One of the relatively few questions – and certainly the most brightly burning – over the team line-ups for the Swalec Stadium Test has been the composition of Australia’s bowling attack. The top seven, Mitchell Johnson and Peter Siddle have had precious few questions asked of their places – their performances have been convincing enough in recent times. Brett Lee’s has emphatically not, though it remained the case that he had plenty of fierce advocates. But on the second day of the game against England Lions, Lee’s high-class bowling essentially assured himself of a berth at Cardiff.

Ask any England supporter which batsman’s runs are vital to our chances of regaining the Ashes this summer. Ask any Australian which batsman’s runs are most detrimental to their chances of retaining the urn. The predominant answer will of course be the same. Kevin Pietersen.

So should we be worried that in his last chance of scoring some runs prior to the Ashes he returned seven runs from two innings against a county attack? Many will say that Pietersen hasn’t been in great form of late and that earlier in the summer he failed to score a century in a home series for the first time in his career. Did the whole captaincy saga really annoy him that much, is his game affected?

The answer is no. You would have to imagine that nobody is reading anything into his lack of runs against Warwickshire, though it would be nice if the Aussies were. Pietersen is one of those sportsmen who thrives against the best. Some will use that as ammunition against him, and say that he should always give his all, no matter what. But the truth is, if England were to play Bangladesh in a Test, and then Australia, you’d bet on him to score more runs against Australia.

It can be worrying to see batsmen scratching around unable to make any runs in first-class games prior to a Test series, be they tour games, domestic games, or rare warm-ups against county sides, as this one was. The truth is that there is absolutely nothing to see here. Pietersen failed today, and he failed yesterday. Good. Ricky Ponting won’t be reading anything into that. Pietersen will ton up in the first innings in Cardiff. You read it here first, folks. Kevin’s Ashes are coming, I am more convinced than ever about that after today’s failure.

Some of the usual suspects are beginning to warm to the task of sowing seeds of doubt into both their own sides and the opposition. Not before time too.

Thommo’s come out and had a shot at Punter, labelling his captaincy as merde; panning Nathan Hauritz (“I don’t rate him”) and saying Bing Lee shouldn’t be in the XI for Cardiff. Cue Neil Harvey for a rant by week’s end, no doubt bagging the whole lot of the current crop as rubbish and mumbling something about 1948.

In another shock, Warney’s sledged Paul Collingwood, slating his T20 captaincy and noting “He was too busy trying to drive his Aston Martin and fly around in helicopters rather than working on his captaincy.” The irony of Warne criticising another for ostentation is the stuff of pure comic genius.

For their part, England’s salvos have been fired by none other than big Harmy, who noted Australia’s body language is different to the last time the two sides played. Given seven of the team he’s currently bowling to for the Lions didn’t play in 2006-07, this may be more a comment on the big fella’s powers of observation than on the state-of-mind of the tourists.

In on-field action, Phil Hughes got out to a short ball, causing some mouth-foaming from English commentators who are now certain he cannot handle the chin music. Dale Steyn, Makhaya Ntini, Morne Morkel and Jacques Kallis are yet to comment.

In the week which saw Michael Jackson depart for an enigmatic 50, it was somehow appropriate that Mike Hussey shrugged off his year-long impersonation of a zombie from the “Thriller” clip to post an off-the-wall 140 odd not out (sorry). Sighs of relief could be heard from the Aussie dressing room even on the Sky TV coverage. Big Harmy brought back memories of ’05 with a hostile opening burst for the Lions – Aussie batsmen decribed his performance as “minty”.

Over at Edgbaston, England were warming up for Cardiff by playing with themselves, or at least with one of their own Counties. Alistair Cook shone for the hosts with 124 out of a disappointing 290 all-out. Of the other recognised batsmen, Strauss made 31 and Bopara 43.

In all, neither side will be completely happy with their days’ work. Given, however, both batting line-ups seem well settled, the real interest in these games will be in the efforts of the prospective bowlers on either side over the coming days.

In the meantime, we’ll have to amuse ourselves with the off-field musings of past greats.

The more the better I say.