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There's a moment every four years when you suddenly realise that the Ashes is just around the corner. It's that moment when the Aussie captain steps off the plane and gives his first press conference in England and you think - hey, hang on - this is serious, they're actually here.

It makes series against the likes of the West Indies look like the joke they actually have become - the big one is here, and I remember my very first one. Alan Border arrived with his team of supposed no-hopers in 1989 and made a mockery of England, winning the Ashes at a canter. That was when Steve Waugh was at his imperious best, with England unable to get him out until the third test at Edgbaston. He averaged something like 400 at that point.

Years of humiliation followed, although they weren't really so humiliating because we had become accumstomed to being thrashed by the Australians. Michael Vaughan's side of 2005 proved that we had to play like the Aussies in order to beat them. And we could so easily have lost - one catch could have changed the whole series. Indeed, we proved what a fluke it was that we gave them the Ashes back a year and a half later with the most embarassing capitulation I personally have ever seen from an England side.

What of this year? Without Flintoff, Jones, Harmison and Hoggard, the bowling line-up looks inexperienced, but James Anderson is a bowler who can always come up with something special, and Broad has a knack of getting good batsmen out. Australia have quite a few. There has been talk of England creating pitches designed for two spinners, but will that really help Monty Panesar? He doesn't seem to have moved on since he played in Australia, and we may even see Adil Rashid playing for England by the time we reach the Oval.

In fact, this is an Ashes series that is almost impossible to predict. Australia went to South Africa on the back of a poor summer at home, and they suddenly started performing at the peak of their game. In Phil Hughes, they have an unorthodox opener who has scored piles of runs so far this summer, and they still have Ponting, Clark and Hussey as the spine of a very strong batting line-up. With Lee, Mitchell Johnson and Stuart Clark, they always have a chance of taking 20 wickets.

What England have to do is use pace - not necessarily spin. Preparing spinning pitches simply because Australia no longer have a Shane Warne is a negative tactic - England will be best served by turning up the heat on Australia's batsmen. Stuart Broad was bowling up around 90mph at Lords, while Onions may not run in with the menace of a Walsh or an Ambrose, but he gets something out of the pitch at 85 to 90mph. England cannot rely on their fragile batting - they have to be aggressive - they have to be like the Australians.

And talking of the Aussies, it's an Aussie bookie who is giving away a very simple bet 20 get 20 free bet. It's so much more fun when you can take money from an Aussie, eh? Even if they take the Ashes...

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published: 21st May 2009 by Free Bet Bookmaker

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