Tradition has it that press conferences contain questions from journalists and answers from players, but shortly after the end of the first Test on Monday the role was briefly reversed. "I think you've got to be a little more aggressive," an English radio broadcaster told Andrew Flintoff. "In what way?" shot back the England captain. "More in your face with the Australians," came the answer. Flintoff dutifully trotted out a line about not changing the "way we play our game", but it was not entirely convincing. The journalist might even have had a point.
Very little about England so far has suggested they have quite come to grips with how best to face up to the Australians, which out here is half the battle. With the exception of Paul Collingwood on Sunday, their press-conferences performances have been slightly suspicious affairs, as if every question lobbed their way by the local press is a cunningly disguised hand grenade. They should try reading the papers: with one predictable exception, the Australian journalists have bent over backwards to be fair-minded. The notion that the media are simply cheerleaders for the team is as tired a cliché as prawns on barbies and hats with corks dangling from them.
Yet the English are not using the media to their best advantage. Every time one player from both sides spoke at the end of a day's play, the Australian has devoured more battery life on the amassed dictaphones than the Englishman. On Saturday, Glenn McGrath was willing to go on even after Australia's media manager had called a halt. Yes, it's easier to talk the hind leg off a dingo when you're winning. But England need to talk a little bit more and a little more positively. So far their most fighting orations have come from Ian Botham and the Guardian columnist Sajid Mahmood, neither of whom played at Brisbane but one of whom might at Adelaide.
Not surprisingly, England's quietness is a tendency the Aussie journalists have already picked up on, mainly because a Flintoff press conference leaves you with precious little else to write about. "Andrew Flintoff may be new to the captaincy caper, but he has mastered the dead bat at press conferences," wrote one veteran observer, not unfairly, before describing the post-mortem at Brisbane as Flintoff being "at his platitudinous best". The effect of England's apparent strategy of disarming Australia's journalists could have precisely the opposite effect.
It was no coincidence that England were at their most vibrant at the Gabba when Kevin Pietersen was being "in your face" against Shane Warne. As Steve Harmison's first-ball nightmare fades mercifully from the memory, it is the moment of the game that has generated most talk in the bars, restaurants and taxis of Brisbane over the last couple of days. It has encouraged the conviction - not shared by bookmakers who reckon 5-0 is now the most likely result - that England will not roll over.
Without a demonstration of intent, England will lose heavily. Never mind that Collingwood's charge at Warne on 96 looked awful: he had used his feet successfully before and had shifted the momentum of the match with his aggression. Warne is always going to take wickets, so he might as well go for a few in the process. It was the kind of thinking that paid off in 2005, when Warne took 40 wickets but still conceded 3.16 an over. His career Test economy rate is 2.64.
In the meantime, England need to start believing in themselves and conveying that belief to the rest of the world. Otherwise we could be in for a long, long winter.
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