents on Saturday are the number one team in the world, or that England's record against the All Blacks in the preceding 105 years contains a mere six white-shirted wins, or that this fresh hope seems to spring from and a .

Whereas last autumn there was so little expectation from home fans that a was viewed by some as a decent result, this weekend a fresh-faced and - whisper it quietly - dynamic-looking England XV has even stirred talk of a first win over New Zealand in eight years.

It shouldn't make sense. On Saturday there's a good chance it won't. But even within the squad there is a genuine sense of green shoots squeezing through.

"There's a huge amount of enthusiasm and a real buzz, and an excitement about where we are compared to the best teams in the world, and that's down to the win in Sydney," says 21-year-old Ben Youngs, the leader of this precocious pack.

"It's very obvious in the camp. Everyone is very excited and can't wait to see how we fare against the All Blacks."

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