All good points Mr Nicholas but lets judge them at the end of this series, not one game into it.
To say that the Aussie attack is on par with Englands is wrong. During the Ashes Englands 4th and 5th choice seamers (Tremlett and Bresnan) came into the side and took wickets. Swann v Lyon is a non contest. One area Australia do have the upper hand in, with the inclusion of Watson, is the 4th seamer, and a very handy one at that. But what it comes down to is which attack is more likely to take 20 wickets on any surface? I think theres only one answer there
Are there any changes expected in either side for the next Test down under?
Steady on! I didn't say "on par", I am just saying with natural improvement they are not THAT far behind.
Fourth and fifth seamer, well I think we have some reasonable ones who could take a wicket or two:
Doug Bollinger test bowling ave 25.92
Ryan Harris test bowling ave 21.37
Patrick Cummins test bowling ave 16.71
Is Swann really that good?
A test bowling average of over 40 against Australia across ten tests home and away would suggest otherwise. Cheap wickets against Bangladesh puff the average, but do little else to convince of this guys worth. He took bugger all wickets against India this summer when it was a slaughter as well.
If we could recruit two gun South African batsmen to bolster our batting, we would at least have a chance next Ashes series, but as we are not likely to do that, I expect the batting to be the weak link as England has a far better batting line up. Runs on the board build pressure.