Any euphoria over England winning the Second Test should be tempered by dismay over Kevin Pietersen missing the remainder of the Ashes series.

KP was getting lots of grief from critics after his performances in the first two Tests and I think the big problem was that his body was letting him down.

I had noticed some strange things while watching him bat that were not like Kev. He looked flat-footed to me and that almost certainly stemmed from his Achilles tendon injury.

He couldn't get up on his toes to play strokes or move as sharply as he normally does. I saw him play a cut shot the other day off the back-foot, which is not how he usually executes it.

When Pietersen cuts he regularly sends the ball back past the bowler because he plays the stroke on the front foot, really getting at the ball.

You could see he is not comfortable batting and it didn't surprise me to learn he underwent surgery yesterday. Nevertheless, it is a major blow to lose one of our key players with the series still in the balance.

Andrew Flintoff's knee injury also concerns me, but he is obviously on a high after Lord's and I can see him carrying on through any pain for at least one more Test.

When we won the Ashes in 2005, Freddie bowled throughout a morning in The Oval Test to change the game, so it didn't surprise me that no one could get the ball off him as England clinched a comprehensive win on Monday.

Some people may have wondered why Andrew Strauss kept him on even after he completed his first five-wicket haul at Lord's. But the job was almost done by then and Fred would have been so pumped up that another 10 or 15 minutes bowling wouldn't have bothered him.

The ball started to reverse swing and there is no better bowler in world cricket than Flintoff when that is the case. He steamed in from the start and hit the deck really hard.

I'm sure England were worried overnight that Australia, with only five wickets down, might actually achieve the highest winning score in the fourth innings of a Test match.

But Fred striking in his first over to remove Brad Haddin would have eased any nerves and it remains vital to England's hopes of winning the series that he stays fit enough to bowl flat out.

That could well be the case. KP worried me more because he was in a tough place mentally and that makes it more difficult to play through obvious discomfort.

I would make one other change to the England side for Edgbaston by bringing in Steve Harmison for Graham Onions.

I say that even though I advocated picking Onions ahead of Harmison at Lord's. He was in the original squad and I don't think it would have been right for his Durham team-mate to have leapfrogged him into the side.

Onions didn't bowl badly, but with Australia on the back foot, I just think the time is right to unleash Harmison, who is at the top of his form, and go into the third Test with all our big guns blazing. The last thing the Aussies will want as they try to regroup will be Flintoff charging in from one end and Harmy hitting the pitch hard from the other.

It would be tough on Onions to be left out, but England should go on the attack now we are in front and avoid any thought that three draws will be good enough to secure the Ashes.

Looking back to 2005, I remember how different it felt when we finally got ahead in the series with one match to go. When you are behind or level all you think about is winning the next Test.

Suddenly you go one up and it's hard not to let more defensive thoughts enter your head. But the fact that there are still three games to go in the series should help Andrew Strauss and his team stay focussed and positive.

England did a tremendous job at Lord's with the captain leading from the front. I was there on the first morning so I saw the start of the partnership between Strauss and Alastair Cook, which really set the game up.

I was also able to experience the Ashes buzz from a new perspective as I was in the Long Room when the players walked through to take the field.

When I was in the England team myself in that situation I did notice a special atmosphere, but my mind was so full of the challenge ahead that it was sort of there in the background, rather than hitting me in the face.

As a spectator, I was able to appreciate fully what an Ashes Test at Lord's means to the cricketing public. The expressions on faces as the lads walked though were just full of excitement and expectation. There was nowhere else in the world the people concerned would have wanted to be. It was a magical experience for me and I found myself really caught up in it. By the time the match started I was as excited as everyone else.