Trent warfare

The Ashes are burning bright all right. A lot of cricket still to play. Two Tests remaining — the fourth begins at Nottingham on Thursday, and how might things stand as they go for the grandest of finales at Kennington on 8 September? The series has easily outstripped its ballyhoo billing, every dramatic switch and swash pinning back the ears of the nation. ‘What’s the score?’ is the ubiquitous question. In every high street you see huddles of the citizenry pausing on pavements, fretfully to peer through the plateglass shopfronts of premises which sell television sets. A month ago the Australian captain, with disdainful sauce, reckoned that only a solitary Englishman — Flintoff — was worthy even to challenge for a place in any combined XI made up of the two teams. Now Trescothick, Strauss, Vaughan, Pietersen, Harmison and even the Welsh bowler Jones would demand a game alongside big Freddie.