July 9th, 2009 by Peter Bevan

England are hoping to avoid another walkover when they renew their fierce rivalry against Australia for The Ashes 2009, with the first test starting taking place at the Cardiff Sophia Gardens at SWALEC Stadium.

This will be the 65th Ashes series, where Australia won 5-0 last time out in 2006-07. However, the team line-up for this year has some new faces when compared to the last time England won the Ashes 2-1, which was in 2005.

This time around, it will be up to new captain Andrew Strauss and players including Ravi Bopara, Stuart Broad, Monty Panesar and Matt Prior to represent England’s chance for Ashes glory.

England should be in high spirits having beaten the West Indies in May, sparking a successful start to the captain-coach partnership between Andrew Strauss and Andy Flower.

However, Australia will prove to be a tougher test and Andrew Strauss will hope to match the same success as ex-England captain Michael Vaughan, who led the 2005 team to Ashes victory but has now retired from professional cricket.

The starting line-up welcomes the return of Andrew Flintoff from injury, and also features Kevin Pietersen who some say will be the key batsman for the team, though he himself has played down his importance by citing the good form of fellow batsmen Alastair Cook and Paul Collingwood.

In fact, both Kevin Pietersen and Andrew Strauss have tried to play down the media hype surrounding the Ashes series, with Andrew Strauss asking for a calm reaction from his players and Kevin Pietersen describing this as like any other cricket game between two teams who want to win.

England captain Andrew Strauss won the toss and chose to bat in the first test. England are currently 336-7 as we head towards day two.

Cricket fans can catch the players in action throughout the Ashes 2009 series, with the second test match set to take place at London Lord’s Cricket Ground (July 16-20).

The third test will be at the Birmingham Edgbaston Cricket Ground (July 30 – August 3), the fourth test at Leeds Headingley Stadium (August 7-11) and the final test at the London Oval Cricket Ground (August 20-24).

The Ashes 2009 tickets are available to compare at tixdaq.com