Now that I've gone from being distraught to being accepting about the dire situation that England find themselves in in this series, I can sort of see the tiniest chink of light for England.
From what I can tell, Johnson is causing havoc and probably represents the biggest difference between the 2 sides. It seems to be his raw pace and aggression combined with a bit more control that is causing all the problems (I'm choosing to ignore the England batsmens propensity to give their wickets away, you understand).
Yet in this match, Cook aside, he hasn't managed to take the wickets of Carbs, Root, KP, or Bell, and all have managed to make a half century, and better, across the two innings. That suggests to me that they have found a way to play him. Clarke seems to be using MJ in very short bursts, so not that many balls for the batsmen to endure at any one time, and I'd imagine that, given the hostility, a fair percentage of those 'not many balls' will be too short to hit the stumps. So you duck, and you weave and you do whatever you can to survive those balls without getting suckered in to going for your shots, secure in the knowledge that it isn't going to last too long before you get a breather.
What Johno has done well is completely destroy the tail, which makes him a valuable asset for Clarke, giving England no chance to hang around a la Best, or Agar, or Johnson or Starc, giving support to Bell, or Root, or, in this innings, Prior (assuming that the tail doesn't hang around tonight)
So........... going into Perth........ Cook is a slight worry, but he has loads of quality to help him overcome, and the other top 5 have all demonstrated that they have the tools to survive Johno, if they use their loaves. If they can stop getting themselves out hooking rubbish down the throat of fine leg, or getting themselves out to Steve 'Oh my gawd' Smith
, there will be opportunities to score runs. Plus Perth will give plenty of assistance to the England seamers too (as long as they don't do anything blooming stupid like selecting a 6'7 medium pacer, in no real form, on a hunch again), and Australia haven't had their own batting collapse yet........ which is coming, btw.
England will be lucky to survive an hour tonight before going 2-0 down, but perhaps they actually do have the batting line up in place to pull something out of the fire in the next 3 tests. If nothing else they do perhaps need to stick with this top 6 for the remainder of the series if they want to take anything positive out of this series, going forward into 2014.
I am prepared to let England borrow Stokesy for a bit, as long as they don't take the ssip and return him promptly in April
(in good condition would be nice too)