England will attempt to press home their advantage over Australia at Edgbaston, with both sides conceding that the influence of Shane Warne will be the key to the outcome of the second Test.

Warne's sharply-spinning delivery into the leg stump of Andrew Strauss in the final over of the second day leaves England resuming today 124 ahead on 25-1 on a wicket showing increasing signs of turn and uneven bounce.

Their advantage is still significant to the balance of the Test, but that one delivery could have swung the momentum partly back in Australia's favour just because of the doubts it may have spread through the England dressing-room.

That leg-break, which span at least two feet from outside Strauss' off-stump into his leg-stump, was almost reminiscent of his legendary first delivery in Ashes cricket when he bowled a bemused Mike Gatting at Old Trafford in 1993.

"Hopefully he's put seeds of doubt into the minds of the England batsmen - and not only for this game, but perhaps for the whole series," said Australian opener Justin Langer, whose determined 82 reduced England's first-innings lead to 99 runs.

"Shane has bowled very well to Andrew Strauss so far and the more Shane Warne demons we can get into the England dressing-room the better.

"He's bowled fantastically well to England over the years and if he can continue to do well, that has to be a bonus for us."

Warne's late breakthrough enabled him to become the first player in history to claim 100 Test wickets in a single overseas country and took his career tally to a staggering 594 victims, with Australia and Langer optimistic he can add to that total today.

"I think Warney is going to play a huge role," said Langer. "England played him aggressively in the first innings, which was to their credit, but I think in the second innings it's going to be very hard work to score freely, as we saw with the way Ashley Giles bowled into that rough."

For all Australia's optimism, however, England remain quietly confident of nullifying Warne's threat, having been relatively successful against him in the first innings, when he conceded 116 runs in 25.2 overs, albeit before the wicket deteriorated.

"You could see from that ball at the end that Warney is spinning the ball hard, and we're going to have to come up with good gameplans against him to pitch a good target," said left-arm spinner Giles, who also exerted turn from the Pavilion End in claiming 3-78 on his home ground.

"They're obviously missing Glenn McGrath as support, but Warne hasn't got nearly 600 Test wickets without good reason. It's going to be very tricky against him, but we've got some good players in our dressing room.

"There is still a lot of hard cricket to play and this is a very good Australian side and we can't afford to throw away all the good work we've done in the last two days."

Updated: 12:02 Saturday, August 06, 2005