CRICKET/Ashes Tour: Utter domination in the first Test is the Australian game plan: get in front, let the opposition know what they are up against and then see how they react. All too often the response is insipid. Series are decided in the first game, the first day and even the first session.

But when it mattered, England's bowling was poor, scuppering any strategy by an inability to conform to the basics. "You can make all the plans you like," said a weary Duncan Fletcher yesterday, "but you still have to carry them out." To get back into the series, from a position of 1-0 down, England need to take 20 wickets in a match not once, as they would have hoped, but twice - and that is the tallest of orders.

There is strength in the batting, or there ought to be, but even before the confirmation of Darren Gough's non-participation in the series and the dreadful injury to Simon Jones the bowling will prove a struggle for Nasser Hussain. In strict terms, it cannot be said to lack experience when one bowler has in excess of 200 Test wickets. But not one England bowler on display at the Gabba had previously taken a Test wicket in Australia.

Now, from a position of weakness, England must go to Hobart, regroup for a testing game at the end of the week against Australia A, and try to come up with a bowling combination for the second Test in Adelaide that can carry out the master plan and stay fit.

If Hussain thought he was taking a team of infant bowlers on to the Gabba, wait until he looks around and sees what he has in Adelaide. In the absence of Gough and Jones, and the continuing non- contribution from Matthew Hoggard, there is a chance for Steve Harmison, Alex Tudor and Chris Silverwood - the latter two of whom were not even in the touring party a week ago - to stake a claim for inclusion in the pace attack for the second Test alongside Andy Caddick.

Hoggard has proved a problem for some while now. His strengths are swing, a good line and a big heart. He takes stick and keeps coming. But now the swing has gone, the line (and length) are variable and against these players on these pitches he is cannon fodder.

It cannot go on. Hoggard's confidence may be shot but if he cannot play in Adelaide after the mauling in Brisbane he could be needed in Perth, where the ball does swing.

The three novices, meanwhile, will need to demonstrate that they have the qualities to make the Australian batsmen think twice. First choice ought to be Harmison, the only one in the original party, chosen because he can bowl fast, and who because of his height gets bounce beyond the ordinary.

Yet would the temperament of someone whose homesickness is common knowledge stand up to the Australian treatment? That would be a huge test.

Tudor on the other hand is an enigma. Four years ago he hustled in at Perth and dismissed both the Waughs. In the second innings Justin Langer, whose home ground the Waca is, was caught at second slip and announced that never in his career had he been forced to fend a ball from his throat like that.

It was an exciting time. Yet he was not selected originally for this tour, and was instead packed off to the academy for the second year running. His temperament also has let him down. Hussain is suspicious of his ailments, wondering if this is the bowler who will do the hard yards for him. Maybe not.

Which leaves Silverwood. Somehow he has emerged from the pack, with something of the order of 20 or so other seamers having been preferred by England in one form of the game or another since he played the last of his five Tests at Centurion three winters ago. He is an enthusiast who bowls sharply - upwards of 90mph in Cape Town, so it is said - but prone to injury.

It is a motley crew, and unlikely to cause the Australians much worry on what, by tradition, is the flattest pitch in the land.

Hussain is leaving the party on Saturday to spend a few days in Perth with his pregnant wife. It is hard to blame him. There is only so much a man can take.