Well, I'll go out on a limb here and call Australia favourites for this test.
A lot depends on conditions obviously, but at this stage I'm assuming :
For us : Clark is in replacing Horrorshow, and Haddin is back to bolster the batting.
For England : Fred is out (he looked to be bowling half pace with a giant knee brace last night - not a good sign for the hosts).
I still reckon we would have won at Edgbaston if the weather and Rudi Koertzen had been more kind.
Ponting loves Headingley, he'll get runs here.
Clark is a top shelf bowler, by far the pick of the current crop. I think England's questionable top order batting will find spells of Hilfenhaus/Clark very tricky to handle. But who supports them? Siddle needs to bang it down on a consistent spot all day - his colours have been lowered this series, in fact, he may even be dropped according to the media. I guess Johnson is the key - again media mutterings are that we'll stick with Johnson no matter what. If "spray it around Mitchell" takes to the park we'll struggle again, but if the world beater who killed South Africa on their soil emerges, we're back in business.
Meantime, some facts to give you England supporters some food for thought :
The availability on which England is really sweating, however, is weather. On the two seriously overcast days of the series, the second days at Lord’s and Edgbaston, England have seemed to have twelve men in the field, taking 17 wickets for 293, at 17.24 each. When either the sun has been out or the weather has been really cold, as at Cardiff, they have scavenged just 19 wickets for 1265 runs at 65.66 each.
Looks like weather will again play a big role in splitting what now (with no Fred) look like very evenly matched sides.
Barring any last minute selection table madness from Ponting, I'm willing to bet a warm pint of English beer on Australia here.
One can but hope that Clark will be slotted in somewhere. He ought to have been in the side from the start, but what's done is done.
Sounds like a bit of a fiasco.
