Let the battle commence

The Ashes battle has begun already... off the pitch that is, in the fans' quest to secure tickets for this winter. With jammed phone lines and web browsers freezing, around 180,000 tickets were snapped up as Cricket Australia (CA) released a minimum 635,000 tickets on the web and phones, for the 'Australian Cricket Family' out of the 720,000 available.

Aussie forums have been quick to show their irritation at the apparent ease in which Pom fans have secured their tickets (CA's qualification process meant fans had to provide a valid Australian postal address, but it seems Brits have got round that obstacle). A quick call to a mate in Sydney confirmed that the Poms have already caused stress to the Aussie cricket fraternity, while four days have sold out at the SCG and 20 fans even queued outside one outlet from 6am to be told that it was web and phone only.

With fans breaking records in their bid to secure tickets - this series is already set to be one hell of a sequel to last year's events.