Aggers’ Ashes. Jonathan Agnew

competitive, but this really is an extraordinary situation. You have to go back to the late 1970s, when Australian cricket was torn apart by the Packer revolution of World Series Cricket, to find the last time the Australian camp was so divided before an Ashes series had even started.

      Therefore, it is with perfect timing that England announce what we all suspected would be the case: England’s main attack of Anderson, Broad, Finn and Swann will fly to Brisbane on Wednesday evening. Quite frankly, the weather in Hobart has been so foul – windy and wet – that it is difficult to argue against the decision. I conclude my thoughts on the matter by saying that in an ideal world, a touring team would field its best players in the toughest warm-up match before the Test, and had this game been played anywhere in Australia other than in Hobart, they probably would have done so. Flower makes the announcement at the training ground and tells me that he has been surprised by the level of press interest in this particular topic. I disagree. It has been a fascinating early tour story to air and debate; usually at this preliminary stage of the campaign, we get little more than groin strains suffered in the nets to report on.

      The highlight of the day is an invitation extended to the media to take part in a very special training and skills session with the England team. Organised by England’s sponsor Brit Insurance, it has to be held indoors because of the weather. With complete wholeheartedness, the England team and back room staff set about giving the travelling press pack a thorough insight into the sort of skills and training an international cricketer takes for granted. All that is apart from your BBC correspondent, whose wonky fingers after seven operations to correct Dupuytrens contracture, simply cannot take it. Flower addresses the group at the start and makes it clear that the event is to be taken seriously by everybody. It is exactly the right approach and the result is that the players buy into it immediately and, I think, genuinely enjoy it.

      There are bowling clinics, batting classes and fielding drills during which the players give catches to members of the press. Can you imagine this happening in football? We really are incredibly fortunate to be involved in this wonderful sport. The highlight for me is the bowling clinic. Coach David Saker produces a framework model of a batsman featuring a helmet, a metal plate over where his ribs would be, a marker indicating the height of the bails and, by his feet, a bar two feet above the ground under which the ball must pass if it is to be deemed a perfect yorker.

      The clinic starts and round one requires the bowler to aim a bouncer at the helmet. Unsurprisingly, virtually every ball delivered by the press boys ends up in the side netting. Saker calls up Anderson, who hits the helmet with his first ball. It’s the same with his next two balls – the first aimed at the ‘ribs’, and the second a perfect, bail-high ball. His yorker inevitably flies under the bar. It is mightily impressive.

      Less impressive is the Sun’s John Etheridge, whose repeated attempts to catch balls spat out by one of the training machines are at the hopeless end of the scale: he manages to drops five out of five. Poor Tim Abrahams of Sky News, who is a magnificently fit athlete, takes his first wicketkeeping catch from Matt Prior straight in the unmentionables and ends up in a crumpled moaning heap on the floor.

      Graham Gooch conducts a batting drill that will guarantee some of my senior colleagues won’t be able to walk for a week. Fully padded up they repeatedly advance down the pitch as if they are attacking a spinner and then have to pick up a ball from one of three coloured cones that Gooch designates in his curiously squeaky voice. He then produces something I have never seen before: I am not sure where he has got the idea from but Graham uses a very whippy plastic slinger – the sort I use to launch tennis balls in a field for Bracken, my Springer Spaniel. These slings can fire a tennis ball twice the distance you can normally throw it. I don’t know how he does it, but Graham has mastered the art and timing of an over-arm release of the ball, like a bowler, with the thing sending the ball down the wicket with pinpoint accuracy. So we watch as he slings the ball at 90 mph with seemingly no effort at a bunch of hapless pressmen, many of whom have never faced a cricket ball in their lives. One well-known tour photographer is cringing and ducking, having an absolute nightmare, as the ball brushes his nose and then thumps in to his foot. It is a fantastic example of the innovative skills of the England coaching staff, and a great demonstration of what the day is all about.

      The whole afternoon passes off extremely well. Because we are in a cricketing environment, rather than simply making small talk around the hotel, I find myself having several fascinating chats with members of the England set up – firstly about bowling with Stuart Broad, during which we compare our respective generations’ styles and approaches, and then with Alastair Cook on the subject of three-day cricket. I think the two matches so far have been much more entertaining than most tourist games we see because they have been shorter and the captains have looked to play positively. Cook’s point about four-day matches being better preparation for Test cricket is correct, but we must not forget the spectator.

      It is while chatting to Broad that Graeme Swann appears with his video camera, clearly in recording mode. “Go on Broady,” he urges, “do your Sprinkler.” Broad seems to be rather embarrassed, but performs a strange movement involving an outstretched right arm, then rotating the top half of his body taking the arm with him. It is most peculiar and appears to be a new dance move. Swann finds the whole thing very amusing and moves on.

      DAY 14: 16 November 2010

      My first potentially dangerous invitation of the tour arrives by text message: ‘See you in the bar at 7. IC. Ian Chappell and the rest of his colleagues from Channel 9 have flown in for tomorrow’s match. At the appointed hour, I enjoy a drink with former Australian Test players Mark Taylor, Ian Healy, Michael Slater and Ian Chappell (Michael and Ian Chappell will both be working on Test Match Special during the series). I get the feeling that all four are genuinely fascinated by the build up to the Ashes and Australia’s current woes in particular. We have a robust conversation about the spot-fixing allegations surrounding members of Pakistan’s team. There is very little sympathy around our particular table. Eventually Ian and I move next door to the appropriately named Drunken Admiral. Chappell is the most enthusiastic storyteller – about any topic – I have ever met; to be frank he never stops! His tales inevitably involve getting into scrapes with Rodney Marsh, Dennis Lillee and his team-mates from the time when I was just getting into cricket, so I am always fascinated and amused by his anecdotes. Mind you, if you cut out the swear words, they could be told in half the time. But then that’s Ian.

      CAN SWANN PROVIDE THE KRYPTONITE?

      Ben Dirs | 16 November 2010

      You sometimes hear the argument that visiting finger spinners simply aren’t a deciding factor in Ashes series in Australia, an argument that, when scrutinised, appears to be buttressed largely by cherry-picked evidence. Ashley Giles, it is true, was wholly ineffective on the last, disastrous trip Down Under and while his replacement Monty Panesar took a five-for on his Ashes debut in Perth, he was tamed in Melbourne and Sydney.

      Yorkshire’s Richard Dawson toiled for scant reward in 2002-03, and even though Phil Tufnell had his successes – including 5/61 in Sydney in 1990-91 – they were few and far between. Yet John Emburey and Phil Edmonds collected 33 wickets between them the last time England won the Ashes in the old enemy’s backyard while Fred Titmus bagged 21 wickets at 29 in 1962-63. While Raymond lllingworth and Tony Greig are among the more illustrious England twirlers to have found the going much tougher in Australian conditions (although it should be remembered Greig also bowled seam), there are two other significant names whose figures do pass muster: Derek Underwood (50 wickets in 14Tests at 31.48) and Jim Laker (15 in four at 21.2).

      Those figures will be of some comfort to England fans who believe Andrew Strauss’s party contains the country’s best off-spinner since Laker and best spinner of any kind since Underwood, a certain Graeme Peter Swann. “They say finger spinners don’t have an impact in Australia,” says Tufnell, who garnered 19 wickets in eight Tests Down Under, “but if you’re a good enough bowler you will take wickets, it’s as simple as that. He’s the player the Aussies will fear most, he’s had a phenomenal couple of years in Test cricket.”

      “Graeme Swann will be the key,” adds Emburey, who took 35 wickets in 10 Tests in Australia. “He’ll relish the extra bounce and if