Lutters’ Ashes Lines (part one)

I recommend Graeme Swann and Jimmy Anderson’s, but can’t bring myself to follow Kevin Pietersen.

This can only bode well for the upcoming Ashes series as a unified squad can only lead to improved performances on the field.

This is in stark contrast to England’s last tour Down Under, where a rag tag bunch under the leadership of Andrew Flintoff (who should never have been captain in the first place) rocked up at the Gabba in Brisbane on day one to see Stephen Harmison, their premier bowler, deliver his first ball straight to his captain at second slip. And this set the tone, with the inevitable 5-0 drubbing confirmed at Sydney.

Hopes are high for this squad and series, which is understandable indeed.

England are coming off the back of three successive series wins, albeit against relatively weak opposition. Whereas Australia are entering the series after an extremely poor run against Pakistan and India, losing their last three Test matches, and having been beaten in a One-Day International series on their own turf by Sri Lanka.

Don’t be fooled in to thinking that this will be a cake walk for England, though, as Australia have been resting a few players and the Ashes will always make the Aussies raise their game.

England certainly have an advantage, though, but the fact that the home side will have tens of thousands of fans roaring them on too, it’s going to be a tough task for the Poms.

My prediction: 2-1 to England, with Graeme Swann the key, although the likes of Finn and/or Tremlett might be useful on the hard Aussie pitches, with their height being a major problem for the home side’s batting.

Opening pair Shane Watson and Simon Katich, as well as skipper Ricky Ponting, are crucial to Aussie success, but so are Mitchell Johnson and Doug Bollinger with the ball. All are struggling with form and some with injury, so you never know.

Aside from the Ashes, the corruption scandal has taken a sinister turn this week with Pakistan’s reserve wicketkeeper Zulqarnain Haider being forced to flee their current series against South Africa, having hit the series levelling winning runs in the ODI series.

He and his family have reportedly received threatening text messages from people who had placed a lot of money on Pakistan to lose the game, and trying to coax him into aiding their cause. The player is rumoured to be seeking asylum in this country for fear of repercussions from the ODI win.

What with Salman Butt and Mohammad Amir’s suspensions (Mohammad Asif withdrew his appeal in order to “prepare his case more thoroughly”) also being upheld by the ICC after their appeals, things are not looking good for Pakistan cricket.

And, when you couple this with the fact that their “home” series have to be played in other countries (currently UAE, previously in England), one struggles to see how the nation’s cricket authorities are going to rectify the situation.

They were already the lowest paying Test nation, and with the loss of revenue from not being allowed to play in Pakistan (a terrorist attack on the Sri Lankan team in March 2009), their financial clout will be blunted even more. As the relatively small Pakistan contracts have been touted as partly to blame for them (reputedly) accepting payments for spot-fixing, surely the situation will only get worse.