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Tomorrow morning, at 10.30am, the nation’s biggest sporting event for 39 years gets underway, as England begin the five-day trek that could make or break the legacy of a generation. Not since the 1966 football World Cup has the country been quite so rapt by a ball game, and not since the Oval Test of 1953, when the Ashes were regained after a 20-year hiatus, has there been an occasion to bring South London to quite such a grinding halt. To paraphrase Mark Nicholas in one of his more excitable commentary stints: this is, quite simply, massive.At every twist and turn of this remarkable series, the stakes have been mounting with the sort of alarming alacrity that would spook a Vegas hustler, but this week at last, the requirements have plateaued. There are no more ifs and buts to distract the two camps, merely a question of whose nerve can hold the longest. In theory, England have the upper hand. They lead 2-1 in the series, and need only to avoid defeat to end the most miserably one-sided era of Ashes cricket since the post-war depression of the 1920s. But as Australia themselves demonstrated in an unnaturally timid performance at Trent Bridge last month, the temptation to cling onto what you have got can be over-powering – and self-defeating.Publicly at least, Michael Vaughan has no intention to shut up shop and bat out for the draw. “We have played to win throughout the series and will certainly be doing that again,” he told reporters on the eve of the match. “There are not many draws between these two teams because of the manner in which both play the game, but if we play a good, consistent game of cricket, the result will take care of itself.”Even so, England’s hand may be forced by the loss of their most incisive seamer of the summer. When Simon Jones limped out of the attack at Trent Bridge after just nine overs of the follow-on, England’s entire gameplan was destabilised. Having beaten Australia onto the ropes with an unstinting flurry of punches, they were forced to throttle back and adopt a waiting game, as the burden was shared between just four front-liners and the occasional seam of Ian Bell. As the eventual margin of victory demonstrated, it was very nearly a series-scuppering moment.No combination of oxygen-tanks and German osteopaths could get Jones fit again for this match, and so England will not, after all, emulate Arthur Shrewsbury’s tourists of 1884-85, and become only the second team to get through an Ashes series with the same 11 players. Instead, England must choose between the extra batting and fielding skills of Paul Collingwood, or the like-for-like option of James Anderson, who has usurped the uncapped Chris Tremlett in a match that screams out for experience, however limited.Ricky Ponting, for his part, claimed he would be “surprised” if England did not go for the Collingwood option, but if attack is England’s preferred policy, then Anderson will surely get the go-ahead for his first home Test since the corresponding fixture against West Indies last summer. It will be a bold decision given Anderson’s very public loss of confidence in his last Test outing, at Johannesburg in January, but he has spent the summer out of the limelight, quietly accumulating 51 wickets for Lancashire. Despite an apparent reduction in the prodigious swing that made him such a threat in his debut season in 2003, he is a wicket-taker by nature and no Australian can afford to take him lightly.

The most significant seam bowler on display, however, could be the one sizing up a return to the Australian starting line-up. Judging by Glenn McGrath’s vigorous workout on Tuesday, the elbow problem that caused him to miss the Trent Bridge defeat has been brought under control, and even if he is unable to pick up a cricket ball ever again after this tour, his presence alone will be worth a psychological point or two, as Australia prepare to go for broke.So far on this tour, Shane Warne’s presence has kept Australia from being swept away in the middle three Tests, but it is McGrath’s absences that have been the most telling factors. Both of Australia’s defeats came in the matches that he missed, and on the rare occasions that he has sat out an Ashes encounter, Australia have lost an incredible four Tests in a row, a run that stretches back to the Adelaide defeat of 1994-95. On Saturday, two 20-year-olds from Essex walloped 500 runs off a McGrath-and-Warneless attack in a single day. With England in their current mood, Australia cannot afford to be without their champion any longer.The Oval is traditionally a hard and true surface, which will suit England’s batsmen every bit as much as their Australian counterparts, not least Michael Vaughan. His solitary hundred of the series came at Old Trafford, the one pitch where his stumps could not be threatened by your average length delivery, and if he can win a vital toss and take first use of the track, England will fancy their chances of posting an unassailable first-innings total.Set against that, of course, is Australia’s own familiarity with such high-kicking conditions. Ponting and Justin Langer have been on the brink of a golden run of form all summer, while Damien Martyn has been singled out by accidents and remains better value than his 168 runs at 21 would suggest. The two most intriguing case-studies, however, are Matthew Hayden and Adam Gilchrist, whose travails have encapsulated all that has gone wrong for Australia this summer.Of the two, Hayden appears the closer to breaking-point. He has now failed to pass 70 in his last 30 Test innings, and has been all at sea against England’s ruthlessly well-planned field settings, which have included two men in the covers to intercept his hard-handed drives, and a staggered slip cordon with reinforced gullies. His 150 against Essex last week could not disguise the extent to which his bully-boy batting has been brought low on this tour, and though Australia are eager not to be seen to be panicking, the temptation to draft in Michael Hussey must have been overwhelming.Gilchrist is a different case altogether. His problems seem to have been less an issue of technique than desire. His highest score in the series has been 49 not out, and time and again, he has been brought low just when it seemed – finally – that he was about to cut loose in the manner that all of England dreads. Mind you, his solitary century of the tour came on this very ground, in the final match of the NatWest Challenge. Like the Aussies en masse, you write them off at your peril.There is, of course, one other factor that could influence this match – the overhead conditions. In the course of this summer, England’s cricketers have attracted a vast army of fair-weather fans, but in an ironic twist (one that would be sure to please those gnarled, hard-bitten veterans of the hard times) it could be that foul weather intervenes and prevents any more heart attacks before the result of this series is known.The forecast is set for glorious weather on the first day, followed by probable interruptions for Friday and the weekend. In a summer when the Gods have undoubtedly been smiling on England, a midmatch downpour would be the surest sign that providence has played its part in the team’s remarkable renaissance. But it would be an unworthy conclusion to the most exhilarating Test series for decades. A result, one way or another, is what this contest deserves.England (probable) 1 Marcus Trescothick, 2 Andrew Strauss, 3 Michael Vaughan (capt), 4 Ian Bell, 5 Kevin Pietersen, 6 Andrew Flintoff, 7 Geraint Jones (wk), 8 Ashley Giles, 9 Matthew Hoggard, 10 Steve Harmison, 11 James Anderson.Australia (probable) 1 Matthew Hayden, 2 Justin Langer, 3 Ricky Ponting (capt), 4 Damien Martyn, 5 Michael Clarke, 6 Simon Katich, 7 Adam Gilchrist (wk), 8 Shane Warne, 9 Brett Lee, 10 Glenn McGrath, 11 Shaun Tait.

A review of the Australia domestic cricket schedule will take place at the end of the season as it seems increasingly likely that Brett Lee will not play a Pura Cup match or a Test at home in 2004-05. Yesterday John Buchannan, the national coach, asked for the schedule to be more accommodating for players who are on the verge of the Test team.Last week New South Wales were not allowed to have Brett Lee turn out for them although it seemed clear that he would be 12th man for the Test against Pakistan at Perth. NSW’s game against Tasmania at the SCG started on the same day as the Test, and even though state officials were willing to delay the start of their game to accommodate Lee, their suggestion was turned down by Cricket Australia.Discussions will happen at the end of the season between the board and their Australian Cricketers’ Association (ACA). Tim May, the chief executive of the ACA, who is a member of CA’s programming committee, indicated that he would look favourably at a submission that permitted that internationals to return to his state team during a match.”We are trying to do the best for the end product, which is the Australian cricket team,” he told . “The elite players are the revenue driver. “We need to do whatever we can to enhance a player’s ability to spend time on the track.”Michael Brown, Cricket Australia’s operations manager, wants to preserve the integrity of interstate competitions. “We don’t support players just nicking in on the last day of a match because they need a bit of a bowl or a bit of a hit,” he told . “We have to look at this very carefully. A lot of research and understanding of the situation is required.”Buchanan had hoped that in future players like Lee might be released in time for domestic games. “Ideally, that would be the case,” he told on Tuesday. “When you try to mix all those games together it becomes quite difficult [but] what I’m sure the administrators will consider is this question of: ‘If you’re not playing what’s the chance of returning for a state game or two’.”Under current regulations, Lee would not have been able to bat or bowl if he started the Pura Cup game as a substitute on the second day. NSW officials have indicated an interest in an England-style regulation which would enable Test discards to participate in a match that is already underway.

Ashish Nehra has been ruled out of the second one-day international against Pakistan, at Rawalpindi. Nehra, who was one of India’s heroes in their win in the first match at Karachi, is suffering from an inflamed left ankle. This is the recurrence of an old injury.Nehra, charged with bowling the last over in Pakistan’s chase, conceded only threeruns, giving India victory by five. His 10 overs cost 58, but he bowled afine final over, keeping the ball consistently in the blockhole and varying hispace well. Moin Khan was dismissed off the final ball as he attempted to hit a highfull-toss for the six runs needed to snatch victory.Sourav Ganguly was laid low with fever and Rahul Dravid spoke to the press in hisstead. He said, "Ashish [Nehra] has a swelling in his ankle and is not playing tomorrow." Dravid also confirmed that the swelling was on the same ankle that has caused Nehra trouble throughout his career.

ScorecardCaptains on either side excelled with both bat and ball but eventually India Under-19s beat their Pakistani counterparts by the narrow margin of seven runs in the second one-dayer at Sheikhupura on Thursday.After having bowled out India for a modest 224 in 49.5 overs, Pakistan managed only 217 for 9, though it was a good effort on their part to even get that far, as they had lost their sixth wicket at 143 in the 37th over. Riaz Kail, the captain, following his effort of 4 for 42 with his offspin, hit a painstaking 38 off 82 balls.Allrounder Imad Wasim (62) then found an able partner in Ahmed Iqbal (29) as the pair added 61 for the seventh wicket. Piyush Chawla, the Indian captain, had the final say with 3 for 50 in 10 and was declared the Man of the Match.Earlier, Chawla contributed with the bat as well, scoring 40 after Tanmay Srivastava (53) and Virat Kohli (45) added 88 for the third wicket. Srivastava and Kohli came in when India lost two early wickets. Chawla came in when India lost their fourth wicket at 133 and continued his good form with the bat on tour.The remaining two one-dayers will be played on over the weekend at Lahore’s Bagh-e-Jinnah and the Gaddafi Stadium respectively.

While the majority of the nationals’ sports pages were filled with reports of an unconvincing win for England against Samoa in the rugby World Cup, the same story applied for the cricketers. Even though they beat Bangladesh by a comfortable seven wickets in the end, all the papers whistled to a similar tune: credit to the seamers, but concern for the spinners, and Ashley Giles in particular.In the , Simon Wilde pointed out that, “England have suffered some gross humiliations on foreign soil, but defeat to Bangladesh would have invited total ridicule. Even Canada have beaten Bangladesh.” Well, they managed to avoid the embarrassment of losing, but the fact that they now “move on to Chittagong having in the end sustained no more than superficial grazes is largely down to their new-ball bowlers.”England’s new-ball pair, Matthew Hoggard and Stephen Harmison, received all the plaudits. In the , Angus Fraser said that although “the performance was nowhere near as convincing as the seven-wicket margin suggests …Harmison’s match figures of 9 for 79 in 46.5 overs rightly won him the man-of-the-match award.” And Gus added that “the steadying influence of Hoggard cannot be underestimated. On a pitch which was supposed to favour spin bowling, the pair took 16 for 182 in 96.5 overs. The remainder of England’s attack took 4 for 256.”Simon Briggs, in the , agreed that Hoggy and Harmo almost single-handedly spared England’s blushes: “If Steve Harmison and Matthew Hoggard had not bowled with such stamina and perseverance in this Test, these tourists would now be firmly installed in the sporting Chamber of Horrors, nestling somewhere between Tyson-Douglas and Devon Loch’s last furlong.”But that’s where the praise ends. “Tourists are spinning out of control” roared the headline on David Gower’s column in the . “With Ashley Giles and Gareth Batty talked of in not particularly flattering terms by the commentators out in Bangladesh, already there is talk that one of them might not play at Chittagong.” And he pointed out that although “It’s easy to malign English spin bowling, probably too easy,” Gower added that England have not had “a top international spinner in the fullest sense of the term” since Derek Underwood. And then there’s the lack of legspinners. “We don’t have a leggie. We haven’t had one since, er, well, you tell me!”And the ineffectiveness of the spinners did not go unmissed elsewhere. As Fraser wrote, “A first-rate display from England’s opening bowlers was undermined by the worrying lack of penetration shown by Ashley Giles and Gareth Batty on a surface which offered the Bangladesh spinners a lot of assistance.” Indeed, Richard Hobson in said: “England head south to Chittagong today with the embarrassment of defeat averted, but with a principal decision over selection waiting to be addressed. The second and final Test begins on Wednesday and there is no guarantee that Ashley Giles will be involved. They need help and if that means England changing the strategy devised back home of playing two spin bowlers, so be it.”So what should England do now? Well, Briggs was convinced that “the management team must decide which of the two slow bowlers should be dropped to accommodate an extra seamer.” He continued, “But the question is which spinner remains. Giles is a key figure in this squad, but should he be working on his new approach in the nets or the middle?”Fraser insisted that the extra seamer should be his old Middlesex team-mate Richard Johnson, but Ian Ridley, in , thought otherwise. “England have to give Giles and Batty a chance to improve. If England wish to play an extra seamer in Chittagong, it would be better to replace Rikki Clarke, but the English management, chastened by their experiences during this match, will be reluctant to weaken their batting.” But Ridley is largely outvoted. Hobson was another in favour of dropping Giles: “It would be doing Giles a favour to remove him from the spotlight while he takes a step backwards to go forward in the longer term.”Poor old Ashley was also the hot topic in in Bangladesh. “Giles’s gamble may backfire,” read the headline. Referring to the reworking of his bowling action, a sports reporter said: “Giles has opted to make those changes now by working with bowling coach Mike Watkinson despite the risks of disrupting his current action and possibly losing his place. Fletcher was happy with Giles’s contribution in stages at Dhaka. But both he and Watkinson are attempting to restore his rhythm and confidence so he can return to the form which enabled him to be such a key player during England’s victories in Pakistan and Sri Lanka three winters ago.”And the unnamed reporter noted that: “Attempting to change this is all well and good but it is dangerous in the middle of a Test series. Marcus Trescothick tinkered with his technique during last winter’s tour of Australia with disastrous effects.”So problems for England then, but at least Ridley was still upbeat: “Under Whatmore’s guidance, Bangladesh are improving. They will beat someone soon, but it is more likely to be Zimbabwe in Harare in February than England in Chittagong this week.” It seems that not everyone is quite so sure.

The International Cricket Council will deliver its verdict on England’s proposed tour to Zimbabwe on Wednesday morning.The ICC, whose board is meeting in Auckland, has been debating a number of issues, with the Zimbabwe situation high on the agenda. Although the England and Wales Cricket Board is yet to formally make a decision on whether to tour in October, the signs are that it will opt to stay away.There has been talk that if England do follow this course of action, then the ICC Champions Trophy, scheduled to be held in England in September, could be moved elsewhere. On Monday, Ehsan Mani said that his view was that the tournament should not be affected by any bilateral issues between England and Zimbabwe – no matter how serious they were.The meeting will also discuss the possibility of the ICC moving its base from Lord’s to another cheaper location. Malcolm Speed, the ICC’s chief executive, revealed that it is looking at relocating to one of six other countries. He explained that the major factors will be tax benefits and cost of living.

Hampshire spent a day in the warm sunshine at Riverside near Chester-le-Street as Durham posted their highest ever Innings score agaist their visitors, and Martin Love the highest individual score in contests between the two sides. Paul Terry the watching manager saw his record of 162 against Durham at Portsmouth in 1994 swamped by the Aussie.Robin Smith, Nic Pothas and Alan Mullally all returned to Frizzell Championship action against Durham after various absences, with Chris Tremlett rested, and James Tomlinson replacing James Bruce in the line up.The day started brightly for Hampshire, despite losing the toss when Alan Mullally, James Tomlinson and Dimitri Mascarenhas each took a wicket to reduce Durham to 73 for 3 wickets, but that is where their early success ended as Australian Martin Love and Gary Pratt got together as the shine and bounce of the new ball faded.Together they shared 161 runs for the fourth wicket, before the latter fell lbw to Mascarenhas. Ashley Thorpe joined in and with Love added a further 81.A day of toil ended with the admirable Mascarenhas taking three of the seven wickets to fall, and Alan Mullally playing his first championship match for 4 weeks taking two.

ScorecardMashonaland, after conceding a first-innings lead of 19 to Matabeleland, followed this up with their usual trick. After lulling Matabeleland into a false sense of security, they killed them off second time round. At the close, they had reached 134 for 1.Fifties from Gavin Ewing, an offspinning allrounder, rather belatedly given a chance at international level with his selection for the Australian tour, and CFX Academy graduate Greg Strydom gave Matabeleland a small lead. Ewing was particularly impressive, hitting 82 off 66 balls, which included 21 runs off an over from the wayward Andy Blignaut.Blignaut took three wickets, though, as did Elton Chigumbura in Matabeleland’s 279. In Mashonaland’s second innings, the match lacked any true competitive spirit, as Dion Ebrahim, Brendan Taylor and Stuart Carlisle played soundly and without risk to make Mashonaland’s grip on the game secure again.

Shaun Pollock has added his support for Lance Klusener, who was controversially omitted from South Africa’s tour of England this summer. “Lance has always performed at his best when we’ve had our backs to the wall,” said Pollock, who was sacked as captain after South Africa’s disastrous World Cup campaign.”I hope his present situation will bring the best out of him and that he will return to play for his country again. He is a match-winner, and I believe he has a lot left in his armoury.”Despite the difference of opinion between Pollock and Graeme Smith, the new captain who reportedly criticised Klusener’s attitude in a breakfast interview, Pollock was keen to offer his support to Smith as well.”Graeme’s got to try and do things his own way,” said Pollock, “particularly at the start of his captaincy, so he needs plenty of room. But I will offer help where it’s needed.”