Second-placed England [Images] goes into the Ashes needing to win all five Test matches to knock Australia from the top of the LG ICC [Images] Test Championship.

Australia's lead at the top of the official table has been over 20 points since August 2004 and it holds a 21-point advantage over its closest rival going into this series.

England has a very good opportunity to close this gap as even a one-Test margin of victory would see the gap reduced to eight points while a drawn series would lift England's rating to 117 points, 13 behind Australia.

Australia's dominance of Test cricket over recent years is such that it must win by a three-Test margin to extend its lead over England.

Australia goes into the series with three batsmen -- Ricky Ponting [Images], Damien Martyn and Adam Gilchrist [Images] -- in the top 10 of the LG ICC Player Rankings. In Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne [Images] they have two of the top five bowlers.

England's highest ranked Test players are Marcus Trescothick [Images] (batting) and Matthew Hoggard [Images] (bowling) who both hold tenth spot in their specialised disciplines.

The LG ICC Test Championship table correct on 18 July 2005:

Position	Team	Rating
1	Australia	132
2	England	111
3	India	107
4	Pakistan	100
5	Sri Lanka [Images]	100
6	South Africa	100
7	New Zealand [Images]	97
8	West Indies [Images]	75
9	Zimbabwe	41
10	Bangladesh	5

England v Australia � full scenarios:

			Eng	Aus
Rating as at July 2004			111	132
England win	by 5 Tests	5-0	125	122
England win	by 4 Tests	4-0	123	123
England win	by 3 Tests	3-0, 4-1	122	125
England win	by 2 Tests	2-0, 3-1	121	126
England win	by 1 Test	1-0. 2-1, 3-2	119	127
Series drawn		0-0, 1-1, 2-2	117	130
Australia win	by 1 Test	1-0. 2-1, 3-2	114	132
Australia win	by 2 Tests	2-0, 3-1	113	134
Australia win	by 3 Tests	3-0, 4-1	111	135
Australia win	by 4 Tests	4-0	110	136
Australia win	by 5 Tests	5-0	109	138