Andrew Strauss was 64 not out and Ian Bell unbeaten on 26 at Edgbaston, taking England within 147 runs of Australia's total after the loss of Alastair Cook for 0 and Ravi Bopara for 23.

19th Test hundred

Strauss, who made 161 in the second Test, neared his 19th Test hundred after hitting 10 boundaries in 111 balls.

Bell, recalled for the injured Kevin Pietersen, lofted spinner Nathan Hauritz for six over long-on but later survived an lbw appeal off an in-swinger by Mitchell Johnson that TV replays showed would have struck the centre of middle stump.

Cook was out in the second over, edging a wide ball from Peter Siddle to debutant wicketkeeper Graham Manou, while Bopara did not add to his tea-time score before playing on to Ben Hilfenhaus.

Australia resumed the day on 126-1 and slumped after losing two wickets with the first two balls of the morning, bowled by Onions. Onions finished with 4-58, while fellow swing exponent Anderson had 5-80, including a sequence of 5-13 in 38 balls.

"We had a long chat this morning when we got to the ground because we were all aware that we didn't bowl well enough last night," said Anderson, revealing that the swing was conventional rather than reverse.

Australia's last two wickets added 60 valuable runs, with final pair Hauritz (20 not out) and Hilfenhaus (20) putting on 34. Australia, 1-0 down in the series and seeking to retain the Ashes, lost nine wickets in the day for just 137 runs from 40.4 overs.

Anderson and Onions dramatically improved on their first day figures of 0-45 from 10 overs and 0-21 from three, respectively.

swinging ball

"I thought we would go on and post a big first-innings total," Australia captain Ricky Ponting said. "But they got the ball swinging and all our batsmen found it difficult today. Onions and Anderson bowled particularly well, and when the ball is swinging they are a handful."

In between the wickets, Ricky Ponting became the highest-scoring Australian batsman in Test history, in his 124th Test, passing Allan Border's tally of 11,174 from 156 matches after flicking Andrew Flintoff to midwicket for three runs.

Ponting, booed to the crease Thursday, acknowledged the generous applause he received for his record from English spectators. He is now third in the all-time Test run-scoring list behind West Indies' Brian Lara (11,953) and India's Sachin Tendulkar (12,773).