Battle lines drawn before the Ashes - Which Aussies and Poms will up the ante when talking their chances?

We should probably stick it to the Oz fans more than we are at the moment. All those years spent waiting to be dominant side with Ozzie fans rubbing our faces in it and we are being a bit easy on you guys. The Australian trash talking has been almost non existent this year and it feels wrong that the great and powerful Australia should just roll over and play dead.

I don't know what's up with the morale in Australia at the moment, they aren't that bad. When you have Australian journalists arguing on Twitter with one of the best batsmen in Aus telling them how rubbish they are something is certainly wrong. It's definitely more fun beating a cocky Australian side so I hope they step their game up a bit.

I am really looking forward to this Ashes series and certainly haven't completely written the Aussies off. Having said that England must go into the series as overwhelming favourites due to recent form and the fact that the series is being played in England. I reckon Chris Rogers could be a bit of a dark horse as he knows the conditions over here pretty well. Good to see some friendly banter flying around between the 2 sets of supporters too!

OK, I'm all in favour of upping the ante Jinxie.

2-1 to Australia. With two games going to the weather.

Top run getter Ed Cowan. Best bowling and MotS Jackson Bird to terrorise the English line up, averaging sub- twenty with the ball and 40+ with the bat. Finishes the series as an acknowledged all rounder.

YahWho, JB and HDB change their avatar pictures to Aussie flags for a week after the fifth test as a sign of respect.

There you go. Over to the pommie contributors. :-).

There are so many aspects to be concerned with here. Will the selectors pick the right side in the tests or will we be stuck with a nothing Watson again. The selections were woeful, nearly as bad as the selected squad to India. Here we have six specialist batsmen for a five test plus two warm up games. I am a Haddin fan but on form Wade should not have been selected and the two keepers should have been Hartley and Paine. One spinner and 7 quicks, two of whom are expected to know how to hold a bat. There isnt too much to be enthusiastic about. If they can hold Anderson out during the Lords test, they have a chance. The other English favourite, Broad, has done well against two test teams only, NZ and India.

So so now we have moved from Indo- Australia rivalry to Indo- Sri Lanka rivalry which turned in to Indo-Pakistan rivalry recently. Now it goes to a whole new level and we have a newly formed but still old school style classic Aussie-English rivalry, haven't we?

Racism will give you cancer. I prey for love, peace and brotherhood for you brother :)

Edit:- Hold on a second... SBS did you just say "YahWho, JB and HDB change their avatar pictures to Aussie flags for a week after the fifth test as a sign of respect. "? You sounds pretty similar to one of our old Aussie members who was here a while ago and was a friend of mine! Was that you?

Its going to be a close series.

Anderson is the main threat and if he gets his green wickets and overcast days its going to be hard work.

Any Pom who knows anything about cricket understands the threat of underestimating Australia.

JB would rather talk about Sachin and the IPL :)

Most of the talking is done by old hasbeens on both sides. This,coupled with the press,blows all comments out of the water.

Like I told someone earlier today,I am not making any predictions,I am fence sitting.It's hard to get up any enthusiasm when it is freezing cold,not cricket weather at all.I am not expecting too much from Australia & I feel no disloyalty in saying so,but let's face it,they haven't done really well for some time.Having said that,they might just pleasantly surprise me.I expect we will see a few Poms here talking it up who only appear occasionally.

We neutral fans are expecting great fight among Eng and Aus , i mean in Cricket field not in Cricket Section ..!

We are expecting Thrilling last day finishes and not like one sided matches or <4 day matches ..

Dinith stop getting exited ! :)