Let's start at the beginning of the day and England must be very pleased that they made more than 400.

Yes. I thought England had a marvellous morning. They would have settled for a score of about 380 given what they started on so to get up to 435 was a real bonus. Graeme Swann hit with glorious abandon - I loved those three consecutive fours off Nathan Hauritz - Jimmy Anderson did his bit and the whole tail wagged and wagged. I'm sure Swann would have liked to have reached his fifty, but he did his job very well.

When England bowled, it was the introduction of Flintoff that proved crucial.

I didn't think England bowled all that well very early on at Phillip Hughes. They gave him too much width and let him score easy runs. That all changed when Andrew Flintoff came on for the first over after lunch and immediately started bowling aggressively at Hughes and Simon Katich. You can't do that for more than a few overs in succession, so Flintoff has had only six overs so far. Once he's refreshed himself during tea, he will have a couple more spells tonight I'm sure.

Is the pitch helping the spinners?

There is lots of turn, but it is quite slow. Occasionally a ball will explode out of the footholes, but the batsmen look set. This evening session is going to be attritional with England using both their spinners for most of the overs and bringing on the seamers in short bursts. Australia are desperate not to lose wickets. This first innings is key. If they can get somewhere near parity then it is game on, but if Australia have a deficit then England will be favourites.

Ricky Ponting reached 11,000 Test runs near the end of the session, the fourth man to do so. Do such things matter to batsmen?

They're not so important in the middle of the game, although you are aware of landmarks. He raised his bat when he got there and acknowledged the applause briefly, but there are more important matters at hand.