Mark Richardson: Fortune beginning to favour England

I'm not going to say England can win the Ashes - I'm just not that brave or impetuous - but I am beginning to reconsider my original prediction of a 3-1 scoreline in favour of Australia. Why? Because Australia is starting to look like England teams of old and England is beginning to find self belief.

There was a time when England teams that played against Australia seemed to suffer all the bad luck. Key players would go down with injury or lose form at the wrong time, crucial tosses would be lost and catches would go to ground with embarrassing regularity . All of a sudden it is the Aussies who seem to be facing these scenarios.

Glenn McGrath sprains his ankle, Brett Lee goes to hospital with a freakish condition, Michael Clarke puts his back out, Jason Gillespie is dreadfully out of nick and even the safe hands of Shane Warne and Adam Gilchrist looked more like feet.

Throw it all together and at the feet of a team able to capitalise on mishaps like these and, all of a sudden, Australia has begun to lose that air of invincibility that has intimidated all who came before them.

It is this impression of being unbeatable that has made it hard for teams and players to get the best from themselves when up against the might of Australia and which has led to many Australian victories, even from some unlikely scenarios. The All Blacks used to possess this intangible quality but when other nations stopped believing they were unbeatable, the Blacks were beaten more often. Sport at the top level is such a confidence game.

For mine, the first two days at Old Trafford were almost more significant to the English psyche than the victory in the second test.

It was great for England to win the second test but it was a freakish test from go to whoa and Australia almost sneaked it from an impossible position.

However, in the first two days of this test, England completely outplayed Australia.

They have got out-of-form players in form - the most important of these being captain Michael Vaughan; hero Andrew Flintoff has backed up - and backing up is huge in the context of confidence building; Ashley Giles is putting two fingers firmly in the air to his unfair critics and even Simon Jones' rotten luck finally seems to have turned.

The body language of the English players has changed dramatically and now it is the Australians' turn to sigh, look to the heavens and trudge off following an embarrassing mistake that can only be put down to pressure.

The green machine is starting to splutter and make noises not heard before. The potential to spark back to life with the old, familiar, well-oiled, ruthless efficiency is still there but you get the feeling the England players feel that with a tap here, a twist there, it can be broken down and left in bits.

Australia appears beatable and if there is one team that possesses enough class to do the job it is this English team. But I'm still a little like the rest of the world's cricketing fraternity - I would like to see it happen but am still very sceptical.

- HERALD ON SUNDAY