Australia assume control against England

Australia assume control against England: "

• Record-breaking partnership gives Australia 200-run lead
• England negotiate final hour's play but not without alarm

England have been this way many times in Australia and they have rarely been able to bounce back. The harsh realities of a tropical sun, hard clods of unrelenting Queensland turf and two proud, teak-tough Aussies have delivered fiercesome blows to the solar plexus of this touring party.

Mike Hussey and Brad Haddin broke records at The Gabba. Their partnership of 307 was the highest ever in Test cricket on this ground. But have they broken the resolve of the touring team? It was a brilliant union of two fine cricketers of mighty resolve and long experience and it left England with a monumental task on the last two days.

Andrew Strauss and Alastair Cook managed to survive to the close but not without alarms. To the very first ball of England's second innings Strauss padded up to a straight ball from Ben Hilfenhaus. The lbw shout was declined by Aleem Dar; a review was sought and to Strauss's relief the ball was shown to be going over the top of the middle and off stumps – just. But there is a whole lot of batting to be done.

If England could draw here, it would be an achievement on a par with their Houdini act of Cardiff in 2009, an outcome that managed to deflate the Australians for the next Test of that series. That is the most that Strauss and his team can hope for after Hussey had posted his highest score in Test cricket alongside Haddin, who hit a masterful and magnificently paced 136.

In the first half of the partnership Haddin, against his instincts, was ever-watchful. Eventually he gave himself permission to swing his bat and no-one in the Australian side strikes the ball more sweetly. By his standards it was an innings of some self-denial, though he did allow himself the luxury of reaching his century with a six over long on off Graeme Swann.

Hussey was simply Hussey; his footwork precise and positive and his energy limitless as he raced earnestly down the pitch at every chance to snatch a single. But there were boundaries as well – 27 in all. Allied to the trademark pull shot – utterly reliable until his last one on 195 – was the cover drive. I don't think they will drop him now.

Australia finished with a mammoth lead of 221. The ridiculous thing is that there could have been something like parity after the first innings. England took the new ball immediately at the start of play and James Anderson bowled one of the best wicketless spells of his career. The bald statistics of 8-2-14-0 don't tell the story.

Time and time again he eluded the bat of Hussey with that new ball. In Anderson's second over the West Australian was hit on the pad and up went the umpire Dar's finger. Immediately Hussey asked for a review. It transpired that the ball pitched outside of Hussey's leg-stump by a few millimetres. Then four overs later England could only rue the fact that they had used up all their reviews on Friday.

Once again Hussey was struck on the pad by a ball swinging into him. But this time Dar kept his finger down. There was no review available to England. If there had been the third umpire would have reported that Anderson's delivery satisfied all the necessary criteria. Hussey was on 85 at the time and Australia were 229-5 on a day when an Anderson smile was as rare as a Blackburn fan in Burnley.

So England had to wait another 59 overs and 221 runs for their wicket. They had two chances to rid themselves of Haddin. On 63 he drove at Paul Collingwood and Cook retreating at mid-off could not cling on to an extremely difficult chance. More surprising was Anderson's inability to get his hands to a mishit pull, which might have provided Stuart Broad with his first Test wicket in the Antipodes when Haddin was on 113.

To emphasise the importance of Hussey's escape in the morning, we witnessed the tail come and go rapidly once Haddin finally edged to slip off Swann. Australia's last five wickets went for 31 runs. Steven Finn was the beneficiary.

Finn is the most grounded and intelligent of men and he will be the first to recognise the absurdity – and injustice – of how the spoils were shared in this innings. Broad did not deserve to have a blank final column in his figures; Anderson's efforts warranted more than two wickets; Finn was certainly flattered by six. Only two England bowlers have better figures at the Gabba: Bill Voce 6-41 in 1936, John Snow 6-114 in 1970."