England vs. Australia the Ashes 2013: Biggest Takeaways from Second Test

England produced a dominant performance over Australia in the second Test of the Ashes.

England won by a huge margin of 347 runs. One more win would be enough to clinch the series and retain the urn.

Before we get ahead of ourselves, however, it is important to take a look at the impressive performance by England and what went wrong for Australia.

Here are the biggest takeaways from the second Test of the Ashes.

Ian Bell is Tough to Stop

Ian Bell has produced a handful of spectacular performances in recent matches.

The 31-year-old batsman scored 109 runs in the second innings of the first Test, then followed that up with another 109 runs in the first innings of the second Test to give his side a big lead.

Combining this with his strong performance at the end of the last Ashes in 2011, Bell is now the fourth English player ever to score a century in three straight matches.

Ashton Agar Still Has Work to Do

Few people in history have made a more dramatic debut to Test cricket than Ashton Agar. According to BBC TMS, it was actually a record-breaking performance for any No. 11, not just those starting their careers:

The 19-year-old bowler finished with 98 runs, just short of a century, in his first ever appearance on the main stage for.

Unfortunately, in his next three innings, Agar has scored a combined 32 runs, including only two in the first innings of the second Test.

While Agar obviously still has an incredibly bright future ahead of him, it is clear that he raised unrealistic expectations with his first appearance. It will be a while before he is a consistent performer at this level and he is in the team as a bowler but has only picked up two wickets thus far.

England Have Plenty of Players Who Can Step Up When Needed

As well as Bell has performed recently, he is not the only one putting up huge numbers in the Ashes.

Joe Root scored 180 runs in the second innings, which is more than the entire Australian team scored in the previous innings. Jonathan Trott, Jonny Bairstow and Stuart Broad have also shown the ability to help out the team at bat.  

On the other side, England have seen great bowling performances from James Anderson, Graeme Swann and others to help keep Australia's score low.

It will be an uphill climb for Australia to get back into this contest, but it is near impossible to expect them to win if the English squad keeps getting these types of contributions.

Follow Rob Goldberg on Twitter for the latest breaking news and analysis.