Tony Becca
The third Test match in the Ashes series between England and Australia, the two oldest rivals in cricket, gets under way in Perth tomorrow, this evening local time, and fans around the world can be forgiven if they are not willing to bet a penny on the mother country.
After losing the first Test in Brisbane by 277 runs when Australia scored 602 for nine declared and 202 for one and routed them for 157 and 370, England, after piling up 551 for six in their first innings, after taking first innings lead, were bundled out for 129 in the second Test in Adelaide, lost the contest by six wickets and left their fans, including the 'Barmy Army', so embarrassed that hardly a word has been heard from them since.
England will long remember, hopefully with embarrassment, that final day in Adelaide when, on a pitch still reasonable for batting, they died without a fight.
In fact, with right-arm leg-spinner Shane Warne, bowling 27 overs in a row while taking four wickets for 19 runs, with their batsmen scoring a mere 70 runs in two sessions off 54 overs while losing nine wickets, England died almost without a stroke - without lifting their bats in anger.
In a nutshell, they died like cowards.
With three matches to go and the scoreline reading two-nil in Australia's favour, England, holders of the Ashes, have to win this one to have a chance of winning the series.
For England to win, they will have to attack Australia - not only their bowlers, but also their batsmen, and to do so they will have to, wherever they can, change their ammunition.
With Michael Vaughan and Marcus Trescothick out of action, England can hardly do anything with their batting, however. They simply will have to hope that Andrew Strauss and Alastair Cook, Ian Bell and Paul Collingwood can stick around and that when their time come to bat, Kevin Pietersen and captain Andrew Flintoff can successfully attack Shane Warne and company.
Bowling attack
As far as the bowling is concerned, however, England can do better than they did in the first Test and in the second Test. England, for example, can add some fire to their bowling attack by bringing in left-handed spin bowler Monty Panesar for left-handed spinner Ashley Giles and pacer Sajid Mahmood for pacer James Anderson.
England need to attack Australia's batsmen and Panesar, who spins the ball more and who flights the ball more must be a better bet than Giles - and definitely so on Australian pitches.
Another move which would suggest that England are confident and are going in to get some wickets and to put Australia on the back foot, would be the inclusion of Chris Read as the wicketkeeper.
Read is a much better wicketkeeper than Geraint Jones and despite all the talk, even if he is better than Read, Jones is not that much a better batsman.
The odds are definitely stacked against England in every department of the game - in batting, bowling, fielding and captaincy and it would be surprising if Australia do not wrap up the series as a contest in this match.
The only way that does not happen is if England can do to Australia what Australia did to them in 1936-37 when, in the biggest turnaround in the history of the game, Australia recovered from 2-0 down to win 3-2.
In that memorable summer Down Under, England won the first Test in Brisbane by 322 runs and the second in Sydney by an innings and 22 runs before Australia, led by Sir Don Bradman with scores of 13 and 270, 26 and 212, and 169, won the third in Melbourne by 365 runs, the fourth in Adelaide by 148 runs, and the fifth back in Melbourne by an innings and 200 runs.
The problem with England coming back is not only that Australia have Shane Warne in their attack, the problem also is that England do not possess a batsman even close to Bradman.
