If day one of the second Ashes Test match at Adelaide belonged to England, then the second day seemed to have only reiterated the favourites tag they had come into the game with.

In reply to Australia’s 245 in the first innings, England overcame the early loss of Andrew Strauss to end the day at 317/2 thanks to Alastair Cook’s second successive century in the series.

Resuming on their overnight score of 1/0, Strauss was dismissed off the third ball of the day. He left the ball alone but it came back into him and dislodged the bail off the bowling ofDoug Bollinger. That was the only wicket that the Aussies got through the rest of the session and a half as Cook and Jonathon Trott continued with their good form and smashed half centuries.

Both looked good to get to their second century in a row but Trott got out for 78 to Ryan Harris. The pair had followed up their unbeaten triple-century partnership at Brisbane with 173 runs for the second wicket here to put the side in a commanding position. Later, Kevin Pietersen overcame his recent frustrations at not having had enough practice to make an 85 not-out while Cook was playing on 136 when the stumps were drawn.

With a lead of 72 runs and eight wickets standing, things do look a tad bleak for Australia. Teams have known to collapse alright but the combination of a flat-looking Adelaide track and a below-par bowling attack means that it looks like the visitors are well on their way for a 200-plus lead.

The only hope that Australia seem to have is to reduce the English lead to as low as possible before batting like how the tourists had in the second innings of the first Test match. For a side that has lost three of their previous four Tests, it sounds like a difficult task. England are favourites by a long distance, 8/11 (Blue Square) while bet365 offers 6/4 for a draw.

And Australia? They are at 28/1 (Blue Square) to go 1-0 up, and apart from a repeat of Ian Botham of 1981 or VVS Laxman of 2001 like performances, one can safely discard that option away.