The much-maligned all-rounder has been saddled with the task of steering the tourists back into an absorbing first Ashes Test after England seized the ascendancy on a second day in which Chris Rogers was narrowly denied a century.

Watson (29 not out) survived a difficult final 90 minutes as Australia, with nightwatchman Nathan Lyon (6 not out) in the middle alongside the 34-year-old for the final 10 minutes of Thursday's play, limped to stumps at 5-264 in reply to England's first-innings 430.

The Australians had been travelling along more comfortably at 2-180 but they wobbled with the loss of Rogers for 95 and then Michael Clarke for 38, and when a loose stroke from Adam Voges (31) brought him undone near the close England were right on top.

The hosts' underrated spinner Moeen Ali was their unlikely leading light, scoring 77 with the bat and conquering Australia's two finest players of spin, Clarke and Steve Smith (33), with the ball as the Australian captain spooned a ball straight back to him and Clarke's deputy was deceived dancing down the track.

Voges, meanwhile, blew more than an hour of graft alongside Watson in the third last over of the day by falling for the bait of a tempting fuller ball from Ben Stokes and blasting it straight to James Anderson at short extra-cover.

"Personal pride … for a lot of us to get out the way we did is going to hurt, particularly when there was an opportunity to really make them count today," Rogers said.

"I think the fact that I got a 90 and there were three 30s and a few of the ways we got out will hurt us. We think we are better than that but these things happen. If you are positive and you are going at it sometimes you are going to get out these ways."

"The first session (on Friday) is crucial. We can't really concede a big deficit otherwise it is going to be an uphill battle for us, we have to get close so we can put pressure on England in the third innings."

Watson shapes as the key figure on Friday.

"I think we all desperately want to see him do well because we know how much he goes through and how much kind of abuse comes his way," Rogers said. "He's pretty good with it - he knows that you've got to take the good with the bad. It's up to him tomorrow to go out and score runs and hopefully do it for the rest of the series."

England, underdogs approaching this series, have their tails up. "I think we're ahead. I think that last wicket put us into pole position a bit more," Ali said.

Rogers earlier had been the rock of the Australian innings but was worked over by Stuart Broad as he closed in on the nineties. He had top-edged a Broad bouncer just over the fine-leg rope and Ali, stationed in the deep, for what was his first ever Test six and then, further out of character, had conjured a ramp that also went to the boundary as he was in the midst of evading another short one from Broad.

The beneficiary of Broad's leg-work in building pressure on Rogers was Ashes first-timer Mark Wood, who catches the eye with a short run-up that begins with such urgency it's as if he's just been told they are running out of scones in the tea room. The opener was too close to the ball as he tried to cut Wood and edged it to England 'keeper Jos Buttler.

That the 37-year-old collected an obscure record in the process - he is now the only batsman ever to reach fifty seven times in a row but not convert any of them into hundreds - was certainly no consolation for him.

As Rogers shuffled off in that slightly pidgeon-toe way of his there was the same gut-wrenching, one-that-got-away feeling about this as when he was lbw to Graeme Swann for 84 at Old Trafford two years ago, having been distracted by spectators moving on the balcony of the pavilion, including one of his mates.

While Rogers fell agonisingly short of a fourth Ashes century, Smith also met an untimely ending. Intent on bashing Ali out of the attack he had effortlessly thrashed the England spinner for three boundaries in the first over he faced of him, looking every bit the world's best batsman that the ICC rankings say he is.

However, he was undone smartly before tea by the England spinner, who upon noticing Smith skipping down the wicket once again fired the ball down the leg side.

Smith, stranded in no man's land and realising the danger of being stumped, swung at it like a Game of Thrones cast member with a lump of Valyrian steel in his hand.

The HBO programme has a habit of knocking off its star characters out of the blue and Smith, having looked in command against Ali and seemingly on track for yet another big score, exited in similarly sudden fashion, with the ball bobbing up off his blade with a leading edge to short mid-on, where it was snaffled up by Alastair Cook.

It was one of two very good catches taken by Cook on Thursday - he earlier dove to his right at first slip when David Warner (17) erred in driving James Anderson - although it wasn't an entirely enjoyable day for England's captain after he was struck in the groin by a ball that flew off the edge of Smith's bat.