Australia take the English route

This Ashes series has thrown up many unprecedented sights but one sign that the wheel may finally have turned came at Trent Bridge - the sight (and sound) of whinging Aussies. As Ricky Ponting stormed off the pitch after being run out by Gary Pratt he launched a verbal volley at the England balcony. It just wasn't very Australian.

Moaning, whinging, complaining - it used to be the prerogative of the English, especially when they play Australia. It would only take a couple of weeks of a tour Down Under for England to start unpacking their trunk-load of excuses after they had been turned over by an Australian Academy side or Wagga Wagga third XI. Anything from player injuries, to the long periods of travel and a hostile crowd.

But for England, now read Australia. The signs were there from the start of the tour when they tried to laugh off their Twenty20 thrashing and put their Somerset humiliation down to rustiness. Now Ponting has been reduced to calling England's use of substitutes a "disgrace", while Simon Katich has been fined for mouthing off after his rough lbw decision in the second innings at Trent Bridge.

England's attack has benefited from the occasional inside-edge being missed - they will probably appeal the next time Damien Martyn manages to middle a cover-drive - but Australia are not the first, and won't be the last, side to suffer some bad luck. The difference now is that the Aussies are losing and they aren't sure how to handle it.

Glenn McGrath has joined the cries denouncing England's substitutes, although the whole Australian side were only too pleased when Stephen Peters missed a similar shy in the closing stages at Old Trafford. It's amazing what a difference a few inches makes - just ask Ponting.

And it hasn't just been the players on the field having a good old moan about how unfair the world is. Jason Gillespie laid into the crowds - he in fact made more of an impression off the field than he did on it - the day he was omitted, by saying some of the chanting of the stands has been "disgraceful". This was a schoolboy error from an experienced cricketer who should have known better. England supporters love nothing more getting a player irate enough to comment in the newspapers.

In the past the Barmy Army have been left to chant their way through Ashes series defeats and their sniping at the Australians has often been seen as a last line of defiance. At Melbourne on the 2002-03 tour they gave Justin Langer a real working-over - much tougher than any of the England attack could manage as he went on to score 250 - and Langer went crying to the newspapers. This just provided more ammunition for the Army and Langer eventually caved into the pressure and joined in the antics.

There is no such frivolity this time around. Back then Langer was able to relax in the knowledge that the Aussies were cantering to Ashes glory, but this time their grip on the urn is becoming weaker and weaker. The Aussies are now taking things personally and are having to fend off verbal onslaughts as if they were Steve Harmison bouncers.

England picked up the tag of "whinging Poms" during their endless fruitless treks around Australia during the 1990s. But the Aussies don't like to be outdone at anything and maybe they have taken the view that if you can't beat them, join them. England may not have become the new Australia just yet, but Australia are well on the way to becoming the old England.