Pietersen's sense of timing sets him apart

In Sydney Morning Herald, Malcolm Knox writes that Kevin Pietersen's 113 was probably not his best knock, but his contribution could be critical in determining the ultimate result of this contest.

If a Kevin Pietersen century were on the big screen, it would have to be un film de Baz Lurhmann. You only have to watch a few frames to know whose it is. Bombastic yet brittle, unlimited in its ambition and self-regard, it contains, at every moment, the equal possibility of artistic genius and mind-boggling ineptitude. For many, it is a triumph. For others - say, the eleven Australians in the front row on Saturday - it would be twice as good if half as long.

In the Guardian, Mike Selvey asks whether Alastair Cook's dismissal, caught down the leg side off Mitchell Starc, was a lucky break for Australia or a planned move, exploiting his leg-side stance as a weakness.

There was a time when a man on the leg side, standing anywhere from fine leg slip to leg gully according to the pace of the pitch and bowler, and the length he bowled, was a standard position to the pace bowlers. David Lloyd, who spent many years on this ground, remembers standing fine to the great Brian Statham and plucking catches as batsmen played the ball from the hip, and parking himself squarer for the seamer Peter Lee, say, who bowled a fuller length

In the same paper, Emma John writes that it might not be unusual for England fans to feel queasy about an Ashes whitewash, in light of the umpiring horrors going against Australia. This is quite unlike what the Australians would have felt for their rivals in an earlier era.

I suspect we don't like the idea of a boring, one-sided Ashes contest because it doesn't fit the legend we've built around it. We treat Ashes series as if they are pieces of the True Cross, but when you get up close, they are more like the items in a Victorian collector's library - a fascinating agglomeration of history and oddity. People talk about the Ashes being special - hard-fought, a tooth-and-nail contest, as if somehow this single fixture can make a sport in which gentlemen wear floppy hats as manly as a bare-knuckle fight with Vinny Jones. And it's unique - give me the Ashes over a World Cup any day.