Yet to come to the party, but his plate is already overflowing © Getty Images

The central problem at Brisbane was that the bowlers had a shocker – and then the batsmen did too. Result: first-innings deficit of 445. If Ricky Ponting hadn’t sportingly given them a chance to regroup, they might well have lost by an innings and 300 runs.

It’s being said that everything has to go right for England if they are to get back into the series. That’s overstating it. But everything can’t carry on going wrong. At Adelaide, either the bowlers or the batsmen have to do well in the first innings.

The batsmen began to turn the corner at the Gabba. Four of the top six put together one decent innings, and two of them, Collingwood and Pietersen, even managed to dominate. The two who didn’t come to the party (© Duncan Fletcher 1999) were the two men who have captained England this year.

One of them, Andrew Flintoff, has so much on his plate that he has to be given some leeway. The other, Andrew Strauss, has to make some runs now. He is in form, or was when he last spent long enough at the crease to show it, but he has been out to the hook or pull four times in six innings in Australia. At Adelaide, with its beguiling square boundaries, the temptation to keep hooking will be strong. Let him hook – but downwards. (And let Geoff Boycott remember that he once had a hooking problem too, against Keith Boyce of the West Indies in 1973.)

	Strauss has been out to the hook or pull four times in six innings in Australia © Getty Images

When one of the batsmen gets to 80, as Collingwood and Pietersen did at Brisbane, he has to get 80 more. Even that may not be enough: Michael Vaughan made 177 at Adelaide last time, and still England lost by an innings, because nobody else passed 60. But England need to make their big runs bigger. The majority of their hundreds in Fletcher’s time haven’t made it to 125. Strauss, curiously for someone so level-headed, has yet to reach 150 in a Test. This is the moment.

The bowlers need to shape up as swiftly as the batsmen did at the Gabba. Somehow, they have to break through Australia’s top order. In home Tests since England last toured, Langer, Hayden and Ponting have made 7,188 runs at 70. The good news is that England have already had Australia three down for hardly any once this winter – in the one-day international at Jaipur. The bad news is that the man who did most of the damage was Saj Mahmood. And Langer and Hayden weren't playing.

England can do it, but only if they show intensity in their whole game, from bowling to captaincy. Memo to Flintoff: have a third man for Langer. Put three catchers on the drive for Hayden, not just one. Bowl full at Ponting, eight inches outside off, with the odd one jagging back for the lbw. Get Monty on early, and don’t be too bothered if they try to bully him. And give yourself the new ball: until Harmison recovers, you’re the spearhead.

	All about the percentages © Getty Images

Australia had two glaring weaknesses in the last Ashes series: their third seamers and middle-order batsmen. At the Gabba, England saw just how well they have fixed those holes.

Mike Hussey came in at no.5 and turned a possible turning point (198 for 3) into a walk in the park (407 for 4). He did it by approaching Test cricket the old-fashioned way, playing the percentages. Of the six major individual scores in the match, Hussey’s 86 was much the slowest. Happy to play a supporting role to Ricky Ponting, he faced 187 balls and hit only eight of them for four, even though he largely evaded England's big gun, facing just 20 balls from Andrew Flintoff. It was boring but effective. Hussey isn’t vice-captain yet, but this, just like his studious unbeaten 32 against England at Jaipur, was a vice-captain’s innings.

At 31, Hussey is older than the entire England team bar Ashley Giles. So is the new third seamer, Stuart Clark. Having waited their turn, both men have a breadth of view and a lack of ego that even a Pom can find appealing. Where Hussey is already an automatic choice, Clark could easily have been left out for Mitchell Johnson or Shaun Tait. By picking him alongside Glenn McGrath for the first time, the selectors sacrificed variety for steadiness, and risked duplication – attack of the clones.

Clark didn’t worry about that, he just got on with bowling line and length with a bit of nip and nibble. An aspiring commercial lawyer, he lived up to the stereotypes of his profession. He was greedy enough to help himself to quick runs: making a merry 39 is one thing, but getting it off 23 balls is as outrageous as a lawyer’s bill. Then, when he bowled, he was calculating enough to see that the cracks in the pitch, and the English psyche, meant that he could just keep it tight and let the circumstances do the rest.

Frugal in the first innings, solid in the second, Clark finished with match figures of 7 for 93. Even allowing for the fact that four of his victims were tailenders – and two were Matthew Hoggard, the world’s least threatening no.9 – this made a spectacular contrast with the men doing the same job in 2005. Australia’s assorted third seamers then (Gillespie, Kasprowicz and Tait) managed 9 for 504 in five Tests. England picked on them, taking a ruthless leaf out of the Aussies’ own book. Clark’s strong start means the bullies are going to have to look elsewhere this time.

	There is too much on Andrew Flintoff's plate © Getty Images

The team with four bowlers took 20 wickets. The team with five bowlers took only 10 wickets, one of them a run-out. England had one more bowler than in their last series – a world-class one, Andrew Flintoff – yet they bowled decidedly worse. While the batsmen found their feet by the end of the match, the bowlers remained lost.

Flintoff was England’s best bowler by a mile, but that doesn’t mean his role should go unexamined. When a players is given three jobs, something has to give. With England’s last two allrounder captains, Ian Botham in 1980 and Alec Stewart in 1998-99, it was the batting that suffered. Botham kept on trying to do everything, won no Tests, and resigned after a year; Stewart gave up the wicketkeeping gloves after three Tests, found some batting form, and was sacked all the same, two Tests (and one botched World Cup) later.

Flintoff is being asked to be a top-six batsman, the main strike bowler, and the captain. For the first ball of this match, he also found himself keeping wicket. It’s just too much. As the bowling is so ropey, that has to be his main suit. On the past two years’ form, he was already a bowling allrounder, and now that is even more true.

A Cricinfo reader called Toby posted a comment over the weekend, saying (about six times): “Flintoff is not good enough to bat at six”. Toby is on to something. “Not good enough” is overstating it, because Flintoff has made several hundreds there, including a match-winning one against Australia. But substitute “not good enough” with “too stretched” and the point has some force. Flintoff played a tired shot in the first innings and a rash one in the second. He needs a licence to be rash, and it was a sign of his mental strength that he wasn’t inhibited by the captaincy. But the performance didn’t add up to that of a no.6.

	England resumed their battle with Shane Warne and Kevin Pietersen led the way © Getty Images

Instead we saw an intriguing battle, the latest chapter in an age-old duel – England v Shane Warne. Here, as in no other department of their game except Andrew Flintoff’s bowling, England managed to recapture the mood of 2005. In that series, they handed Warne loads of wickets, but refused to let him dominate. For years, Warne and Glenn McGrath had been both attacking and defensive at the same time, adding up to a quadruple whammy for their captains. Under Michael Vaughan, England’s approach said: we can’t stop you taking wickets, so we’re going to make you pay more for them.

Warne went for 3.15 an over last year, the first time he had been above three in an Ashes series. England took 797 runs off him in 252.5 overs, whereas 12 years earlier, in the wonderball series, they scraped only 897 off 439.5, at the ridiculous price of 1.99. Kevin Pietersen fearlessly laid into Warne; Flintoff played block-or-bash; Vaughan showed his usual flair; Andrew Strauss slowly learnt to survive; Geraint Jones managed better than usual against high-class spin. Only Bell and the tail were mesmerised.

In this match, England have again shown Warne a healthy disrespect. Pietersen sashayed down the track to him as if he was Mark Ramprakash on Strictly Come Dancing. Paul Collingwood, far less predictably, took the same route. He perished by it, but not before he had made far more runs than many people thought he was capable of at no.4. We knew he was a scrapper; we didn’t know he could be this fluent on a treacherous pitch.

Warne wasn’t at his best, sending down more bad balls than usual and letting that economy rate nudge up again, to three and a half. But he also showed the qualities of a champion. He nabbed Bell with the wrong'un, a delivery he discusses more often than he actually bowls it. He bagged Cook just the way he used to get Strauss in their first few meetings, with a big leg-break out of the rough. (Whether he will do the same to Strauss again, we’ll never know, if Strauss remains addicted to the hook.) And he lured Flintoff into one of those straight mishits of his which turn mid-off and mid-on into vital catching positions.

England helped themselves to a hundred runs off Warne, and yet he had the nous, the will and the resilience to end up with four wickets. Knowing him, he’ll be looking for a nine-for.

	Steve Harmison should have been thrown the new ball when Australia batted again © Getty Images

That series ended in a draw, 2-2. The result in 2005 you may conceivably remember. Which isn’t to say that England will recover in this series – just that it’s not over yet.

For the first two days here, Australia were immense. Today they were merely efficient. Glenn McGrath was greatly flattered by his figures: a gift from Strauss, a joint gift from Pietersen and Billy Bowden, a push down the wrong line by Jones, a couple of tail-enders … the only major wicket conjured by McGrath himself was that of Cook.

England made just the mistake they went out of their way to avoid last time – playing the man, not the ball. The openers managed to attack McGrath, but when they perished, nobody else could summon the bravado to stick to the plan. His last 17 overs went for 25 runs, the same as his first six. Pietersen, for once, erred on the side of caution.

The worry for England – well, another one of many – is that Stuart Clark got wickets too. Between them McGrath and his mini-me took nine for 71. If England can’t cope with tidy, accurate, bouncy medium-pace, they are sunk.

Ricky Ponting’s decision not to enforce the follow-on was a weird one. It took the heat out of the match, just when England were going up in flames. I can see why some of the punters walked out. The game had switched from annihilation to an academic exercise. But Flintoff may have mishandled it too. He should have grabbed the opportunity for rehab and thrown Steve Harmison the new ball. There wasn’t much point in giving it to Anderson: he was already, surely, heading for a week off. Ponting the batsman has done so well, with strong support, that Ponting the captain can make as many mistakes as he likes.

	Australia's experience has shone through on the first two days at the Gabba © Getty Images

Australia have played the first two days superbly. What they have done is to apply their experience.

Justin Langer was scratchy early on – the comment from Bob which provoked such outrage here contained a grain of truth – but he imposed his will, converted nerves into nervous energy, and targeted Steve Harmison as surely as Harmison targeted him last time round. Ricky Ponting was back to his magnificent best, and showed with his anger at getting out that he wanted a second hundred as much as the first.

Mike Hussey, a highly experienced novice, played shrewd second fiddle. The tail rubbed England's faces in it: Stuart Clark batted with the fearlessness of a man who waited a long time for the limelight and is going to enjoy it while it lasts. Glenn McGrath was gifted one wicket, but had the nous and skill to produce a snorter next ball and turn one into two. Only Adam Gilchrist failed to make his experience tell.

The seven most seasoned players on the field are all Australian. The most experienced Englishman, Andrew Flintoff, is also having to be the captain, the talisman and the leader of the pack. His one clear mistake today was not to realise that his best bowler was himself and bowl at the start. Around him, there was plenty of bowling experience, but with Harmison's action in tatters, it was only when Matthew Hoggard had that one over of brief, belated glory – with a little help from the massively experienced Steve Bucknor – that it made any impact.

England's batting is extremely unused to Australian conditions, and it showed. Andrew Strauss made a misjudgment, and one wicket became three. But as the series goes on, experience should become less of an advantage, and youth more of one. The god of injuries, currently smiling on Australia, should change sides. Tests two and five, the back-to-backers, should be easier for young legs. But not if England are regularly kept out in the field for two days.

This was always the Test Australia were most likely to win. On top of the Gabba factor, England were underprepared, missing two or three players, and their selection was both too defensive (no Monty) and too risky (lashings of rust). If England get out of jail now, it will almost feel like a victory. If they don’t, they will just have to do a 2005 and bounce straight back. They can afford to lose two Tests in this series – but not the first two.

	Australia's batting has already broken free, as it never did in 2005 © Getty Images

There are not many conclusions you can draw from one day of a Test series, and the feeling of doom and gloom that has spread over England like one of our clouds is premature. The fans think the team slip back too easily into their old ways; the team could say the same of the fans.

Some things, however, we can state with confidence. The Australian batting has already broken free, as it never did in 2005. This match is conforming to the pattern for Brisbane, where Australia average 507 this century and rattle along at 3.8 an over, rather than the new template struck for Ashes matches in 2005, when Australia didn’t reach 400.

England have a minor crisis with their new-ball attack. Andrew Flintoff and Ashley Giles, rust and all, took a very decent three for 100 and kept it tight. Harmison, Hoggard and Anderson took none for 200 and kept it loose. That will change at some point, but it has to change fast and dramatically to affect the momentum of this match.

Four years ago, England got the nerves out of their system on day one and bounced back well on day two. But even if they do that again, Australia will have 450+. The bowlers can claw back some respect, but they can’t put England on top. The follow-on is already a distinct possibility; the key to this game is how England bat in their first innings.

Andrew Strauss has to be as busy as Justin Langer. England don’t have anyone who can be as elegantly imperious as Ricky Ponting at his best, but they have Kevin Pietersen, who can lord it in his own way. If these two don’t make serious runs, England will be staring 1-0 in the face. Pietersen found big turn; Warne will get far more.

England did three things better than expected today: captaincy (nice variation and invention), catching (no bloopers), and slow bowling (solid stuff from Gilo; not Monty, but not bad). And they did one thing worse: fast bowling. Unfortunately, that’s the one that decides the fate of touring teams in Australia.

	All too easy for Australia © Getty Images

England have just had the first hour from hell.

First they dropped the man who was their best bowler over the summer. The man Duncan Fletcher recently called “the best finger-spinner in the world” was no longer, apparently, the best finger spinner in this squad. It was the most depressing selection since England went to India 14 years ago without David Gower.

Then they lost the toss. Actually that may have been a good thing.

Then their national anthem was mauled by a nice-looking young woman.

Then Steve Harmison bowled the first ball: a wide. And not just an ordinary wide. There's a moment in the film The English Patient when Ralph Fiennes chews on a piece of fruit and pronounces it “a very plum plum”. Well, this was a very wide wide. And the English didn't feel very patient.

Then Andrew Flintoff made his first mistake: not having a third man. Justin Langer, living dangerously, helped himself to four fours there. The old pros who bang on about having a third man are not always wrong. If a batsman plays square of the wicket, you need a third man.

James Anderson replaced Harmison after two overs, but the method remained the same: all over the shop. Only Matthew Hoggard was himself. It was Test cricket at one end, and Twenty20 at the other.

There was a sniff of a run-out chance, but Anderson’s throw was just awful. Flintoff brought himself on to restore order. He bowled two no-balls. England had put their trust in rust, and they were paying the price.

	'If Australia lose, the captain – still, after a hundred Tests, one of the younger players in his team – will be sacked' © Getty Images

This is it. This is when all the words, all the quotes, all the expectations, all the hype, all the memories vanish, and what is left is the blank page, the next chapter. Cricket’s oldest saga is about to resume.

Australia may no longer be the holders of the Ashes, but they are still the favourites. They have more experience, more local knowledge, more batting depth, more bowling genius. They had the edge in some of those departments last year too, but there are crucial differences this time: Australia have fewer injuries, they have home advantage, and they surely have a greater hunger.

If they lose again, a defeat that they have tried to dismiss as a blip will become the end of an era. There will be a big clear-out: at least four players will be pensioned off, and for all the glittering performances of the past, they will leave the stage as losers. The captain – still, after a hundred Tests, one of the younger players in his team – will be sacked.

For England, the stakes are not quite so high. Most of their players have made their names as Ashes winners, and if they lose, it will take only some of the gloss off that achievement. It will be like when Moore, Hurst and Charlton lost in Mexico in 1970: bitterly disappointing, but not legend-shattering. And they will know that just as Australia are favourites this time, despite not being the holders, so they will be favourites in 2009, whether they are the holders or not.

England have a chance of winning this series, perhaps a better one than they had, on paper, 18 months ago. But they have some fairly basic problems, They don’t have enough batsmen. At no.3 for the first Test, they will have either a man who is heavily bruised in Ian Bell, or one who is seriously green in Ed Joyce. The folly of not picking a proper top-three replacement has been exposed.

Nor do England have a settled side. The spine of the team shows several changes from the victory over Pakistan: different captain, different keeper, different first slip, one different opener, different no.3, different third seamer, and perhaps a different spinner. The side will have a different balance – better, as balance goes, but weakening the batting.

	Last time Flintoff was Herculean; this time he is being asked to be Achilles and Agamemnon © Getty Images

Duncan Fletcher, who led England to the promised land of consistency, has now taken them some of the way back. They are repeating old mistakes, chopping and changing, picking the infirm, playing favourites, and giving their captain three roles, as in 1998-99. It didn’t work then for Alec Stewart and only a superhuman performance from Andrew Flintoff will make it work now. Last time he was Herculean; this time he is being asked to be Achilles and Agamemnon, the star warrior and the cool strategist, at the same time. And Brisbane is as much a fortress as Troy.

To find weaknesses among the Australians, you have to look harder. They have gone back to too many players who were dropped after the last Ashes. Their selectors have become conservative to the point of recklessness. By normal standards, they are too old to win a world title fight, but then England, deprived of their two senior players from last time, are too young.

The Aussies may not have quite the unity of their opponents. They may rue the lack of a fifth bowler and wonder why they replaced Shane Watson with a batsman. And their hunger could tip over into desperation. If England can hang in there and get to Christmas at 1-1, the Ashes will be in the balance all the way and the pressure will pile up on Ricky Ponting. Since the Barmy Army sang their first chant in 1994, England have always won one of the last two Tests, when their support is at its peak. Add that to 1-1 and the Ashes will be retained. So Australia are firm favourites, but not certainties.

	Shane Warne: the best Test captain Australia never had © Getty Images

1 Andrew Strauss
Justin Langer could have one last fling in him, but Strauss is a similar model, only younger. A taste of captaincy did him good: after only 30-odd Tests, he has the presence of someone with twice as many. Has two Ashes hundreds already and power to add with his neat back-foot game.

2 Matthew Hayden
Could have been dropped for the Oval 2005, but instead he survived, made a watchful hundred, and was soon back to his old bullying ways. Alastair Cook, on the other hand, has his work cut out not to be this year’s Ian Bell.

3 Ricky Ponting
In the form he was in a year ago, he is the best batsman in the world today. Against England, over the years, he has been mortal, averaging 40 rather than 50, but that may just mean he is overdue a big Ashes. Just don’t make him captain.

4 Kevin Pietersen
Edges out the revitalised Damien Martyn because he is one of the world’s two most gifted batsmen under 30, along with Virender Sehwag. Front-foot technique could be fallible, but his outrageous chutzpah should bring at least a couple of big scores at high speed.

5 Michael Hussey
In one-day cricket, he is the new Michael Bevan; in Tests, he’s far better. Nothing wrong with Paul Collingwood, but Hussey has the same resilience with more dynamism.

6 Andrew Flintoff
One of only three men present to have made the difference in an Ashes series. A colossus in 2005, he walks into this team, but no need to lumber him with the captaincy.

7 Adam Gilchrist (wkt)
Neither of the wicketkeepers demands a place in this team. Gilchrist had a poor Ashes in 2005 and has kept on struggling since, while Geraint Jones did pretty well then but floundered afterwards. Gilchrist wins because of his destructive possibilities – if he has even a half-decent series, it’s hard to see Australia losing. And you wouldn’t want Jones keeping to this man…

8 Shane Warne (capt)
The best bowler on either side, and in recent Ashes history. He really should have been a Test captain. And in this team, he can be. Suddenly, the field placings and press conferences will get a lot more interesting.

9 Brett Lee
All the fast-bowling spots are debatable, and you might even include someone here who is not expected to play in Brisbane, such as Shaun Tait. Lee’s Ashes record is one of more pace than penetration, and he is in the curious position for a genuine quick of being more adept at one-day cricket than Tests. But he was back to his best last Australian summer and he’s a natural foil to McGrath as well as an exceptional number nine.

10 Matthew Hoggard
There’s a case for Steve Harmison’s pace and bounce, or even for Monty Panesar’s skill and potential. But for the past two years, Hoggard, despite looking typically English, has been England’s best bowler overseas, with 50 wickets at 26. Flintoff is only just behind, with 47 at 28, while Harmison’s figures are the other way round – 26 wickets at 47. Simon Jones would have got this spot if fit, but Hoggard has added guile to his swing and could surprise a few people.

11 Glenn McGrath
Picked on reputation rather than anything he has done since Lord’s 2005, which may turn out to have been his last great hurrah. On one hand, he’s elderly, rusty, and may struggle to get through five days. On the other, he still has four of the qualities that made him great – awkward bounce, pinpoint accuracy, an intimidating presence, and a supreme will to win.

So that’s my team, with seven Aussies and only four Englishmen. What’s yours?

	Simon Briggs' book almost convinces you sledging is acceptable © Quercus

Many books have been written on the history of the Ashes, but none quite like Stiff Upper Lips and Baggy Green Caps by Simon Briggs. It’s the story of a great contest – to see who can come up with the best insults, put-downs and ripostes. What goes on the field, stays on the field, the players like to say, but thankfully this rule is often broken. Briggs's book is so full of good lines, it almost convinces you that sledging is acceptable.

But which side does it better? I suspected it was Australia, but Simon has immersed himself in 124 years of sledging, so let’s ask him. “Well,” he replied, “WG [Grace] was an early leader. I tend to think that England were the villains in first 30 years, as they thought they had a God-given right to beat the colonials and would use any methods. Then it was Warwick Armstrong giving it back to them.

“In the modern era, the Aussies definitely lead. Ian Chappell’s mob upped the ante, and then you have Allan Border, Merv Hughes and Steve Waugh. Some of it comes from grade cricket being much rougher than English clubs, and some of it comes from just being better. Verbal aggression and on-field dominance are a bit chicken-and-egg, it’s hard to do one without the other. You can’t sledge from a crap position, partly because you don’t have the close fielders.”

Here, in possibly the first book extract ever to appear on a Cricinfo blog, are ten of Briggs’s favourite Ashes sledges. (Warning: fruity language.)

1 Mark Waugh to Jimmy Ormond on his Test debut, 2001: “Mate, what are you doing out here? There's no way you're good enough to play for England.”
Ormond: “Maybe not, but at least I'm the best player in my own family.”

2 Merv Hughes to Graeme Hick et al: “Mate, if you just turn the bat over you'll find the instructions on the other side.”

3 Hughes again: “Does your husband play cricket as well?”

4 Mike Atherton, on Merv Hughes: “I couldn't work out what he was saying, except that every sledge ended with ‘arsewipe’.”

5 Dennis Lillee to Mike Gatting, 1994: “Hell, Gatt, move out of the way. I can't see the stumps.”

6 Derek Randall to Lillee, after taking a glancing blow to the head: “No good hitting me there, mate, nothing to damage.”

7 Ian Healy, placing a fielder yards away at cover when Nasser Hussain was batting: “Let's have you right under Nasser's nose.”

8 Tony Greig, England’s South African-born captain, to the young David Hookes, 1977: “When are your balls going to drop, Sonny?”
Hookes: “I don't know, but at least I'm playing cricket for my own country.” Hookes hit Greig for five consecutive fours.

9 Rod Marsh, late Seventies: “How's your wife and my kids?”
Ian Botham: “The wife's fine – the kids are retarded.”

10 Bill Woodfull, Australia’s captain in the Bodyline series of 1932-33, responding to Douglas Jardine's complaint that a slip fielder had sworn at him: “All right, which one of you bastards called this bastard a bastard?”

It makes you wonder about some of today’s players. They may be able to walk the walk, but can they talk the talk?

To order Stiff Upper Lips and Baggy Green Caps, click here.

	Watson promises much, but will he deliver at Test level © Getty Images

The Australian selectors have decided on their strategy for winning back the Ashes: being more like England. They will play four fast bowlers in Brisbane, just as England did for most of the 2005 series. It’s a case of imitation being the sincerest form of assault and battery.

To make their foursome look even more fearsome, the Aussies have included two spares. Their 13 contains no fewer than six quicks – Lee, McGrath, Clark, Johnson, Tait and Watson. It’s a lopsided squad, with no spare batsman, no Stuart MacGill, and no doubt at all about the first nine places, down to Brett Lee. In fact, if the return of Glenn McGrath is a sure thing, the only doubt is about the third seamer – one of Shaun Tait, Stuart Clark, and Mitchell Johnson. The options come down to a three-way tussle for a single place. One thing is certain: the Aussies’ drinks will be delivered at high speed.

On paper, this is a stronger Australia than the team that surrendered the Ashes. There is no link as weak as Gillespie and Kasprowicz turned out (unexpectedly) to be. Mike Hussey is in a different league from Simon Katich. Watson is a slight improvement on Michael Clarke at number six. Clarke’s contribution in 2005 is often overlooked – he and Damien Martyn put together Australia’s only match-winning partnership, in the second innings at Lord’s – but he did fade after that. And Watson is a proposition unique in Australia’s recent history: a high-scoring batsman who is also more than a medium-pace bowler.

There are two doubts about Watson. Can he do it at Test level? The answer should be yes: he is coming into his prime. And will Ricky Ponting remember to bowl him? Not so sure about that one. In his three Tests so far, Watson has had only 31 overs. A four-man attack gives a captain six possible pairings, while the fifth bowler bumps it up to ten. Michael Vaughan played those ten cards masterfully in 2005. This year’s captains, on both sides, may not be so adept.

Australia have picked a strong squad that might have been even stronger if MacGill and Phil Jaques had been there too. My guess is that England will be happy to see the devil they know. Last time they contained Langer, Hayden and Martyn, and even began to get on top of McGrath. The sight of McGrath’s name on the team sheet, which once spread alarm among opposing batsmen, now brings mere respect. But if the first day is a crazy pressure cooker, as in the last two Ashes series in England, he is just the man to keep cool. Australia are right to have him back in the squad.

Whether Clark, his shadow, should be there is more arguable, skilled as he is. If he makes the final XI, and both the wild cards, the incisive Johnson and the new, improved Tait, are left out, England will heave a private sigh of relief.

	Joyce: gifted, but uncapped © Getty Images

The gamble on Marcus Trescothick backfired badly, but that hasn’t stopped the selectors taking another one. The experience they gave Rob Key (15 Tests, four of them on the last Ashes tour) and Owais Shah (one highly successful Test in India earlier this year) has been binned. The idea of maintaining a clear and logical pecking order has gone with it.

The thinking seems to be that they need another left-hander, and that Australia’s pacy pitches will suit Joyce, with his strong eye and fluent strokeplay. He is Ireland’s answer to David Gower, and Gower was certainly at home in Australia, hitting nine international centuries there. With Trescothick goes a chunk of England’s flair: they now have a batting line-up that includes two old-school grafters, Cook and Collingwood. The choice of Joyce offsets that. He may even be tempted to go up in a Tiger Moth.

But it still feels like an interesting selection rather than a convincing one. England were already hurling inexperience at the wily veterans in the Aussie attack; as Rob Smyth pointed out yesterday over on the Guardian site, not one of England’s revised top six has played an Ashes Test in Australia. Three of them – Cook, Bell and Collingwood – could be fairly clueless facing Shane Warne. Can England really afford to be without Shah’s excellence against spin?

The decision also unbalances the batting order, leaving England with only two players who are comfortable in a Test top three, Strauss and Cook, along with three number fives (Collingwood, Pietersen and Joyce) and two number sixes (Bell and Flintoff). They may have to use Matthew Hoggard as nightwatchman in every innings.

	'Trescothick has never made an Ashes hundred, and now it begins to look as if he never will' © Getty Images

Trescothick’s timing could be better, but it could also be worse – he could have hung around right up to, or even into, the first Test. As it is, England have a ready-made replacement at the top of the order in Alastair Cook, who should make more runs as an opener, protected to some extent from Shane Warne, than he would have done at number three. And they have a ready-made replacement for Cook in Paul Collingwood, who didn’t deserve to lose his place in the middle order. For the team, this isn't a great blow. They coped with it last time and on this year's form, Trescothick shouldn’t have been in the side anyway. He will be a bigger loss at first slip than at the top of the order. He did great work in the last Ashes in getting England off to rapid starts, but Andrew Strauss, currently playing with a new freedom, has it in him to take up that mantle.

The only problem is that Ian Bell has to move up from six, where he flourished against Pakistan, to three. England would be more comfortable if they had followed the advice of certain bloggers and brought Owais Shah, Mark Butcher or Mark Ramprakash, instead of a sixth seam bowler.

Trescothick has never made an Ashes hundred, and now it begins to look as if he never will. There will be plenty of suggestions, in the overheated world of the British media, that this is the end of his international career. But Graham Thorpe went through similar agonies with his marriage break-up, and eventually fought his way back to enjoy a fruitful last couple of years as a Test batsman.

When Thorpe was recalled for the Oval Test against South Africa in 2003, a match England had to win to square the series, he was extremely nervous. He was calmed down and carried through by his partner – Trescothick. Thorpe made a hundred, Trescothick a double. He is a great team man, who has earned the right to be handled with sympathy.

For Duncan Fletcher, the news is a reminder that this is not 2005 all over again. He now has a different captain, a different vice-captain, and at least two players who didn’t feature in the last Ashes – Cook and Jimmy Anderson, whose rehab took another step forward today – as well as Collingwood, whose role in 2005 was peripheral. Let’s hope this makes Fletcher a little less inclined to cling to his MBEs, and more open to the idea of sticking with the best young slow bowler England have produced in 40 years.

	'Pietersen and Flintoff made runs – together, for once' © Getty Images

On Friday, after the little debacle against the Prime Minister’s XI, I wrote that England needed at least six players – ideally Flintoff, Trescothick, Pietersen, Hoggard, Harmison and one of the keepers – to do well against New South Wales. Today, two thirds of those wishes came true. Pietersen and Flintoff made runs – together, for once – and Hoggard and Harmison polished off the NSW lower order the way international new-ball bowlers are supposed to. That’s as many pieces slotting into the jigsaw as a touring team are entitled to hope for in one day.

Trescothick remains a big worry. If England had to name their Brisbane team now, they would surely be better giving him more time to find his touch and sticking with all three of Cook, Bell and Collingwood. Trescothick is being picked at the moment on past glories, not for anything he has done in the past year.

On the Jones-Read decision, I’m keeping my powder dry till tomorrow, when my Cricinfo column appears. But it wasn’t the only selection issue settled over the weekend. Duncan Fletcher also disclosed that Jimmy Anderson would be the fourth seamer for Brisbane, ahead of Saj Mahmood and Liam Plunkett, who is making an early bid for forgotten man status.

Anderson’s rapid return provokes mixed feelings. In terms of skills, he is the best choice. He is closer to the finished article than the mercurial Mahmood or the anodyne Plunkett. Anderson is a Brisbane type of bowler, using an old-fashioned full length to get conventional swing at useful pace. But he is still feeling his way back from serious injury. And so is Flintoff, good as he is looking at the moment, and so is Giles. If Fletcher seriously wants to play Giles ahead of Panesar, England are going to have an attack that is three-fifths rusty. That’s a lot of rust to put your trust in.

	Played one, lost one © Getty Images

Interest in the Ashes is running so high that England’s opening tour match was shown on television back home. Half-way through this afternoon’s highlights, the signal went on the blink, before packing up altogether. As a comment on England’s performance, it was eloquent.

The game could have gone worse, but only if a senior player had fled the ground in distress. England lost to a virtual Australia A side by a margin that was not so much wide as insulting. More importantly, not a single selection issue was cleared up.

The only man to make runs was Andrew Strauss, one of the two batsmen (with Kevin Pietersen) who are certain starters on November 23. Nobody took wickets; nobody was even economical, and Saj Mahmood was comically expensive. Geraint Jones held a great catch, but dropped a straightforward one, and when he batted he settled for survival, facing 41 balls without locating the boundary.

England’s handling of the game raised questions which Andrew Flintoff doesn’t seem to have been asked in his post-match interview. Why did Monty Panesar bowl only three overs? Spinners, more than most bowlers, need plenty of bowling. Yet Paul Collingwood, who is unlikely to play in the first Test, let alone bowl, was given a full ten overs.

Why didn’t Ian Bell, a near-cert for the Tests, play ahead of Collingwood? Why did Jimmy Anderson, a relative long shot, play ahead of Steve Harmison, who urgently needs to find some rhythm, and Matthew Hoggard, who hasn’t played for two months? We had been told that all those who missed the Champions Trophy would feature in Canberra, but Hoggard and Liam Plunkett didn’t.

On the plus side, Flintoff managed ten overs at good pace, and only got carted in the last one. Ashley Giles managed eight overs. Collingwood mounted another of his clean-up acts – though this one, paradoxically, muddied the waters. Mahmood showed gumption with the bat, which is becoming a habit. And nobody broke a bone.

The defeat isn’t a big problem in itself, but it cranks up the pressure on England for the two remaining warm-ups, which could be a blessing in disguise. They need at least six players – ideally Flintoff, Trescothick, Pietersen, Hoggard, Harmison and one of the keepers – to do well against New South Wales in the match starting on Sunday. And as England are planning to use all 16 of their party, the first challenge will be to make sure that those six are on the field for long enough to make an impact.

	Panesar could miss out to Giles © Getty Images

Duncan Fletcher said yesterday that England have got to play five bowlers in the first Test, because Andrew Flintoff isn’t fit enough yet to be one of four. Which makes sense. He also dropped a heavy hint that Ashley Giles would be one of the five, and Monty Panesar wouldn’t. Which makes no sense at all.

Fletcher explained that he wanted control. Well, Panesar offers more than Giles does. He goes for about 2.6 runs an over in Tests, while Giles, over the past two years, has gone for 3.3. It’s a perfect illustration of how attack is the best form of defence. Despite being possibly Test cricket’s most defensive slow bowler, Giles is actually less good at defending than Monty, who prefers to attack.

Fletcher wants Flintoff not to overbowl himself. Well, Panesar will bowl more than Giles. Monty bowls 40 overs per Test, Giles 31 – and that’s making no allowances for the fact that Giles is returning from a long lay-off. So if Giles plays, at least nine more overs will have to be bowled by the seamers, who are more expensive than Monty.

Fletcher (presumably) wants wickets. Monty got more this summer than any other England bowler. He took 27 wickets, Matthew Hoggard 25, Steve Harmison (who missed three Tests) 20, and Flintoff (who missed four) 12. Monty’s strike rate in the summer was 62 balls per wicket. Giles’s has recently been 92. Giles takes two wickets per Test, Monty three to four. Unless the ball swings for Hoggard, it’s fair to say that with Harmison out of sorts and Flintoff feeling his way back, Panesar is the England bowler most likely to get good batsmen out.

Fletcher is in danger of repeating the mistake he made in the last Ashes series, when he picked Ian Bell ahead of Graham Thorpe on the grounds that Thorpe could no longer bat at number four, and therefore had to compete with Kevin Pietersen for the number five spot. This line of thinking presumed that Bell was ready to bat at four, which he wasn’t.

This time, Fletcher is thinking: Brisbane is mainly a seamers’ pitch, so the spinner needs to offer control, so we can take the more defensive option. And this is leading him into a double fallacy. First, as shown above, Monty offers better control. Secondly, the best form of control is taking wickets. Shane Warne takes plenty at Brisbane. Even Giles took some there four years ago. On all the evidence, Monty would take more, for fewer runs.

Against that, he would cost runs in the field and with the bat, but then so do many good bowlers. Alastair Cook doesn’t bowl, and is not a great fielder, but that’s no reason to replace him with a bits-and-pieces player. Giles has sterling qualities as a team man, but if England really need those on Nov 23, they should play him as a second spinner, ahead of the fourth seamer, Sajid Mahmood. It would be an unusual move at Brisbane, but England did it in 1986-87 (with Emburey and Edmonds), and that was the last time they won there.

Monty has made the first slow-bowling slot his own. More than that, as Warne says, he has made England a better team, which is a remarkable feat for a man still in his first year of international cricket. Michael Vaughan has said that England have to attack if they are to beat Australia again. Monty is a weapon they can’t afford to be without.

	Australia won the Champions Trophy...but the win doesn't necessarily guarantee regaining the Ashes © Getty Images

At last, a Champions Trophy has gone according to form. In the end Australia were as far ahead of every other team as they were at the last World Cup. West Indies defied gravity once against them, and threatened to repeat the feat for 45 minutes or so yesterday, but when they fell to earth, as is their wont, they really crashed.

Australia’s victory doesn’t necessarily mean the Ashes will be theirs. We keep being reminded of how England beat Australia in the Champions Trophy of 2004 before their Ashes triumph, but people seem to have forgotten that the last thing that happened between the two sides before the Ashes of 2005 was a three-match one-day series which Australia won quite comfortably. And Test cricket is a half-different game, perhaps more so for England, because they are hopeless at one-dayers and good at Tests: paupers in one form, pretenders to the crown in the other.

But if Australia play as well against England as they have in India, they will regain the Ashes. They have resolved virtually all the doubts about their selection. Shane Watson has done enough with bat and ball to be a genuine prospect at number six, rather than a punt. Glenn McGrath is his old self again, expressing himself far more eloquently with the ball than he does with his tedious point-scoring jibes. And Mitchell Johnson, if he gets the call as third seamer, is going to be a lot harder to belt for five an over than Gillespie, Kasprowicz and Tait were last time.

For England, there is still hope that everything will fall into place on November 23. Their convalescents will be fitter: Andrew Flintoff, the team's double fulcrum now, was far stronger and less rusty in the third game in India than the first. The bits-and-pieces players will be gone and Monty Panesar will be back. Surely not even Duncan Fletcher could think of dropping him for a half-fit Ashley Giles.

Marcus Trescothick should be back too, and Andrew Strauss will be in his element. Steve Harmison will have had more time to rummage through his suitcase for his radar. And Australia will have had an injection of age, with Hayden, Langer and Warne, all old enough now to play in Masters Cricket, replacing Symonds, Clarke and Hogg. But when you find yourself viewing the return of Warne as a plus, you know you’re clutching at straws. Australia are even firmer favourites now, and England’s most realistic aim, although you won't hear them saying so, is a 2-2 draw. Which would be a very good result.

On the field, things are going swimmingly for Australia. They are winning, Glenn McGrath is taking out top-order batsmen again, Mitchell Johnson is coming along nicely: the pieces are slotting into the Ashes jigsaw, better than England’s. Off the field, though, the Aussies have just done something strange and sad.

They have struck a deal with a sponsor, Commonwealth Bank, which includes naming rights not just to their annual one-day triangular tournament for the next three years, but also to the national team. As Cricket Australia explained in a press release today, “The one-day competition will be known as the ‘Commonwealth Bank Series’, and the Australian team known as the ‘Commonwealth Bank one-day international team’.”

You can sell a lot of things in sport without losing much – boundary hoardings, canopies on drinks buggies, ad space on bats – but there are some things you cannot sell, and the name of the team is one of them. Fans won’t see the Australian team as the Commonwealth Bank one-day international team. It’s a hideous mouthful, and they already have one of those in the shape of the meat pies they chomp on as the twilight descends.

But more importantly, this is a national team. It’s not supposed to be for sale. If you are an Australian fan working for a rival bank, how are you supposed to feel about this? A national team is for everyone. It doesn’t line up with one company against another, any more than it should favour one state over another. Part of its job is to transcend petty rivalries, and replace them with bigger ones, like a loathing of the Poms.

Beggars can’t be choosers, but Cricket Australia is no beggar: it’s rich beyond the dreams of Bradman. It pays its senior players a million dollars a year. It can afford to have standards. It has a longstanding relationshp with Commonwealth Bank, which has been involved with the national academy for 20 years. That relationship should be able to accommodate a polite but firm no.

In practice, fans are not going to use the new name, any more than England supporters would say to each other “You going to the Brit Oval Test?”. No self-respecting Aussie supporter will wander into a mate’s front room, see the telly on and say, so how many do the Commonwealth Bank one-day international team need? Off how many overs?

Cricket Australia will no doubt put pressure on the media to use the new name, but if the media agree, they will look ridiculous (“Mike Hussey yet again came to the rescue of the Commonwealth Bank one-day international team at the Gabba last night…”). And although the players are usually forced to comply with sponsors’ demands, obediently swapping their Baggy Greens for logo-bearing baseball caps when it’s time for a TV interview, it’s hard to see the likes of Johnson telling Channel 9 that it has always been their dream to play for the Commonwealth Bank.

The Aussies are not alone in being feeble about drawing the line with sponsors. It’s a worldwide epidemic. The England team have the logo of a mobile-phone company on their shirts, which demeans and diminishes them. Pakistan promote Pepsi, encouraging kids to drink even more of something that’s neither natural nor good for them. West Indies achieve a similar effect by promoting KFC. Even the football world, which is grimly greedy in many respects, doesn’t allow its national teams to do that.

What the Australian board have done here is to sell a piece of their soul. The press release is headed, “A new day for Australian cricket”. It ought to say “A black day for Australian cricket.”