Sobering defeat awaits England

Ian Bell, the best-performed English batsman in a cast that has pretty much failed to hit every note in this Commonwealth Bank Ashes Series, acknowledged after play today that the best his team could hope for was to take the game beyond the second new ball, which Australia is due to take after 13 overs tomorrow morning.

Perhaps even stretch the Test past lunch on day five.

Either ambition represents not so much a small victory but a stay of execution.

A clearly dispirited Bell expressed regret that a team that doubtless contains so many accomplished cricketers has been unable to display so much as the occasional tantalising hint of its collective, even individual talents.

"Hugely disappointed," Bell said when asked to sum up the frame of mind in the tourists’ dressing room a day before the Ashes inevitably change hands.

"I think coming out here (to Australia) we had some real excitement, there was a massive challenge ahead and that’s what you play the game for.

"But I don’t think we’ve shown anyone the kind of cricket that we potentially can play, and hats off to Australia, I think they’ve been fantastic in all departments.

"They’ve batted better than us, they’ve caught better than us and they’ve bowled better than us, and that’s what Test cricket’s all about.

"It’s just disappointing because we have got it in the dressing room to potentially come out and do some good stuff over here, but we just haven’t been able to get it out.

"It’s certainly not through lack of desire and hunger and fight, but it’s just not happening. We’re just not playing the sort of cricket from (batsman) 1 to 11 that we need to.

"It’s all right to maybe have a couple of guys not playing (well) in the 11, but you can’t have more than that and at the minute we’re just not playing where we need to be.

"Obviously we’re still hanging in there, that’s the important thing.

"We need to take tomorrow as deep as we possibly can, keep showing some fight. We need the two guys who are out there now to bat until lunch and we’ve just got to keep fighting – that’s all we can do.”

Bell was also the latest England player to rally to the defence of team-mate Kevin Pietersen, who once again threw away the chance to play a genuine match-saving innings.

Having survived for almost an hour-and-a-half to fashion 45, Pietersen tried to clout spinner Nathan Lyon over the long-on fence – an audacious stroke he had completed successfully two overs earlier – only to find Ryan Harris, who had been positioned near the rope in the hope he might try it again.

"I think Kevin would be as frustrated as anyone," Bell said when asked about the team’s reaction to Pietersen’s latest act of self-destruction. "My experiences of playing with Kevin for a long time is that I’d rather have him playing in my team than play against him.

"OK, he might do that every so often, but he’ll also win you a game from nowhere as well. So that’s how I feel about Kevin – he does things that a lot of players can’t."

While England come to grips with the imminent series loss, the Australians were trying their hardest not to claim the prize until the final wicket falls at the WACA.

Allrounder Shane Watson claimed there remained an amount of work to do in the morning, even though the England tailenders who stand between Australia and victory have been conspicuous by their absence at the batting crease in the series to date.

"It’s a special moment in the careers of everyone in the Australian team to be in this position, but we certainly can’t get in front of ourselves," Watson said of the prospect of regaining the trophy that Australia surrendered in 2009 and failed to win back at two subsequent attempts.

"We've certainly made the running in every Test match so far (this series) but the game doesn’t owe us anything.

"We have to be out there in the morning and bowl really well to give ourselves the best chance to be able to achieve a few dreams for a lot of us who have been involved in the last few (Ashes) series."