James Anderson rued England's disappointing final hour after the tourists had worked hard to fight their way back into the third Ashes Test against Australia on day two.

Having been bowled on for 185, England's star paceman Anderson led the way with 4-33 to restrict Australia to 267 all out and a first-innings lead of 82 at the MCG.

But a woeful last hour amid familiar failings with the bat saw England close on 31-4, still trailing by 51 runs as Australia moved ever closer to sealing the series.

"It's obviously a disappointing finish to the day, I thought we bowled well through the day to keep the pressure on Australia," England's all-time leading wicket taker Anderson told BT Sport.

"It wasn't easy to bowl them out for less than 300 on that wicket but it was a good effort to do so.

"It was a difficult 12 overs, good spell from Mitchell Starc and Pat Cummins, they're world-class bowlers so you expect that. It was disappointing to lose four wickets in those 12 overs."

England looked set to enjoy their best day of a poor series so far until Starc (2-11) and home favourite Scott Boland (2-1) combined to have Zak Crawley (5), Dawid Malan (0), Haseeb Hameed (7) and nightwatchman Jack Leach (0) dismissed, much to the delight of the Melbourne crowd.

Anderson, though, insists there is plenty of unity within England's camp.

"It's been a frustrating tour so far full stop. We are working hard and trying to put things right and trying to put in better performances," he added.

"I thought we did that with the ball, we hit our areas with the ball but it was a frustrating end to the day.

"We are together as a group. We have a really good group of guys. We know how hard the batters are working and as bowlers we are doing the same. 

"The cohesion is definitely there it's just frustrating we are not putting the two things together at the same time."