NICK HOWSON: The resumption of cricket's greatest rivalry raises several key topics, including the omission of Nottingham, the possible end of Stuart Broad and the prospect of a free-to-air finale
Named in the England squad for the first Test, Anderson looks on course to play at Edgbaston. But is the 36-year-old's calf - not to mention his other various conditions - good for 25 days of cricket in a little under seven weeks?
Anderson was looking at his very best before pulling up at the start of July. His 30 wickets in six Lancashire outings had come at a startling 9.37 - the best of anyone in the County Championship. But the cotton wool came too late.
The hosts do have the personnel to deputise for Anderson, whereas perhaps they didn't previously if he were to skip a Test, but none of them possesses the reputation or experience to rival the most potent fast bowler in Test history. In short, without him England's hopes take a significant dive.
It could lead to a chance of tact with regard to selection, with five seamers - including Ben Stokes - preferred to help lighten his workload. Short bursts would certainly be preferable to extended spells, though it would allow Australia to fend him off and target another. Captain Joe Root has admitted the bowlers will be rotated this summer but being aware that such management is required is entirely different to executing it when the going gets tough.
If you require any evidence that Test cricket still remains a vital and important part of the career of the modern-day player, then the story of James Pattinson's rise from the treatment table to becoming one of Australia's central figures ahead of this summer is more than enough to convince you.
The Victorian could have packed in his red ball ambitions and pursued a career as a limited-overs specialist, following five stress fractures in his back. But instead, he had another complicated bout of surgery, which has reignited his career. Various metal pins and wire inserted to support his vertebrae make him the bionic man of the Australia attack.
THE ASHES: TV channels, schedule, team news - All you need to know
Pattinson is another who arrives into the series with decent domestic form in England. In two seasons at Nottinghamshire in 2017 - when he helped them to promotion - and 2019 he has taken 47 wickets at 16.43. Perhaps most notably, however, he inspired Victoria to Sheffield Shield success in March using the old Dukes ball, which returns for 2019.
There is an embarrassment of riches available to Tim Paine this summer. Pat Cummins, Josh Hazlewood and Mitchell Starc have been the preferred trio on the big occasion and memories of how they blew away England 18 months ago remain as fresh for Australia as they do chastening for Joe Root's team. The intense schedule and the injury record of each of the four seamers means rotation isn't only advisable, it is a necessity.
None deserve the chance to exhibit their skills on the biggest stage more than Pattinson. All four are likely to have a watching brief at some stage or another during this summer but none will grab their opportunity with more gusto than the 29-year-old.
The inclusion of Durham skipper Cameron Bancroft in Australia's Ashes plans ensures all three of the individuals central to the ball-tampering affair in Cape Town will be front and centre come the start of the series. The World Cup provided a glimpse into the reception each might receive, but one fancies the most tempestuous rivalry in world cricket will help ratchet up the scrutiny.
Four hundred and ninety-five days will have passed since the episode on the tour to South Africa come the opening exchanges at Edgbaston, yet England's supporters will make it feel like the first day of the recriminations. They haven't had a proper crack at the whip yet. Let the dog see the rabbit.
One of the beauties of the Ashes is it has stopped become a cricket event exclusively for the purist, and one which now attracts wider sports fans. See golf's Ryder Cup for further evidence. These events are as close as you'll get to a Premier League football match - where there are only heroes and villains, with nothing in between - without having Gary Neville's touchscreen forced on you. And while this provides a more febrile and intense atmosphere, it has blurred the line between friendly jesting and abuse.
James Anderson missed the win over Ireland with an ongoing calf problem
The World Cup offered a snapshot of what, particularly Smith and Warner, can expect during the series. Boos on their way to the crease, ironic jeering when they're given out and perhaps even the odd lad dressed as sandpaper. It is to be expected of course, in an era where the fan constantly wants to be the story and the centre of attention.
The trio have been rightly punished for their act of deceit and will forever have to live with the shame of their actions; after all no memory is longer than that of the sports fan. They have each shown contrition and regret in the wake of the episode and have not flaunted any of their relative successes since. Is that not enough? And is it too much to expect some respect and decency to be shown displayed? Probably.
With 724 runs, three centuries and three fifty in 12 innings across seven matches for Middlesex, Phil Hughes was expected to blow England away in 2009. What followed was a peppering from Andrew Flintoff and his series ended after two outings which produced just 57 runs at 19. It was a blow for the reputation of the County Championship and for Australia's best-laid plans.
Though Marnus Labuschagne insisted differently upon moving to Glamorgan initially for the first half of the County Championship season, the South African could not have timed his move to England better. Amid uncertainty over the formation of the Australian top order he has struck 1114 runs and is the only player to go to four figures in the campaign.
Though his five Test appearances have been unspectacular, form in England, as well as his tricky leg breaks, has undoubtedly led to his inclusion. History tells us however that such a grounding does not necessarily lead to a successful Ashes series, and that is before you question whether Labuschagne's runs have genuine value coming from Division Two.
Forcing his way into the team will be his first challenge with the dilemma of how to fit Smith, Warner and perhaps even Bancroft into a batting line-up which has been devoid of them for over a year facing Australia again. The balance never looked right during the World Cup, with Usman Khawaja's return to full fitness complicating an already potentially key decision, given the trials suffered by an opening batsman in recent years. Only nine opening stands in Test played since the start of 2018 have reached three figures, making the dynamic of the middle order for both teams more important than ever.
England and Australia play-out four thrilling Tests, full of nip and tuck, pulsating cricket which keeps cricket on the front pages, not least the back. Heading into the fifth and final Test at The Oval, tickets are rarer than a Geoff Boycott on-drive as fans scramble for the most important Test on these shores for 14 years - or perhaps longer.
But unlike the four matches which have preceded this series decider, it will not be seen by the few but by the many. Sky Sports and Channel 5, who have shown prime-time highlights throughout the series, agree for the game to be shown simultaneously as Test cricket returns to free-to-air television for the first time since you know when.
Fanciful? Definitely. Beyond the realms of possibility? Certainly not. A World Cup on home soil comes around only every so often, but the Ashes consistently captures the imagination, despite it being exiled to subscription television. Granted, it would be seen as a giant climbdown from Sky to allow another game from their exclusive grasp of the England team to slip onto terrestrial television, but perhaps we're entering an era where such olive branches are for the greater good of the sport.
Though mercilessly the Cardiff Test has been removed from the schedule, the ECB have ignored a ground which has been good to England down the year; Trent Bridge.
Scene of Stuart Broad's 8-15 and that face when Ben Stokes explode to his right to take that magnificent slip catch four years ago, the hosts have beaten Australia in each of their last three meetings at the ground. Not since the Baggy Green last won a series on these shores have they prevail in a Test in Nottingham.
Root's men may have lost their last two games to India last summer and then to South Africa by an emphatic 340 runs but prior to those successive defeats they were unbeaten in 11 of their last 13 outings at Trent Bridge, losing just two.
There is no questioning the selection of Old Trafford - where England haven't lost a Test for 18 years - and Headingley (just three home wins in the last 10) in the schedule, nor that of the commercially viable Lord's and The Oval. The atmosphere created at Edgbaston meanwhile, not least the opportunity to attract some of the Midlands' south Asian population, makes it a tough void to fill also. The ECB have an unenviable task over balancing previous results with atmosphere and setting. Time will tell if they've got it right this time around.
The World Cup did not prevent Australia's stars from being abused
To start, here is the ECB's refund scheme for all five Test of this summer's Ashes series.
"If play is restricted or does not take place at the ground on the day for which this ticket is valid, you may claim a refund of only the match ticket value subject to there being: (a) 15 overs or less because of adverse weather conditions or completion of the match - a full refund; (b) 15.1 overs to 29.5 overs because of adverse weather conditions or completion of the match - a 50% refund. In no other circumstances can money be refunded."
For anyone with a ticket for days three and four at any of the clashes, start practising your rain dances, begin campaigning for extra drinks breaks and extended lunch and tea intervals, and bring with you a faulty light-meter to wing the way of there umpires. Then you might see some cricket.
Okey, so this summer is not about to be riddled in two-day Tests. But repeats of what we have seen at Lord's and The Ageas Bowl, where England and Australia have warmed up for the upcoming series is likely following the decision to reinstate the old Dukes ball from the summers of 2017 and 2018, when wickets tumbled like members of the accounts team at the Christmas party.
Australia's squad selection shoot-out game in Southampton saw 35 wickets fall for 551 runs. Meanwhile, at the home of cricket 40 went down for 633 - including two double-digit scores - in seven sessions. Combined, a wicket fell every 15.78 runs. For every Anderson (he averages 16.06 over the last two summers with the old Dukes), Pattinson, Broad and Cummins licking their lips at the prospect of bowling with this cricketing grenade, there is a Burns, Harris, Paine and Ali fretting they will be made to look foolish.
It will make for frenetic, highlights reel cricket which will ensure every run is worth double. But entertaining? We'll see.
When Alex Carey was scoring runs (375) and taking catches (18) behind the stumps in the World Cup for fun, it seemed inevitable that he would force his way into Australia's Ashes plans one way, or another. As England themselves have done and continue to do, the 27-year-old could even have been selected as a specialist batsman and would have slotted in adeptly in a squad full of gritty cricketers with ample character.
The Cricketer's Ashes quiz: Edgbaston
But instead, Matthew Wade has been selected as the back-up to Tim Paine, whose role in the team looks increasingly vulnerable. Amid the return from suspension of several players, and current form of others, Paine's role in the team even given his status as captain is on shaky ground. The vultures are circling.
Wade has endured a chequered 22-Test career for the Baggy Green and does not always exude confidence behind the stumps. Coach Justin Langer and the selectors are clearly unconvinced, given how he has previously been jettisoned from the squad. If a change is to be made with either then Carey is only a phone call away, with his Ashes omission making him available to play for Sussex Sharks in the T20 Blast, ensuring he keeps his eye in.
"It wouldn’t surprise me if they finished at the end of the summer. It could happen." The words of Steve Harmison regarding England's highest wicket-takers of all time, Stuart Broad and James Anderson, prior to this international summer.
But while England look unprepared to pass-over Anderson at this stage, despite his list of ailments growing as he reaches his tender years, life after Broad has already begun. And while it would be unthinkable for the pair not to start all five Ashes Tests, the future beyond that is less certain.
Nottinghamshire son Broad has only played in four of England's last seven Tests, two of those outings coming after the series concerned was already decided. Just a few years ago that would have been an unimaginable scenario, before Jofra Archer, Sam Curran, Olly Stone and Chris Woakes. Jamie's Porter and Overton await further down the pecking order.
A veteran of 660 first-class scalps he might be, but the 33-year-old is simply not valued in the same way as his new ball partner. Granted, he was wrongly overlooked for the first Test against West Indies earlier in the year, but the selectors still felt Sam Curran represented a better option as the second seamer.
Richie Benaud led Channel 4's coverage of the Ashes in 2005
It looks like he will survive Archer's emergence for the time being but for how long he can keep the wolf from the door is unknown. Broad was consulted regarding the decision to revert to the Dukes ball back in May, an indication that he remains a key voice within the setup. But that call almost feels like a thank you present. It should ensure he goes past 700 international wickets in all formats - he stands 13 away from the milestone - and that would be a fitting send-off.
Andrew Flintoff was the last cricketer to win the BBC's coveted Sport's Personality of the Year Award in 2005. Indeed, no player has even finished in the top three since that success 14 years ago.
Andrew Strauss (twice), Graeme Swann, Sir Alastair Cook, Ian Bell, Anya Shrubsole and James Anderson have all been nominated but regularly finished well down the voting, if not dead last.
Stokes is currently the bookmakers' favourite, ahead of six-time Formula One world champion in-waiting Lewis Hamilton, after his heroics throughout the World Cup, both in regulation play and in the now infamous super over. Crucially, as it often is the case with the BBC award, his crowning moment came in front of a free-to-air audience - a factor which has undone the chances of many other sportspeople down the years, not least some of his cricketing counterparts.
Even if this year's series will not be seen by the same numbers that took in the final, victory along with an important intervention here or there will surely give Stokes one hand on that prestigious trophy, which is awarded in mid-December. Then try and stop the Flintoff comparisons.
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