2009 ASHES ENGLAND VS AUSTRALIA TEST SERIES BETTING TIPS

England's line-up for the 2009 Ashes series will be omitting both Michael Vaughan and Durham pace-bowler Steve Harmison as the English storm into the widely-anticipated test series with plenty of new faces and a fresh feel about the team. Captain Andrew Strauss made a few interesting selections with new boys Graham Onions (who produced a stellar display bowling against the West Indies) and traditional seamer Tim Bresnan amongst the new inclusions. Ravi Bopara will keep his 3rd place batting slot after showing plenty of form across all formats in the past few months. Monty Panesar has been handed an England lifeline as the selectors have confirmed that three spinners, Adil Rashid and Graeme Swann being the others, will add some dynamism to the bowling. Australia begin their warm-up matches for the Ashes series this week with a match against Sussex at Hove tomorrow. England are 11/5 to win the test series while the Aussies are odds-on at 4/6. The draw pays out at 5/1. In terms of top batsman for the series, Kevin Pietersen ios listed as the strong 9/4 favourite with Andrew Strauss at 3/1 and Alistair Cook listed at 4/1. Ravi Bopara is 5/1 while Paul Collingwood sits at 13/2. Ian Bell, who returns to the side, is 10/1 with Andrew Flintoff carrying a 12/1 price. Matt Prior is 14/1. Ricky Ponting is considered the big favourite to be Australia's top man at the crease with a 5/2 price. Compare that to Michael Hussey, Hughes and Kattich who are all listed at 4/1. Michael Clark is 9/2 and the betting seems to be more or less between these few batsman. James Anderson is the favourite to be England's top bowler with a 2/1 price showing just how much confidence he has in the test format. Stuart Broad, Andrew Flintoff and spinner Graeme Swann are all listed at 7/2 with Graham Onions being an interesting bet at 6/1. Ryan Sidebottom is 15/2 and he'll certainly factor into the equation- I think he'll be the one to remove a lot of top Australian batsman at key times. Johnson and Lee are the two key bowlers for the Aussies and they are 13/8 and 5/2, respectively. Clark and Siddle are both on 7/2 with Hauritz at 8/1. We also have all the different series betting permutations listed below, courtesy of Bet365. England to win 1 - 0 80/1 England to win 2 - 0 33/1England to win 2 - 1 9/1 England to win 3 - 0 33/1England to win 3 - 1 14/1 England to win 3 - 2 18/1England to win 4 - 0 50/1 England to win 4 - 1 40/1England to win 5 - 0 100/1 Australia to win 1 - 0 50/1Australia to win 2 - 0 16/1 Australia to win 2 - 1 7/1Australia to win 3 - 0 8/1 Australia to win 3 - 1 7/1Australia to win 3 - 2 18/1 Australia to win 4 - 0 10/1Australia to win 4 - 1 12/1 Australia to win 5 - 0 16/11. Andrew Strauss (capt), 2. James Anderson, 3. Ian Bell, 4. Ravi Bopara, 5. Tim Bresnan, 6. Stuart Broad, 7. Paul Collingwood, 8. Alastair Cook, 9. Andrew Flintoff, 10. Graham Onions, 11. Monty Panesar, 12. Kevin Pietersen, 13. Matt Prior, 14. Adil Rashid, 15. Ryan Sidebottom, 16. Graeme Swann