By Jonathan Agnew BBC cricket correspondent, Brisbane

Despite their magnificent rally on the second day, England are continuing to pay the price for their dreadful errors on the first.

As we predicted then, they now face the prospect of fighting it out against Shane Warne with 400 runs behind him on his most prolific ground in Test cricket.

It is not a pleasant scenario and there does not seem to be any way out.

There is an excellent opportunity to undermine further Steve Waugh's position

Crawley confounded his critics with 69

Crawley batted beautifully, and did not appear to be the least intimidated by McGrath - his nemesis here four years ago.

It required a springy burst with the second new ball from Jason Gillespie to part them - Hussain was caught behind for 51, and he induced Alec Stewart to edge into his stumps for a duck in his next over.

This opened the floodgates, and although Crawley was undefeated on 69, England lost their last six wickets for only 57 runs to give Australia a commanding lead of 167.

Andy Caddick removed both Justin Langer and Damien Martyn, but Matthew Hayden and Damien Martyn ensured that Warne will be given the platform he needs to be at his most dangerous.

On the face of it, England face little prospect of taking anything away from this match.

Waugh could only scratch seven in the first innings

But, in fact, there is an excellent opportunity to undermine further Steve Waugh's position as Australia's captain.

There is no doubt that he is under great pressure - he proved that by the way he scratched about in his first innings.

Another cheap dismissal would not only add greatly to his discomfort, but also to that of those who have to bat around him.

Martyn and Lehmann both appeared to be affected by Waugh's lack of confidence on Friday.

And since this is a long-term strategy and there are still four Tests to go in this series, England must pull out all the stops to weaken the position of the Australian captain.