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At 9.30pm tonight, England’s cricketers depart from Heathrow Airport to embark on the biggest challenge of their sporting lives – the Ashes series in Australia. Already, their ignominious exit from the Champions Trophy has been consigned to the dustbin of history, as Andrew Flintoff and his squad prepare to focus on the five Test matches that could make or break their reputations.”It’s going to be incredible,” Flintoff told The Sun on the eve of his side’s departure. “Our win last summer was the first time I’d experienced The Ashes and it was an amazing, emotional roller-coaster. But this series it is likely to be even bigger and tougher because we’re in Australia. It’s a fantastic prospect for everyone on the trip.”Flintoff was England’s leviathan in last summer’s epic triumph, scoring 402 runs and taking 24 wickets to secure the narrowest of 2-1 victories. He is now the captain of the side as well, taking over where Michael Vaughan left off, and is relishing the challenge of leading the team out at Brisbane on the morning of November 23, a date that has been etched on his brain for months.”I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t thought about what it will be like leading out England in those matches. There’ll be all the attention, all the spotlight, all the rivalry and all the history. Of course I’ve thought about it — and it gives me a tingle. I’m chomping at the bit to get started.”It has been a race against time to get Flintoff fit for this tour, after his 2006 season was disrupted by a long-standing ankle problem that required further surgery. But he had a decent work-out during England’s Champions Trophy campaign, spending some time out in the middle in the final match against West Indies and bowling five decent, if rusty, overs to boot.Even so, he will remember only too well his traumatic experience on the last Ashes tour in 2002-03, when he arrived unfit after undergoing a hernia operation, and was forced to fly home without playing a single Test. “It was a pretty miserable time for me,” he conceded. “But I’m fortunate to have another chance and I’m going to relish that rather than thinking what might have been.”I’m not one for making big statements or predictions but we’re going down there in a confident frame of mind. We’ll have to play well to succeed, probably even better than we did in 2005. But we have lads who can perform at the highest level. I believe we have a good chance.”England arrive in Sydney, via Hong Kong, on Sunday afternoon, where they will enter into a maelstrom of publicity as the Australian public gear themselves up for a massive contest. “I don’t know if the series can be as good as the one last year,” said Flintoff, “but one thing I know is, it will be very tough and competitive.”England open their tour with a one-day game against an Australian Prime Minister’s XI at Canberra on 10 November, followed by three-day games against New South Wales and South Australia.

Shoaib Akhtar, Rana Naved-ul-Hasan and Mohammad Asif have been included in Pakistan’s 30-man provisional squad for the Champions Trophy in India in October. All three fast bowlers are currently recovering from injuries and haven’t played any part in Pakistan’s ongoing tour of England.”The 30 probables have been submitted by the selection committee in consultation with the national selection committee”, Saleem Altaf, the Pakistan Cricket Board’s (PCB) director of cricket, told PTI. “The squad would be trimmed to 15 by the end of this month. The deadline for submission of the squad is September 7 and hopefully we would be able to comply with the (ICC) advice well in advance.”The squad also includes Mohammad Hafeez, the opening batsman, who had an impressive A tour of Australia for the Top End Series, as well as Asim Kamal, Bazid Khan and Yasir Hameed. The uncapped players in the squad are Shahid Yousuf, Tahir Khan, Abdul Rehman, Mansoor Amjad, Akhtar Ayub and Samiullah Khan Niazi. Shoaib Malik, the allrounder, who pulled out of the tour of England due to an elbow injury, has also been included.Pakistan probables Inzamam-ul-Haq (capt), Salman Butt, Imran Farhat, Taufeeq Umar, Mohammad Yousuf, Younis Khan, Faisal Iqbal, Asim Kamal, Bazid Khan, Kamran Akmal, Zulqarnain, Danish Kaneria, Shahid Afridi, Abdul Razzaq, Yasir Hameed, Shoaib Malik, Shoaib Akhtar, Mohammad Sami, Rana Naved-ul-Hasan, Mohammad Asif, Umar Gul, Rao Iftikhar Anjum, Mohammad Hafeez, Shahid Yousuf, Tahir Khan, Abdul Rehman, Mansoor Amjad, Mohammad Irshad, Akhtar Ayub, Samiullah Niazi.

ScorecardDurham scraped home by six runs against Lancashire in an exciting match in the FP Trophy at the Riverside Ground. With the balance swinging first one way and then the other, the result was in doubt until the end, and it was the home crowd who went home celebrating.Despite a reasonably sunny morning after days of cloud at Chester-le-Street, Lancashire put Durham in bat, presumably because of a lot of moisture in the pitch. Quick scoring was difficult for everybody.Not that this appeared to be the case when Sajid Mahmood bowled a short, widefirst ball of the match to Michael Di Venuto, who slashed it through the coversfor four. Di Venuto was not permitted to continue the good form he showed againstYorkshire, however, as with just 9 to his credit, his partner Phil Mustard soldhim a dummy by calling for a single straight to square leg. He was run out forthe third time in four dismissals, and the fourth time this season.After 15 overs, Durham had struggled to 35 for 3, the bowler mainly responsiblebeing the impressive Kyle Hogg, who bowled his ten overs off the reel for 19runs, collecting the wickets of Mustard and Kyle Coetzer. Recovery came through thetwo South Africans, who added 101 together. Neil McKenzie fought his way tosome sort of form with 32, while Dale Benkenstein was more fluent with 64 off108 balls. He eventually skied a pull off Lancashire’s debutant StephenCheetham, whom he had earlier pulled for six. Cheetham took two wickets, butgenerally bowled too short.As Durham’s later batsmen struggled, a total of 200 seemed unlikely, but GaryPark came to their rescue. After playing himself in, he ran to 42 not out off37 balls, hitting two successive sixes in the final over, bowled by Mahmood. Mahmood is not proving successful as a death bowler at present,following his final over that conceded 17 to Yorkshire a week ago.Graham Onions, Durham’s pace bowling hero in their mid-week championship matchagainst Yorkshire, began with a ragged over, but tightened up to ensureLancashire struggled for runs. The real strangler was Callum Thorp, whoseopening spell of eight overs cost only eight runs, and Lancashire began to losewickets as they fought in vain to keep up – after 30 overs, they were only 81 for3. A vital blow to them was the loss of Stuart Law for 8, run out by a finepiece of fielding from Park. On the other hand, their opener Mal Loye wascrucially dropped at slip off Steve Harmison when he had 32.Slowly Loye and Steven Croft fought back, but they were struggling against arequired run rate of more than six an over. They needed 54 from the last eightovers, but there were six wickets in hand and a close finish beckoned. SteveHarmison was Durham’s man for the moment. Loye, looking a little desperate,finally skied a catch for 77, trying to hit him out of the ground, and Croftsoon followed, caught at the wicket for 48. At 170 for 6 in the 45th over,Lancashire were up against it.They needed 26 from the last three, but an over from Gareth Breese cost 11, despiteseeing Luke Sutton dismissed. Hogg, the most likely batsman to do the job,edged Thorp to the keeper for 15, and 11 were needed from the final over,bowled by Onions. Two runs scored off three balls, then Marshall was caught atthird man; the last wicket needed nine runs off the final two balls. AlthoughOnions was not at his best, Mahmood was unable to pull off the near-miracle,and Durham were home. Harmison had the best figures of 3 for 44, but Thorp’sten overs for just 14 runs and a wicket was also crucial.

The most impressive part of England’s performance today was that they overcame a home disadvantage. Edgbaston, a ground renowned for its partisan English supporters, transformed itself into little India with large sections of blue dominating the stands. Conches, bugles, flags, banners … this was an away game for England in every sense.Ian Bell, a Warwickshire local, might have felt out of place. Here he was, striking the dangerous legspin of Piyush Chawla for a sensational straight hit – only to be greeted by lukewarm applause. Imagine his mortification when the Eric Hollies stand, a bastion of the Barmy Army, was resonating with . As if two Indian spinners causing problems wasn’t enough, England were made to feel as if they were in Mohali.Did it feel like a home away from home? “Possibly at times,” said Bell in what must go down as the under-statement of the series. “It was a great atmosphere to play cricket, in front of a packed house. Good Indian side and a full house it was really a nice feeling to get a Man of the Match at the home ground.” Bell is a soft-spoken chap but that must roughly translate to: ‘I was shocked’. But it felt great to knock the stuffing out of them. And his 79, two catches and a run-out was a big factor.England’s captain Paul Collingwood couldn’t have had it easy at the start. The medical staff had decided to “err on the side of caution” with respect to Andrew Flintoff and Dimitri Mascarenhas, the star of the show at Bristol, injured his thumb while warming up. Further, he lost the toss. But England have been inserted at Edgbaston before (remember the Ashes in 2005?) and responded in style. He ended the day comparing the performance to the one they had put in at the Rose Bowl, an effort which he termed “near perfect”.”The openers came in and gave us a good start and then the bowlers also delivered,” he said. “It did get difficult against spinners with the ball stopping a bit, but to get 280 [sic] was in itself incredible. We’ve scored almost 300 every time, which proves that we are improving.”

Chris Tremlett’s comeback illustrated England’s tenacious performance. After being pounded at Bristol (0 for 73) and carted around in his first spell here – leaking 20 in his first two overs – he returned to remove Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid, the two most important wickets of the day.”You’ve seen today that he’s got the character to bounce back,” said Collingwood. “We have a lot of faith in him. He’s quite relaxed to be honest. He is quite laid-back and he showed it in the Test matches. He’s a huge guy bowling with a lot of aggression at times but got the important wickets.”Facing spin in the middle overs is a bugbear. Chawla arrived with his quiver of legbreaks, googlies and top-spinners and engineered the dismissal of the series, bamboozling Kevin Pietersen for the second match in a row. On a ground that has a stand named after Eric Hollies, and on a day when Donald Bradman was born, Chawla’s googlies did a lot of talking.Ramesh Powar must have broken a new barrier today when one of his deliveries clocked 42mph. It’s a surprise that India got through their overs in quick time, what with Powar’s lobs taking an age to get to the other end, but he troubled them with variation.So Bell is maturing with every match – Dravid spoke about how England’s decision to persevere with him at No. 3 was paying off – Chawla is growing in confidence and Collingwood is growing as a leader. Powar is no doubt growing. England are talking about injecting fearlessness into their bloodstream and India are talking of positives. Someone should tell them that using words like “inject” and “positives” in a span of a few minutes is not advisable.

Ed Joyce has hailed Ireland’s “brilliant” performances at the World Cup and admits the prospect of them playing England, his adopted nation, in the Super Eight stage, would be “quite a spectacle”.Joyce was born in Dublin but made his one-day debut for England against Ireland in 2006. He had played an important role in Ireland’s qualifying for the World Cup by scoring two hundreds and two fifities in the 2005 ICC Trophy, but an ambition to play at the highest possible level led Joyce to qualify for England because Ireland did not have Test-match status.After Ireland’s tie against Zimbabwe in their first match of the World Cup and the shock three-wicket victory over Pakistan, they are on the brink of qualification for the Super Eights. “It was brilliant,” Joyce said. “My big hope for Ireland coming into this tournament was that they would do themselves justice.”It’s hard, your first tournament, you might get a bit over-awed by it. Trent Johnston, their captain has been brilliant. He’s told them what to expect and how to go about things. They’ve done that really well. They’d never have thought they beat Pakistan, they knew they had a chance.”They’ve beaten the West Indies in the last few years. The Zimbabwe game was their big one. Now they’ve got three points and look like going through to the Super Eights which is brilliant.”Should both England and Ireland make it through to the second stage they will start their Super Eight campaign against one another in Guyana on March 30. “That was my first game,” Joyce said, recalling his England debut.”It was a bit of a strange one for me. It will be an interesting contest if they [Ireland] get through to that stage. It will be a big day. A lot of Irish people have travelled over. I don’t think they expected to get through to the Super Eights. They’ll probably all have to take another month off and get out there. It will be a good day.”The English fans and Irish fans will get on pretty well. It will be quite a spectacle. My brother is in Jamaica watching them and he’d said they’d taken over Kingston and the Jamaicans love them which is typical of Irish fans.”

Ricky Ponting might have been 20,000 kilometres away in St Kitts, but he kept up to date with Tasmania’s maiden Pura Cup win at Hobart. And it could have been a suggestion from Ponting back in November that helped them to their 421-run victory – he advised Tim Coyle, Tasmania’s coach, to give Luke Butterworth more opportunities.Ponting played a one-day game with Butterworth for Tasmania against Victoria at Melbourne and was impressed with what he saw. Butterworth was Man of the Match in the Pura Cup final, scoring 66 and 106 and taking 4 for 33.”I said to the coach then [in November] that I thought he should play him for the rest of the Pura Cup season,” Ponting told . “I watched the way he bowled and he looked pretty capable with the bat and I thought he could slot into our side really nicely, especially on a wicket at Bellerive that might have assisted the seamers.”He has got a hundred in the final and he got 60 in the first innings as well. More importantly he has taken a lot of wickets in the last five games. He’s only a young bloke as well. He’s got a very bright future.”Ponting said the 15-hour time difference did not keep him from getting regular updates on Tasmania’s progress. “I’ve had a chat to the boys and I’ve been speaking to Michael Di Venuto who is a good mate of mine,” he said. “I haven’t had my phone off for the last two nights, especially last night when we were racking up all those runs.”Ponting, who is technically the Tasmania captain although he rarely plays for them, said Coyle had done well to get the most out of his young squad. “Full credit to the coach and what he has done down there,” he said. “He has stuck by a lot of the young blokes and given them opportunities. They have been the best team all year.”