Is England playing for an Ashes Test draw?

OK, I admit, I thought the first Ashes Test was over (hah) when England went out in their first innings for only 260, and Australia came back with 481. That was before the second innings; captain Andrew Strauss for England started with 110, and then Australia couldn't get Jonathan Trott (135) and Alastair Cook (235!!) out. So England declared (which means for you non-cricketers that they said they were done, and dare Australia to get as many runs (or more) as they had scored. Which means that Australia would need 297 runs to win.

This on day five, the last day of the first Ashes test in Australia, Brisbane to be exact. So there's two choices, basically; either England gets all of the Aussies wickets before the day is over and the Aussies haven't matched their score -- in which case they win -- or more likely, they don't get all the wickets, but the Aussies don't make the score, and it's a draw. (The other possibility is that the Aussies get 297 runs by the end of the day. That'd be real bad for the Brits.)

So I think they're playing for the draw, but if they get lucky, that's even better. As I finish writing this, the score for the Aussies is 55/1 (51 runs, one wicket down) and there aren't a lot of overs (25 or so) left. So this one's most likely to end in a draw. (An over is 6 bowls.)

The next test starts on Friday, December 3, in Adelaide.