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Edgbaston crowd now chanting 'There's only one Ricky Ponting...'

Gerbil features has gone! Australia now 52-2 and still some way behind on 1st innings. Could be a big day tomorrow.

England seeing out the last couple of wickets with some attitude - now 355-8, Johnson giving as much abuse as he is giving away runs. I fancy Broad to shut him up here.

Good day for Jimmy the wayward freak today. Lots of luck, sweat and Kuertzen helped him on the way to his first Ashes 5 for. Aussies doing an England impression, losing 9 wickets for little over 100 runs... ending on 263.

England then lost Cook and Bobara to lazy shots to end the day on 116-2... leaving plenty of scope to fuck things up completely tomorrow.

Well I was completely wrong about yesterday - England managed 435 but then normal service resumed and apart from Flintoff sorting out one of the convicts they've continued onto 249-1 with gerbil features and his new best mate getting tons.

336-7 is how England finish and Australia will be happy with that. Little chance of England seeing out 400 but who knows what will happen early tomorrow.

KP dropped - he's having more chances than Berlusconi.

First day of the Ashes with hopes in England as high as the bankers at the top of the financial bubble.

So far today all very even - England wobbled then rebuilt now wobbling again but if they can see the day out without more wickets then they'll be happy on around 280/4.

The difference between football and cricket - Chris Lewis

This article tells it all... how cricketers are reduced to smuggling cocaine whereas footballers are the ones that take it. Perhaps there simply isn't enough money in being a professional cricketer?

Pietersen and Flintoff - the two most overrated players on the planet. Both seem to be 2-3 years past their best. Pietersen's been done over by the English 'system' and Flintoff is an orthopaedic surgeon's dream.

With England actually well on top in the current match there's a good storm forming with news that Sir Allan Stanford is being investigated for fraud.

The great thing about that is that it's bringing out all the best in British schadenfreude. Aggers, who gets my goat at the best of times, says "This whole business since the day he arrived in his helicopter at Lord's has been rather vulgar". Aggers is one of those delightful old farts that lives in the past of English cricket. Wake up and smell the coffee Mr Agnew, you're a relic of times past. If cricket wants to survive then it needs money, not a bunch of incompetent 'do gooders'. Also the money isn't going to come from the apparently dodgy Sir Allan, it needs to come from more professionalism: ECB meet IPL the future of cricket; Aggers meet P45 your future in cricket.

What a bunch of wasters. 51 all out. I thought this team had some real cricketers in it, not some kind of mid-90s spineless chicken variety. Too much focus on $$ for Flintoff and Pietersen. Where's some management that can get the best out of the players?

well it looks well poised for day 4, but if England can't take quick wickets then they're really going to suffer. Who's going to take them? damned if I know, and I doubt if they do either! at least the Aussies are in free fall, couldn't be funnier watching them suffer.

Strauss wins his first toss - a good start, then edges one in the first over and is very lucky to still be at the crease. Other good news for England is that Freddie is allegedly fit.

The England players up for the IPL auction... 60 places up for grabs with 130 odd players from around the world entered. Each of the 8 franchises has max. $2m to spend on new players... who would you spend money on out of this lot?

Kevin Pietersen ($1.35m), Andrew Flintoff ($950k), James Anderson, Ian Bell, Steve Harmison, Monty Panesar, Paul Collingwood, Matt Prior, Ravi Bopara, Rob Key, James Foster, Sajid Mahmood, Matt Prior, Owais Shah, Shaun Udal, Ryan Sidebottom, Luke Wright, James Foster, Graeme Swann, Darren Gough, Dominic Cork and Ed Joyce.

England warming up for the tests by thrashing school boy side.

Even Harmy managed 58 in the first innings. But Flintoff the team mascot and hero has side strain putting him in doubt for the first test next week - if he's not there then at least the West Indies have an outside chance.

Flintoff sat on fence over KP/Moores affair

Freddie admits to not know what was going on so basically sat on the fence.

Several Aussies allegedly interested in coaching England!

Do you think these guys would have their Australian citizenship revoked should they coach England to an Ashes victory? ...I wonder if treason is still a capital offence down under? :-)

I think the England cricket team, like the rugby team (and potentially also the football team) has a big issue with management and leadership. They basically have no idea how to get everybody working together. This failure leads to long-term divisions within the teams and these are played out in the full spotlight of publicity further damaging relationships. The whole KP/Moores affair is is just one example that goes back years (others include the Brian Ashton issue, Phil Scolari - England Manager, Will Carling's outburst of 57 old farts). I've said this before but these sport's will never really be professional until they get some decent professional managers throughout their structure - they really do rely too much on the old boys network and it's highly damaging for English sport.

BBC not watching the game...

Well they open their match review with "Australia gave themselves a good chance of earning a consolation victory..." (note that Betfair has the draw as odds-on). 445 is a good score for them in this series but South Africa look reasonable on 125-1 despite captain fantastic breaking his hand which will keep him out for 6 weeks.

With South Africa needing to win this one to top the test rankings it's all to play for - I never thought I'd cheer for South Africa but there's a first time for everything - come on South Africa - it's time for a change at the top.

Predictions for 2009

1. England will win the Ashes
2. Australia will end the year in 4th place in the Test rankings, India ending as number 1, South Africa as 2 and England as 3.
3. Lancashire will win the county championship (no reasoning behind this one, it's just their turn)
4. There will be at least 10 English players in the IPL.
5. Shane Warne will not return to cricket to 'beat the poms'.

Predictably it ended drawn. A good series for both teams - England can be happy they put up more resistance than the convicts did in the tests but the one dayers were a complete disaster.

India now establishing themselves as pretty much invincible at home - they just need to become better tourists.

England now 31/1 at tea. This looks like one of those games that will just fade away into nothing. What should England have done here? A) Blast away like it was a 20-20 game B) Dig in and play for the draw. Although A) sounds attractive, there's very little chance of winning. When they retire, captains are judged by their record - which means a draw still scores more than a loss - so no captain in their right mind is going to do anything other than B). That's my negative thought for the day.

After an high octane innings by Yuvraj (83) India stumble to 251/7 and declare. England thus are to be set a target in the top 5 highest run chases - 401, however they've got to do that in just over a session - hence no chance (they're looking at something close to 10 an over). The bigger question is whether they can hang on in there for a draw - surely even England can bat through 40 overs in a test match.

So England have put up a bit of a fight today. After tamely falling over themselves to get out in the first hour (Anderson and Panesar are surely the kings of comedy cricket), they managed a team effort to get India to 80/4. Though fog has played a big part pushing this match towards a draw at least England have something to take home and chew over alongside their ample Christmas lunches.

Day 2 ended with India finishing off on 453. So far 2 bits of good news today for England, one of which is unfortunately irrelevant to this match:
1. KP is having a good knock, he's now on 97 and going for it with Freddi. Saviour of the tour, Strauss, was out for a duck.
2. Australia lost to South Africa after the saffers hit a pretty astounding 414/4 run chase in the last innings. That now makes two of the 5 highest run chases in history coming this week - India chasing down 387 in the last match. With that kind of form England must be odds-on to post a big total in the 4th innings here...

Well I'm going to congratulate myself on this... and say it would have been 262/2 if the light hadn't been so bad and ended the day's play early. India looking very comfortable on 179/1. England may need to be thankful for the weather here.

The teams are in the pavilion scoffing their lunch. India started with losing Sehwag in the second over but have since looked pretty comfortable in getting to 51/1 on a good batting wicket. Prediction for the day: India end on 262/2 leaving England with a mountain to climb.