Ashes in the mouth - no comments

Should have posted this earlier. Norm is running a competition for anyone brave enough to correctly predict the England / Australia Ashes series scoreline - he or she who getteth closest to the eventual scoreline gets signed copies of two of Norm's cricket books (or a prize of equivalent value, if such a thing were possible).

Anyway, you have until noon today to get your prediction in. Well, noon GMT, so is that 11 am BST? More details here,

You'll also need to predict the result of each of the 5 Tests. So, my prediction (if I remember rightly, as I left it on a postit at work) was:

England 2 - Australia 2: A, E, A, D, E

One participant, "DB", has been brave enough to go for a 4-1 Australia series victory. I really can't see anything like that happening:

5 results out of 5 seems a bit much to expect, given the strength of the batting on show and England's recent ability to pull draws (and sometimes wins) out of pretty iffy situations.

That being the case, I think Australia would have to play out of their skins - or many of England's stars would have to fail - for England to be beaten more than twice. Bell would have to turn into a Ramprakash, Harmison would have to become a Malcolm, Pietersen would have to be exposed in the longer-form (something I don't anticipate), or Flintoff injured (god forbid). That's not to say England will earn their 2-2 by performing as well, but I think it's a result they can achieve.