Time for bull!

We have just witnessed one of the important stages in any Ashes competition - the BBB push for fame and glory.

BBB? No, it's not a new Twenty-20 league;it's an old Army saying - Bull Baffles Brains.

Thus Ricky Ponting, landing here with his Twenty-20 side - later to turn into the Ashes team - confiding to those with loaded but out-of-control pens, sharpened fingers or tape recorders that he was not concerned by England's recent improvement in form.

No? The RP statement is not so much the truth as an attempt to show that the Aussies are cool, unworried by defeats inflicted on a team as poor as West Indies - although, dear me, it would be beyond the pale to say as much - and that they will deal with newly-revived England as a matter of routine.

The Australians are past masters at selecting the England team, oh, going back to the time when WG was a clean-shaven whipper snapper.

"Andrew Flintoff is important to England but not if he bowls as he did in 2006-7," Ponting adds. The truth is that England have built up a neat package of fast medium bowling which will - if the groundsmen play their part and the selectors do not get cold feet - be just as effective as any team headed by Flintoff.

In fact, lets be honest, upright and fully committed to the truth here, Flintoff is a liability, is not likely to hit his straps - don't you just hate that phrase - as he did in 2005 and is better therefore if he is held in reserve while Jimmy Anderson, Stuart Broad and Ryan Sidebottom tear Ponting's babes to bits.

To be even more honest, If you think that last paragraph is anything but another example of BBB, you had better sell the mansion, take the profits to the bookies, back England and wave your life goodbye.

Lets hear it. The Ashes are coming and BBB is alive and well and comfortable on this blog!