England's woes deepen with inept batting

HOBART, Nov 16 AAP - Steve Waugh wanted Jimmy Maher, the Australia A captain, to keep England on the ropes and that's exactly what the second best Australian team continued to do in Hobart today.

England hoped to use the match to erase the memories of its First Test thrashing and raise form and morale before the second in Adelaide.

Instead, England's batsmen produced a display as limp as their bowlers did yesterday. They've already suffered the embarrassment of being forced to follow on and are in serious danger of losing a three day game no-one had thought was likely to produce a result.

England, facing a disciplined pace attack, was dismissed in its first innings just before tea for 183, 170 runs behind Australia A's 3-353 declared.

At stumps, it was faring little better in the second, a precarious 3-96 and still 74 runs behind.

One statistic underlines the Australian dominance - Martin Love scored 201 in only 19 minutes more than the entire English team needed to produce 18 fewer runs.

Another emphasises the fragility of the English batting. In two completed innings in this match, the Test top three of Marcus Trescothick, Michael Vaughan and Mark Butcher have totalled only 105 runs, most of them to Butcher.

John Crawley, the one English batsman to show real ticker, acknowledged that the team was playing way below par.

"Obviously we're not performing anywhere near as well as we can," he said.

Crawley said it was not easy to explain the Australian dominance, but it had bowled extremely well while the English attack was inexperienced in the conditions.

"We'll have to get everything as right as we can before Adelaide," he said.

Brad Williams, who took 5-52 in the English first innings, said the Australians bowled to the areas much better than the English, who were too short and loose.

Williams, who described his approach as "controlled aggression", said the English batsmen folded under pressure.

England started this morning at a comfortable 1-50, but were in trouble from the moment Trescothick fell in the second over.

Williams and fellow quicks Stuart Clark and Ashley Noffke gave the batsmen little to hit and waited for mistakes, which came regularly, with four wickets falling before lunch and the remaining five before tea.

Only Crawley showed real fight. But his unbeaten 43 in 175 minutes was simply an innings of survival.

Williams, who cleaned up the tail, finished with the eye-catching figures while Clark took 3-60.

However Noffke was probably the best bowler. He sent down 16 immaculate and aggressive overs today, taking two wickets and conceding only 22 runs.

England started its second innings as if its players wanted to be somewhere else.

Trescothick hooked Clark for six and was then bowled by Noffke. Fellow opener Michael Vaughan soon followed, bowled by Clark.

But after a long day's hard work, the pace attack could not be maintained and Maher had to call on the medium pace of Greg Blewett and the off spin of Nathan Hauritz earlier than he would have liked.

Butcher and Robert Key handled them with few alarms.

Just as the pair looked safe to resume tomorrow, however, Butcher nicked a catch to the wicket trying to cut Blewett on 25.

Key (38) and Crawley (6) will continue the battle for English pride and survival in the morning.