Fading England facing the fight of their lives at the Ashes

On Thursday we start all over again. It is back to 0-0, not 3-0 as it was last summer. Home advantage, especially in Brisbane and Perth, has always been highly advantageous for Australia. The wheel is starting to turn and it is England who are now being afflicted by injuries. The probability is that England will retain the Ashes, but it will be their closest series in Australia for more than a generation. First consideration when anticipating a series result is to work out the number of definite results there will probably be. From 1980 to 1991 there were three definite results in each Ashes series in Australia.

Since 1991 extra time has been added after rain, and three of the Ashes series in Australia have had four definite results, the other two five. This time one draw would be par. Some Australians, emboldened by signs their team have bottomed out, are predicting 3-1 - conceivable, if injury strikes a major England player. For instance, if Alastair Cook broke a finger and Matt Prior had to take over as captain; or if Kevin Pietersen's knees give way again and England lose their capacity to score quickly and give their bowlers extra time; or if James Anderson, heaven forfend, proved mortal at last.

Many England supporters are predicting 3-1 in their favour which, again, is possible if injury intervenes. Australia's batting would be lost without Michael Clarke, whose back ruled him out of the Champions Trophy last summer. Or if Ryan Harris, their attack leader, is injured - and he has managed only 16 Tests in his 34 years - they are down to the reserves of Ben Hilfenhaus and the uncapped Nathan Coulter-Nile. But if fate's scales are not suddenly tipped by serious injuries to senior players, this series is finely balanced.

Home advantage might not be significant in the Melbourne and Sydney Tests, when England will be settled in, but it will be when England's team bus crosses the Brisbane River and pulls up outside the players' entrance in Vulture Street. In cricket as elsewhere, some history is relevant, some not. Here it is highly relevant that England have won only one proper Test at Brisbane since the Second World War; and none at Perth; and these are two of the first three venues.

In Perth the bounce has been troubling England, except in 1978-79 when Australia fielded their second XI because of World Series Cricket. At the Gabba it has been the bounce - and Brisbane's alien environment as the least English, the most American, of Australia's state capitals.

This combination of the ball bouncing and swinging away outside off-stump, together with first-night nerves, has made England's record at the Gabba little short of terrible. This will be England's 20th Test at the Gabba, and in that time they have scored six individual centuries - half of them last time, when Andrew Strauss, padding up, was two inches away from recording a pair, before becoming the first England captain to score a century here. Such a failure to lead from the front has been one reason for England's doleful record of 10 defeats in 17 Tests since the War - whereas Michael Clarke averages 114, even more than Bradman.

One of the signs that Australia have bottomed out and are beginning to make use of their resources - with some good people counteracting a poor system - is that they have picked their right team at last. The lefthanded batsmen who clogged up their middle order last summer, to Graeme Swann's delight, have been weeded out. Another sign is that England in their three warm-up games have been denied any chance of preparing against pace and bounce, all by Cricket Australia's cunning design.

Both Cook and Jonathan Trott followed Strauss in making centuries at the Gabba last time in England's famous 517 for one declared, which wrested the psychological advantage away from Australia. But they are not the batsmen they were: Australia worked out how to bowl at both of them last summer, when they contributed usefully but neither got past 62.

It is also because of the captaincy that Cook is not the batsman he was last time. There are so many distractions on the first morning of an Ashes series in Brisbane. "Control the uncontrollables" is the glib maxim, but even if the England captain has enjoyed a full night's sleep and his breakfast has not been queasy, how can he focus on batting when the half-hour before the start is filled with media interviews and a raucous opening ceremony?

This is the time of year for thunderstorms in Brisbane, and several are expected over this weekend and tomorrow, and again next Sunday, though not for the first three days of the match. Given a start at 10am, and moisture in the humid air, conditions on the first morning will encourage the swing-and-seamers. The Gabba this weekend looks very green: 20,000 square metres of turf were relaid - for the first time since the 2000 Olympics - after the Australian Rules season ended in August.

The square itself, or the 'block' as curators call it, is very green, too, as it has not been used for a game of cricket this season. So this lushness will keep the Kookaburra shiny for conventional swing, but reduce the possibilities for reverse. But coming from Essex, Cook will need no reminding of what happened to Nasser Hussain 11 years ago when he decided to send in Australia at Brisbane. Long before Australia ended the opening day on 364 for two, he was pilloried.

However strong Cook's urge to bowl first, thereby giving himself time to settle before batting, recent precedent - not distant history - will deter him. Cook and Trott are not alone, either. On England's last tour every player was at or near his peak except for Paul Collingwood, who retired from Tests at the end of the series, and Strauss - past his peak as a batsman but in his prime as a captain. Of England's batsmen this time, only Ian Bell can claim to be at his peak.

The graphs of the others are a gradual but definite long-term 'down', excepting the two newcomers in Michael Carberry, 33, who has played one Test, and Joe Root, 22. By far the likeliest venue for a draw in this series is Adelaide, now the Oval has been turned from a cricket ground into a stadium for Australian Rules and drop-in pitches have been installed.

The one game so far has been a bore-draw: South Australia had posted 420 on the old scoreboard - which is listed, and therefore not demolished - before losing their second wicket. Drop-in pitches are normally short of heavy-rolling in situ to speed them up. If Monty Panesar gets a game, it could well be here. Yes, 3-1 to either side is conceivable but, if there are no major injuries, my stab in the dark is the first shared series in Australia since the 1960s: 2-2.