It took only one session of return to form for Mitchell Johnson for Australia to turn things around in the third Ashes Test match at WACA in Perth.

After being bowled out 268 in their first innings, Australia bounced back well to restrict the English side to 187 all out in their first innings. Things moved at a fast pace as Australia batted again and got to 119/3 in their second innings to set up an exciting third and fourth day at WACA.

Resuming their overnight score of 29/0, England found the going very easy in the first one hour of play as they quickly got to 78/0. It was only after the introduction of Johnson that things began to happen. What was surprising to see was that Johnson got the ball to swing away from the left-handed batsmen and that meant that at his pace, most English batsmen struggled to play him.

Alastair Cook cut one straight to Michael Hussey in the gully region while Jonathon Trott, Kevin Pietersen and Paul Collingwood failed to negotiate the incoming delivery and were out lbw.

Andrew Strauss did complete his half century but Ryan Harris took care of him with one that left the batsman and apart from Ian Bell, none of the rest of the batsmen looked prepared enough to take the attack to the opposition.

In the end, Johnson came back for another spell and cleaned up the tail to give his side an 81-run lead.

Steven Finn then picked up a couple of Aussie wickets including that of the captain Ricky Ponting while Chris Tremlett sent back Michael Clarke to ensure that the Aussies will not run away with the game.

The track has now begun to play much better than it had on the first day but it has enough in it to keep the bowlers interested. The 81-run lead looks to be a handy one but the Aussies (3/10 at SkyBet to make it 1-1) will know well the way South African side had chased down a total here in 2008-09 and will look to not relax their vigil.

If they can bat out the entire day tomorrow, the game would have got out of England’s grasp. Blue Square offers 7/2 for an English win while, with three days to go, a drawn (22/1 at Paddy Power) game looks like a no-option.