1. Cooking on Gas
The records keep on tumbling, the legside nurdles keep on coming. Alastair Cook, 136 not out after day two in Adelaide, has now scored 438 runs for once out in the series. It's not just an astonishing feat of batsmanship, but a triumph of physical fitness and mental strength. The Essex left-hander has now been on the field for all but 11 overs in this series. He has batted for 1022 minutes since he was last dismissed. And today he was chanceless. Now he just needs to prove he's no flat-track bully and make some runs against a decent attack.

2. Look Who's Back
There were promising signs in Brisbane even though he made only 43, but now Kevin Pietersen is most assuredly back. An early brain freeze in which he almost holed out off the innocuous Xavier Doherty was understandable after over 10 hours sat watching Trott and Cook bat here and in Brisbane. After that he batted better than he has at any time since the Captaincy Fiasco two years ago. Pietersen at his best teeters on the border between self-confidence and arrogance, marrying "you can't bowl at me" dismissiveness with awareness of the match situation. He did that today, and is now 15 runs away from finally getting to three figures again after a 21-month wait.

3. Phoenix From the Flames
So confident was Jonathan Trott of England's utter dominance that he set about producing recreations of yesterday's wickets to show just how badly Australia could mess it up. Xavier Doherty made a hash of the Simon Katich run out. Mike Hussey was hilariously poor in the Kevin Pietersen role as Shane Watson's dismissal was reproduced with millimetre-perfect precision. Alas, Michael Clarke proved more adept when Trott said "Right, I'll be Peter Siddle. Pup, you be Alastair Cook".

4. Review
The daily update on the review system, which worked properly today when Marais Erasmus finally took pity on the toiling Australians and gave Alastair Cook out caught behind only for the batsman to instantly call for review and TV replays to show it came off the elbow. A clear on-field error swiftly corrected by recourse to technology. There's hope for the system yet.

5. Stats
Statistics can be awful liars, misleading and confusing the unwary into incorrect deductions. The first-Test bowling figures of James Anderson and Steven Finn for instance. Or today, when Jonathan Trott's Test batting average was - albeit briefly - the second-best in the game's history behind only the Don. Even after his dismissal, his mark of 60.73 means he is England's joint-best batsman of all time along with Herbert Sutcliffe. Sometimes, though, statistics can and do tell the entire story. In England's last two innings, Australia have taken three wickets for 834.

Dave Tickner