yep woohooo! battle for a teeny tiny urn containing the ashes of a set of bales burnt far to many years ago to remember has started again !

good days play, after a slow start england finished the day on 336-7, with KP top scoring with 69!
freddie flintoff makes his comeback from injury and scores a respectable 37!(more to come from freddie im sure)

anyone have any thoughts on who might win etc ......

full story on todays play!
http://www.skysports.com/cricket/match_rep...6_15079,00.html

i fooking love the ashes

i think day 1 was a mixed day for both teams

good to see freddie getting runs

wtf was kps shot

he nails that shot 9 out of 10 times, its awesome to watch, he says it did clip his helmet, im sure he will try it again, hope he does :0)

If you put the entire England cricket team in a bag, and kicked the bag, the recipitent would deserve it.

They deserve all they get,the ECB had the perfect foundation to build upon after the 2005 series and they flushed that opportunity down the toilet and took Murdochs shilling.

It went from every kid in the country knowing and wanting to watch to them not giving a fuck again.

its not that, cricket isnt a dominant spot in this country. the main reasons asian countries are so good because cricket is like religion which is why in the last 10 or so world cups you always see an asian team in the final and the last 2 world cups have been won by india and pakistan


england are being out played and the rain wont save them for much longer

There's a Cricket club/clubs in every decent sized village and every town/city in the country after the 2005 Ashes kids were playing cricket throughout and the ECB fucked up big time.

If i said black you'd say white Amar.

Im with Amar on this one, Cricket will never be dominant sport here, regardless of how many clubs there are, football and rugby will always be more important. No one is to blame for this, its just the fact that football and rugby are better in most peoples view. Obviously if cricket was the main sport like it is in some Asian countries more people would play it instead of other sports and then it would take off. But when i was a kid if we had to play cricket at school 99%of the class moaned, when we played football or rugby everyone loved it. Cricket is the life and soul of some Asian countries, in England a lot of middle class and middle aged villagers play it at best.

That's because both of you have missed the point i was making,still not sure what India or Pak have to do with a discussion about the ASHES as they have nothing to do with the series.Australia (the best team for over 20yrs) on the other hand do and the Aussies dominant sports are Footy,Rugby,Football and then Cricket the only difference between the Aussies and ourselves is the fact that they promote the sport in the same way i am saying the ECB could've after the 05 Ashes.

I've looked around on this and a lot of people are saying that cricket, aussie rules and football are pretty similar in popularity. They say Cricket is the only sport that is played in all areas of the country. When talking about the ashes you have to consider cricket as a whole. Like if you are talking about why england do shit in european football it would still be valid to compare our attitudes towards the sport to the attitude of brazilians. I think no matter how much you promote cricket doesnt change the fact that kids dont enjoy playing it as much as other sports and therefore less kids play it. It's not as though kids don't know it exists, we all played it at school. It isnt a product that needs advertising because people already have experience playing it through school.

Cricket has a long history in Australia and is the most popular[13], and is played on local, national and international levels. It is Australia's national summer sport and unlike the various football codes, enjoys consistent support from people in all parts of Australia. The Australia national cricket team was the winner of the first Test match, and is today regarded as the leading international team in world cricket, having been the unquestionably dominant team for most of the 2000s. The first Australian cricket team which played overseas was the 1868 Aboriginal cricket tour of England. The Australian team which toured England in 1948 was nicknamed The Invincibles and was captained by Donald Bradman. In recent years the Australia team has been captained by Allan Border, Mark Taylor, Steve Waugh, and currently Ricky Ponting. Through 2007, Australia has won the Cricket World Cup four out of the nine times it has been held, including the last three. Australia has dominated world cricket since the mid-90's, it has appeared in every world cup final since 1996, and has been undefeated in a world cup match since 1999 where they have gone on to win every single match in the world cup.

Domestic competitions between the states include the Sheffield Shield first-class competition, the Ford Ranger One Day Cup List-A cricket competition and the KFC Twenty20 Big Bash Twenty20 competition. The Sheffield Shield and Ford Ranger One Day Cup tournaments involve each team playing against each other team both at home and away with the two highest-placed teams playing in a final match, while the KFC Twenty20 Big Bash is similar but with only one match against each other team before the final.

taken from wikipedia, cricket is there number 1 sport, so compared with england, who have football ( 100s of times bigger than cricket, even our none league football is on a par with top level county cricket ) rugby union, rugby league and then cricket it only becomes remotely important when the ashes are on, and even then, its just an excuse to get pissed for all the sudden cricket fans lol.

Skamp is right here.

The aussies have promoted sport in their country like no other......its just their way.

they do it right from the start be it "Olympic sized pools" to full "cricket leagues" at school.

this country is still caught up in "class"-(rugby,cricket,tennis)and until this country sorts it, they will always wonder why they come up short

Even Football in the WC needs to be questioned.............the FAs school of excellence????? jokers

drawn, england wer very very very very very very very very very very very very very lucky im guessing. ( i didnt watch a single ball, but sky sports made it seem like england wer awful. )

yup very lucky, looks like they are going to get fined for time wasting but somehow the last 2 managed to save the day

australia dominated 4.5 of the 5 days

whod have thought jimmy and monty could have stuck around for 12 overs

What the fok are we gonna do without Freddie? Long live the king lol...