The 5 match Ashes series to be played between England and hosts Australia between 25th November 2010 to 7th January 2011 will be keenly watched by English and Aussie fans because for the first time in many years the outcome of the series cannot be predicted as there are no clear favourites.

To begin with  in spite of their recent good showing in Ashes encounters England have performed poorly in Ashes series played in Australia and their last Ashes encounter ended in a meek surrender getting whitewashed 5-0 by Aussies. However this time around Aussies it is a totally different Australian team than the one which played against the Englishmen in 2006.   The then Aussie team boasted of the likes of Adam Gilchrist, Shane Warne, Mc Grath, Justin Langer and Mathew Hayden which massacred the English 5-0 and with all of them having retired Aussie home advantage has been neutralized to a large extent.  

Apart from home advantage neutralized to some extent due to retirements of their legends, there are a couple of other factors which go against them and one of them is their recent poor form in which they have lost test matches to even second string teams from Pakistan and if that is not enough adding insult to injury is the way they got thrashed by India in their most recent test series preceding the Ashes.  Another cause of worry for Australia has been England's recent good from despite not boasting of any big names.

As far as the Englishmen are concerned they have a golden chance of creating history and show the form which they have shown in recent form and also hope a bit of inconsistency from Aussies which has been the hallmark of Aussie teams of late. However if one were to look in the larger context of world cricket the current Ashes series is a bad advertisement for the game wherein a just about average England team faces a depleted Aussie team.