An Ashes Preview

Pardon me for trampling on anyone else's territory here, but here is my twopence worth about the pending Ashes series.

I notice that Sir Ian Botham is predicting a ten-nil whitewash for L'Angleterre contre the Australians this next year. Beefy, bless him, is an England legend, but maybe not the cricketer most likely to gain admission to MENSA. To be fair to the great man, he is playing the Aussies at their own game. How many times have we heard those humble folk from the other hemisphere make nonsense predictions about whitewashes over the years. Mind you, such a forecast did indeed prove true in 2006-7, but hey let's whitewash over that whitewash.

Meanwhile back at the farm, I feel that England's batting line-up looks strong and experienced and full of huge potential. Australia's bowlers by contrast possess none of the demons of yesteryear. There is no terrifying Lillee or Thomson here, no McGrath to torment us, and no Warne to torture us either. It ought to be fill your boots time for our top order gents, but there were signs of a complacent and under-performing batting order in the recent tests against New Zealand. Let's face it folks. New Zealand's bowling attack is as 'good' as Australia's and we sometimes struggled against their average attack. In the last analysis, we can thank our lucky stars that Australia are not equipped to expose our perennial hopelessness against quality [or even semi-quality] spin bowling. Our batting's biggest enemy is our batsmen themselves. Can we keep focus? Will we get complacent? Time will tell.

It's England's bowlers that worries me. I fear that Jimmy Anderson will be carrying our attack, and one hopes that the recently-injured Graeme Swann can shoulder the wicket-taking burden. I'm afraid that Stuart Broad is way too inconsistent. He is always likely to produce one outstanding spell of bowling in a series, but what are we all supposed to do in the other three or four tests when he goes missing. Broad and Finn seem to be under instructions to bowl short, which is plain stupidity. The world and his brother knows that test matches in England are won by the teams who pitch the ball on or just short of a length. A lot of bowlers deliver a barrage of unnecessary bouncers in the mistaken belief that the batsman has never seen short-pitched bowling before. As for big Steve Finn, he really needs to stand up and be counted in this series. Big Finn was touted not so long ago as England's answer to Glenn McGrath, but he has been so erratic and far from economical that he invites more comparison with Rory McGrath.

Australia need to emulate the heroics from the class of '89 by piling on the runs, thereby piling on the pressure. As underdogs, the Aussies must hit the ground running. England can expect to weather a storm at the outset of the series, but if the favourites can cope with the initial questions, they should gradually assert themselves, as they did in the last two Ashes series. Unless they amass big scores that put England's batsmen under pressure, Australia will return home empty-handed.