Brief Return

I hope to write an Ashes preview tomorrow but firstly I want to pick up something that Andrew Flintoff said in a BBC interview. "I don't think Australia play off-spin too well" Really? Weren't they the only side able to tame the greatest off-spinner of all time? Anyway a bit of Statsguru-ing and low and behold only one off-spin bowler (Harbhajan) has taken five wickets against Australia in the last three years and he has the worst average (61.25). Admittedly there's not many off-spinners about, in fact only one other frontliner, Saeed Ajmal, has bowled in that period and he took two wickets at over 100 in the Boxing Test last year.

Perhaps Freddie is living in 1956, or perhaps he's just reading too much Swann propaganda in the press. The fact is Australia played Swann well in 2009 and he only picked up wickets on the spinning pitch at The Oval, until that point he was outbowled by Nathan Hauritz, who is so poor that Australia can drop him. Anyway factoring all this, punters should avoid Swann for top England wicket-taker and instead plumb for Jimmy Anderson at a juicy 9/2.