Former England and Yorkshire off-spinner Richard Dawson writes exclusively for The Northern Echo throughout the Ashes.

I've heard the news about Freddie Flintoff's ankle and it would be a massive blow if he had to miss the next Test.

He is a key, key man and England would have to change the whole structure of their team - it changes the batting as well.

I can't imagine he'll play in the warm-up game - we need to get him right for Perth.

Apparently it's the same ankle that he had problems with before, but hopefully it's just the fact that he's played back-to-back Test matches and it's just a bit of soreness rather than anything permanent.

He bowled so many overs in the last Test that maybe it's not that much of a surprise. It came to the point where he had to take on the work himself. There was no other way to go - as a unit we weren't functioning properly.

Out of the attack so far it's only really Hoggy and Fred who are firing on all cylinders.

Hopefully the pitch in Perth will have a bit more bounce and that will suit Steve Harmison more. He looks like he's coming back into form but the pitch really hasn't helped him. We have relied on Hoggy and Fred too much so far.

Hoggy's overtaken Darren Gough in the all-time list of England wicket-takers and he's right on the shoulders of Andy Caddick now.

That might surprise people because Goughie and Caddick probably got more plaudits than him, but Hoggy is Mr Consistency and I don't want to put the kiss of death on him but he rarely gets injured either.

Let's just hope it's still 1-0 by the time we go to Perth - sad to say but there can only be one winner in this Test now and that's Australia.

It's a shame because England have played pretty much all of the cricket but if we lose a couple of wickets in the first half hour you never know what might happen.

Shane Warne could come into his own on the fifth day and chasing 200 or 220 it would be game on. We've got to push on and be positive, we can't let Warney bog us down.

I thought Andrew Strauss did well to steer us to 59 for one in an awkward little session at the end.

This is no dead rubber and it would be great to see him get some runs today.

It will be a good test for him.