Ashes series set to begin in Cardiff

The Ashes gets underway between Australia and England today in Cardiff with the home side expected to field four Ashes debutants today: Ravi Bopara (above), Matt Prior, Stuart Broad and Graeme Swann.

England will decide this morning whether to use two spinners on a pitch that while expected to offer more help to the slower bowlers is still an unknown quantity. Monty Panesar will be the fifth bowler if spin is chosen, Graham Onions if pace is required.

The home side won the toss and elected to bat on a pitch which was offering very little to bowlers.

WHAT THEY ARE SAYING
David Hopps, the Guardian: "The most hyped Ashes series in memory will finally get underway at Swalec Stadium today and for England and Australia the moment cannot come soon enough. England's captain, Andrew Strauss, could not have put it more succinctly: 'Now is the time to go out and do our jobs.' Eight players remain in England's squad from that humiliated in a 5-0 whitewash in Australia in 2006-07, Strauss among them, but as Australia's captain, Ricky Ponting, agreed yesterday, that series might have been airbrushed from English history."

Mike Atherton, the Times: "Nobody seemed prepared to say it yesterday, least of all two captains who are too long in the tooth and canny to be drawn into silly predictions, but the feeling around Test cricket’s 100th venue seemed unmistakable: England, with a more incisive and more varied bowling attack, have not had a better chance in two decades of beginning an Ashes series with a victory. But times change, as has, more pertinently, the Australia team, and England will walk out in Cardiff this morning confident not only that they can match Australia man for man, but also, in Andrew Flintoff and Kevin Pietersen, they possess game-changing players of their own."

Nick Hoult, Daily Telegraph: "The angry man of 2005 who lost his temper so spectacularly at Trent Bridge will address his team on Wednesday morning knowing that the next six weeks will decide his enduring reputation as captain of the greatest Test team in the world. With the greats of Australian cricket having disappeared to the poker tables and commentary boxes, this is now Ponting's team. One built and shaped in his own style. But to lend it credibility, and erase his one major failure as captain, Ponting needs an Ashes win on English soil." ·