ASHES POSTURING

The Ashes is going down to the wire this year, with all to play for in the final Test at Edgbaston. Both teams are confident of winning, while the Aussies are not opposed to the odd dig either?

"I think we're good at that (being underdogs)," he said. "We've shown that in the past and I think we can take a lot of confidence from the fact it's 1-1 in the series at the moment.

"It's probably where both teams deserve to be at the moment.

"There's no reason for us to be negative at all. We got on top of them twice in the series and we need to do that once more." ? England captain Andrew Strauss puts the Headingley hammering behind him and looks forward to winning the final Test ? and thus the series.

"It's fair to say that he's (England captain Andrew Strauss) got a few more things on his plate right at the moment that we have." Australian skipper Ricky Ponting reckons Strauss should be worried.

"There will be some distractions there, even if you read the papers today it's all about Andrew [Flintoff] going into the retirement as you would expect.

"They will have those things to deal with, but that's not for us to worry." ? Ponting points out that Andrew Flintoff's imminent retirement will cause problems in the England camp.