not long before the ashes begin.reckon england may keep the ashes..check out www.supersoccer.co.uk for all the odds.. gonna do england to win outright 7/4 3.0 33/1 3.1 10/1

not long before the ashes begin.reckon england may keep the ashes..check out www.supersoccer.co.uk for all the odds.. gonna do england to win outright 7/4 3.0 33/1 3.1 10/1

yep its a 5 test series...thanks

Swann will be the key to us keeping the Ashes.

Ah the Ashes. Another "event", like the Rugby Union World Cup and the Ryder Cup, where a load of people who don't have any genuine interest in the sport whatsoever suddenly jump on a bandwagon to cheer on "our boys".

Advance Australia fair.

4-0 England 50/1
4-1 England 50/1

Both with SkyBet - I'm going in

Not sure where you are getting this 'batting better than the bowling' thing from....Both side's batting line-ups are in ropey form and, personally, I don't see too many 400+ totals in this series....I can see plenty of second innings collapses on both sides, leading to several dramatic finales.

Swann is definitely England's main man....If he's given enough 4th and 5th day opportunities then I can see England coming out on top.

As for a result, there will be 1 draw at the most....Modern Test cricket, coupled with good weather, will guarantee results....Look at the 2009 series?....1 improbable last wicket stand between Anderson & Panesar and some very dodgy weather at Edgbaston were the only reasons for draws then.....I'm going for 2-2, or 3-2 to England.

Im going to go 3-0 or 2-1 for england. The batting lineups are fairly even but our bowlers are much better.

England have the bowlers to take 20 wickets but its the batsman who worry me, Pietersen's form is a concern, Cook will probabley take about 4-5 innings to get a decent score and Strauss blows hot and cold. Thats why i'm going for the Aussies to win 2-1.

The only thing that concerns me is that many of the Australians are so hopelessly out of form at the moment - when it doesn't matter. Am just hoping that they don't start getting into form next Thursday...

I agree entirely....The Aussies are in a bit of a state.....If they are honest, they don't really want Ponting to be captain of the team. They wanted to get shut of him in 2005, but haven't because they have this bizarre policy that any sacked skipper has to be dropped from the team and with Ponting being their most reliable bat, this simply cannot be done.

The first test is massive....If England get off to a flyer then there is every chance the Aussies could disintegrate, just like we did back in 1989 (and in many Ashes series since!!).

Ah 1989...my first summer as a cricket fan. I remember well hearing all the hype, pre-series, Ted Dexter's "Brave New World" of English cricket with Gower restored to the captaincy. The Aussie squad then was the same as now, a bunch of relative unknowns led by captain cranky (substitute Allan Border for Ponting). They had virtually no bowling attack and had brought over 30odd year old injury crocks Terry Alderman and Geoff Lawson.

First Test at Leeds, Steve Waugh gets his first Test century, Mark Taylor who nobody had heard of, got a century (and went on to get centuries in practically every game that series), the Aussies smash us, and the tone is set for the series. Alderman absolutely destroyed us, he was the Aussies best bowler in England IMO.

I went to the game at Old Trafford where we lost the Ashes and it was 16 years before we got them back...the day we'd lost them, they announced that Mike Gatting was taking a rebel tour to South Africa that winter and him plus loads of the current England players, Emburey, Jarvis, Robinson, Foster, were banned from Test cricket.

This meant the biggest sweeping the cupboard clean ever, we picked a completely different team for the next Test with a young Devon Malcolm with inch thick glasses and a load of new faces who were going to be our team for the next generation. Everybody was excited to see what would happen....give the young lads a shot, they couldn't do any worse we said. The Aussies won the toss and batted, and by the end of the first day, the openers were still in, with huge scores to their names....

I remember reading an article on that '89 series a while back....We apparently set a record for using the most number of players in a series....Something ridiculous like 20 odd players, including players who were to never be seen again after making just single performances.

(Just checked a few sites, we used 29 players!!!.....including 'greats' like Barnett, Capel, Curtis, Igglesdon, Newport, Stephenson!!!)

Ah those names bring back memories...
Kim Barnett - wasn't he the guy who used to shuffle around the crease while the bowler was running in, then take a step back to leg before playing his shot....not quite sure he had a watertight technique for Test cricket!

David Capel - possibly the first of the "new Ian Bothams"...to be followed by Chris Lewis, Dermot Reeve and Dominic Cork

Tim Curtis - decent county pro but not top class. Reminds me of Martyn Moxon who also played in that series.

Alan Igglesden - actually he was a good bowler IMO, him and Newport could swing it. Newport was similar to Martin Bicknell in that he wasn't that quick. Igglesden was a bit faster, I reckon he could have been like Jimmy Anderson today. Unfortunately he was injured a lot.

John Stephenson - I cannot believe he played Test cricket, always thought he was rank average even at county level.

On the plus side a few players did emerge out of the gloom that summer - Robin Smith, Jack Russell and Angus Fraser, all of whom were good Test players. In fact I remember the tour to the W Indies which followed, when we were supposed to get smashed 5-0 by the W Indies in their glory days, as being one which was quite successful for us and we took it to them. For the next few years under Graham Gooch we were quite good, we got to the World Cup Final in Australia.