England should start the Ashes as favourites

Geoffrey Boycott believes England go into the much-anticipated summer series as the form side. Break this Ashes series down into five categories - captaincy, seam bowling, spin bowling, batting and fielding - Boycott says England have the advantage in at least two and can compete on level terms in the rest. Which is a big change from recent series when, on paper at least, it has been Australia all the way. Read on in the Sydney Morning Herald.

Former England coach Duncan Fletcher posts on his blog in the Guardian that Graham Onions should play ahead of Monty Panesar. Fletcher believes Kevin Pietersen's batting can lead England to success if the selectors pick the right bowling attack.

It is good to see, though, that England resisted the trap of picking Steve Harmison just because of the way he bowled to Phillip Hughes. You can't pick a bloke just to dismiss one batsman, and in any case I believe the seamers who were selected have the ability to keep him quiet. The crucial thing is to make sure Hughes plays with a vertical bat: if you give him width to free his arms he can be dangerous.

In the same paper Mike Selvey says England must be prepared to grind it out in the Ashes and that Cardiff's secrets add to the uncertainties of a series that shows every sign of being attritional.

The Wisden Cricketer magazine have both Gideon Haigh and Peter Siddle writing for their blog, which should make for entertaining and insightful reading during the series.

Vic Marks wonders if England's bowlers, who combined brilliantly four years ago to spearhead an Ashes victory, can conjure up a repeat. He looks at England's bowling options for Cardiff.

David Hopps caught up with former Australian batsman and English county veteran Stuart Law, who bluntly says people should get off Andrew Flintoff's back. Law explains why we should cherish England's talismanic all-rounder for his commitment to the cause.

In the Independent James Lawton suggests that maybe 2005 should be wrapped in mothballs and brought out only when the heat of current Ashes action has passed, such is the standard it set for those who followed.

Marcus Berkmann, author of noted books on cricket such as Zimmer Men and Rain Men, is enslaved for the next seven weeks and says England cricket fans have learned nothing from their past sufferings.

As a fresh generation of stars prepare to make their own moments of history, Will Hawkes tracks down the heroes from series past to ask which contests and controversies have remained with them, and what they have been doing since drawing stumps on their careers.

The Times' Mike Atherton wonders if England's cricketers remember that beautiful but bleak day in Sydney two-and-a-half years ago, and if so, the wave upon wave of Australian triumphalism crashing over them? Do they remember the humiliation they felt on becoming part of only the second England team to be whitewashed on Australian soil?

Allan Border is concerned about Australia's attack, he writes in the Herald Sun, while Peter Lalor in the Australian looks back at the 2005 series.