Ashes 2005

This year's Test cricket series between England and Australia is the most eagerly awaited since Botham's Ashes of 1981. Grounds like Lord's and the Oval were sold out for all five days months ago, and tickets could have been sold several times over. For the first time in decades England go into the series as one of the top Test sides in the world, with - at least on paper - a real chance of winning. England have magnificent match-winning players like Andrew Flintoff and Andrew Strauss; Australia have men like Glenn McGrath, Ricky Ponting and Matthew Hayden. Gideon Haigh is covering the whole series for the Guardian, and has now been commissioned to write a book about the whole series, which Aurum will rush out within weeks of the final ball of the series being bowled. This is not a piece of instant hackwork: this will be a considered and eloquent account of a historic sporting event by possibly the finest writer on cricket at the moment, whose classic Mystery Spinner (also published by Aurum) has been acclaimed as a 'classic' and a 'small masterpiece'. There will be a large audience for it, and a continuing one.