Australia tighten grip in pre-Ashes stakes

How's your pre-Ashes optimism holding up? Australia's familiar struggles in India, allied to a steady (if occasionally erratic) summer of progress from England's Test team, might have given the impression that victory Down Under was very much on the cards this winter.

However, the omission of Ben Stokes from the Ashes squad, in the wake of his off-field transgressions, has applied something of a wake-up call to a pre-series market that, let's face it, was never getting entirely carried away by England's prospects.

Right at this moment, Australia are more fancied by Bet365 to complete a 5-0 whitewash (their third in four home Ashes) than England are to win the series by any margin. Masochists can get 9/1 on an Australian clean sweep - which might be just enough incentive to stay up all night if you've stuck a tenner down. But even that has come in from 16/1 a few months ago.

England, by contrast, are 66/1 to complete a 5-0 victory of their own, while a 3-2 win - the margin of their triumph on home soil two years ago - is deemed the most likely outcome in their favour at 14/1. The balance of probabilities suggests that Australia 3-1 is the most fancied scoreline, at 9/2.

The one thing that no-one anticipates, however, is a glut of draws - which is hardly surprising seeing as only two of the last ten Ashes Tests have even dribbled into the fifth day. The prospect of a 0-0 scoreline is 500/1 - odds that evoke Headingley 1981, but not in a good way - while a 1-0 win either way is a still outlandish 200/1.