The Observer is running extracts from a new biography on 'Bodyline' bowler Harold Larwood and the animosity between him and the greatest ever batsman, Don Bradman. Have a read:

He had taken his wicket just once, after Bradman had scored a double century. His track record against him was so meagre that he scarcely seemed, at least to Larwood himself, to be the bowler to interrupt Bradman's imperious progress. "He was cruel in the way he flogged you," said Larwood. "He made me very, very tired." But Bradman also made him "very, very angry". For there were professional and personal scores to be settled.

Speaking of feuds and rivalries, in his blog in the Observer Paul Hayward writes that despite his fitness problems and boozy indiscretions, Andrew Flintoff is still England's most important player.

The most compelling individual sub-plot to the coming marathon is whether Flintoff still has it in him to be the wrecker of Aussie hopes. After four ankle operations, and one in his knee following an ill-starred cameo in the Indian Premier League, the imagination's dark parts see him carted out of this series on a stretcher. If he survives through to The Oval, he will haunt Australia's batsmen and bowlers through sheer force of personality as well as the brutish power of his physique.

David Gower believes the outcome of this summer's series will hinge on the England captain’s handling of his biggest stars. If Andrew Strauss can achieve the same with the likes of Kevin Pietersen and Flintoff, he will be in clover, says Gower. He writes in the Sunday Times:

Strauss is good and also has that cool exterior. What he has yet to prove is that he possesses more of those Vaughan-, Brearley- or Illingworth-like traits. To win this Ashes series he will have to be braver than he was in the Caribbean, where caution in Antigua and, with trickier equations involved, in Trinidad cost him the series. He did at least show us in that series that he can raise his own game in response to the demands of captaincy and if he can do that again over the next couple of months, a lot more will fall into place. It has long been a pet theory of mine - not exactly a mind-blowing one, I admit - that if your own game is in order all the decision-making becomes a lot easier.

Staying with the Ashes but on a lighter note, the Observer catches up with two Irish pop mavericks who are giving England's cricketers an unexpected pre-Ashes boost in song. Neil Hannon (of the Divine Comedy) and Thomas Walsh (of Pugwash) discuss growing up as cricket fans in Ireland, the game's quirky appeal, and England's chances this summer.

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