Ashes a close call for Vikram Solanki

Express & Star Ashes columnist Vikram Solanki believes the Ashes is deliciously posed between England and Australia going into the third day.

Fascinating. Australia are just ahead but this is still a Test match too close to call and full of signals for what is ahead in the series.

You are never quite sure just what your opponent has in store for you until the opening skirmishes have been completed and, after day two, we can see battle lines being drawn.

Graeme Swann, for example, would not have been sure quite what the Aussies had in mind for him before this game began. He does now.

They have clearly identified Swann as a key bowler for England and are out to unsettle him by going on the offensive against his off spin.

Swann loves bowling to left-handers and his wicket of Marcus North was a classic off-spinner's dismissal.

So it was both a very brave and very pointed effort by Mike Hussey to step down the wicket so early in Swann's spell today and hit him over long-on for six.

The England off-spinner will now be fully aware of what the Australians have in mind for him in this series. Of what I am equally certain is the nature of his response.

Swanny is an extrovert character who will relish this challenge to his bowling and rally to it. It will be one more exciting sub-plot to a drama which is already building.

So, back to this Test and where do we stand? I always think the best way to assess the state of play is by a count-up of the sessions and at the moment the Aussies have edged in front.

I rated yesterday's first two sessions pretty even, the third clearly Australia's thanks to Peter Siddle's efforts.

Today, Australia marginally claimed the first – England would have been disappointed they did not make more in-roads when the ball was still relatively new – but the second belonged to England.

The efforts of Hussey, explaining why he is known as 'Mr Cricket', took the truncated third towards Australia. That puts them ahead but not by a distance and what a third day we have in store.

The Australians overnight thinking will be clear – to get to England's total and then build as big a lead as possible knowing they must bat last on a wearing pitch.

With a partnership well set, they will have high hopes of fulfilling that strategy. But the reason why England were so irritated at coming off for bad light was because of the impending new ball.

Sometimes, when a couple of batsmen have got themselves well set, it is possible a fielding side will welcome an early finish to the day's play. But England clearly wanted to take that new ball today.

Nevertheless, it will be a key feature of tomorrow's first hour or two. You will recall that Siddle produced his heroics with the second new ball and now England will hope to wreak similar havoc and restrict a likely Australian lead.

They will be optimistic they can do so because I think their attack could take some positives from the second day.

Jimmy Anderson and Stuart Broad both bowled well and their figures show them only going at two an over – that suggests impressive control.

Steven Finn was a little more expensive but claimed a couple of vital wickets, his catch to dismiss Simon Katich a particularly good effort.

But for the second day, we found an Australian providing a particularly gutsy response to the media criticism that had accompanied him into this Test.

Siddle's selection over Doug Bollinger we have spoken of, the Aussies were also dubious about whether Hussey should be in the squad never mind the team to start.

His response at a moment of dire danger for his team says everything about why Ricky Ponting has such faith in him.

England got a break, I think, with Ponting's dismissal, getting the captain strangled down the leg side but I do like the way they hit back in the second session.

Again, it is another of those signals being sent out from the heat of this first battle – we have heard that this is a team not short of players who put their hand up when the going gets tough and those four wickets which brought us roaring back into the contest prove that to be so.

From a vantage point at the end of the second day, where would we dream the match to be placed at the end of the third?

England back in front of the Australians with seven or eight wickets still standing? I would take that here and now.

That may be too much to hope for. But it is still too close to call and anything is possible in a Test bubbling up in the finest traditions of Ashes contests.