Let the phoney war begin

A fortnight ago at The Oval, Surrey's opening Championship fixture against Sussex was witnessed by a smattering of hardcore fans, a lost fox on the gas-holder, and a legion of strange dangling legs hanging from the roof of the spanking new and nearly completed OCS Stand. On closer inspection, these turned out to be the bottom halves of several workmen, all of whom were up to their torsos in an extremely important task - installing anti-pigeon spikes in the eaves of The Oval's great new arch.

If only England's cricketers could be afforded similar protection this summer, preferably halfway down the bowlers' run-ups, ready for when Glenn McGrath comes thundering to the crease. Because if there is one sight that is certain to stir those familiar old uncertainties ahead of this summer's eagerly awaited Ashes contest, it is the sight of old Pigeon himself, flapping all before him as if he has never been away.

Distance is meant to lend perspective to a situation, but the closer the Ashes come, the more clear it is that England remain a significant way short of matching Australia's allround brilliance. Last summer, as England's heady Test triumphs morphed seamlessly into a dissection of Australia's one-day side in the Champions Trophy, I allowed myself a rare glimpse of a rosy future in 2005. This column is not intended as a retraction of my earlier opinions (perish the thought!), although it is only prudent to lay the groundwork for a graceful retreat.

My initial Ashes optimism had owed everything to Australia's exacting winter itinerary. A gruelling tour of India, a home series against Pakistan, and five matches home and away against New Zealand would surely prove too much for one or two ageing bones. And in fact it did. But of all the men who might have fallen en route, Darren Lehmann was not exactly top of England's hit-list, especially now that that precocious whirlwind, Michael Clarke, is guaranteed a starting place.

Instead, Australia have emerged, like a mutant from a radiation bath, seemingly stronger and more impregnable than ever before. This is no mean feat, seeing as England's most recent victory, at Sydney in January 2003, came when both Warne and McGrath were missing through injury and was widely touted as a glimpse of the future - a brighter future in which England had a ghost of a chance against second-string bowlers such as Brett Lee and Stuart MacGill who, though good, were far from great.

Instead, the only ghosts are English ones. Eight years have now passed since the start of the 1997 Ashes, and England's then-attack of Andrew Caddick, Darren Gough, Devon Malcolm and Mark Ealham have been fading from memory with varying degrees of rapidity. On the other hand, all four of Australia's first-choice bowlers - McGrath, Warne, Jason Gillespie and Mike Kasprowicz - are as fit as ever and firing on all cylinders. Such is Australia's current self-assurance, that their one weak link from the 2001 tour, Lee, cannot even be guaranteed a chance to make amends.

It's been a funny old winter from start to finish. England learned their lesson in 2000-01, when they rolled up for a 4-1 Ashes hammering despite having won four and drawn one of their previous five series. Their record in 2004-05 is even more breathtaking - 12 individual wins out of 16 Tests, and with due respect to Bangladesh, that tally ought to read 14 out of 18 by July 21.

And yet, for all that it was arguably England's greatest series win of the decade, the South African tour was unquantifiably depressing on so many levels. The lack of killer instinct shown at Port Elizabeth and Durban, and especially, Cape Town; the lack of killer instinct shown by Steve Harmison full stop. The Johannesburg Test was an all-time classic and the series was undeniably thrilling, but then so in its own way was Bangladesh's recent victory over Zimbabwe. In both cases the drama was provided by two evenly matched - and equally flawed - teams, and England's inability to boss that contest does not bode well for what lies ahead this summer.

You can tell it's an Ashes summer all right. We're not yet out of April and the sports pages are already full of tales of bats, balls and verbal volleys, all of which are contributing to the longest and potentially most tedious phoney war in Anglo-Australian sporting history. Last week it was the saga of Ricky Ponting's carbon-fibre-enhanced bat (an issue that was mind-bogglingly labelled "an MCC plot to destabilise Australian cricket"), this week, it's boiled sweets and ball-tampering that have shared top billing with Chris Adams's unseemly spat with Warne down at Hove. Pick an issue, any issue, and run with it until the real event rolls up.

And yet, there is still plenty time for all sorts of strange things to happen. England's campaign may currently be veiled in a sheen of pessimism, but there are some healthy signs flitting on and off the radar. Harmison has a county hat-trick under his belt, Andrew Flintoff is back on the pitch after surgery - even if he's not yet in the runs - while Kevin Pietersen, the obligatory Great White Hope, has being sneaking advance glances of Warne's googly in the Rose Bowl nets.

But maybe it's just a healthy - and timely - dose of realism. To come as far as England have managed over the last 12 months, and yet still feel as though the journey has hardly begun, is arguably the most encouraging frame of mind that they ever adopted at the start of an Ashes series. This summer has not yet begun, which means it is far from over.