Ashes second test/ Lords/1st day

England at 364 for 6 at the end of 1st days play at Lord's.

The happy position that England finds itself can be attributed to Aussie inexperience. Remember, most of the Australian players are playing the Ashes for the first time and similarly it is their first match at Lord's.

So it is natural that they suffer a bout of nerves and that is precisely what happened in the 1st day.

Look at the course of the day, English openers are the only batsmen to have a made a fifty. The rest barring Pietersen scarcely entered double figures. Even the openers scores can be attributed to the nerves the Aussies suffered.

Mitchell Johnson was spraying the ball, the others just fed the openers with scoring opportunities.Strauss, who has remained unbeaten, had two of his catches dropped and a near run out that went for over throws. Surely, this was nothing but nerves.

Look at the turn of fortunes once the Australian's regained their composure, from a high of 255 for 2 they are now 364 for 6 with most of their recognised batsmen bat in the hut.

Going by what happened during the later part of the day, one can expect the Australian's to price out the rest of the England batting and start batting by lunch on the 2nd day.