It's just not cricket! Oh wait, yes it is!

Fwd Tech  Friday 03 July 2009

Get ready for the Ashes with this little lot of kit...

The most heated match-up in cricket kicks off again on July 8. That’s right: it’s the Ashes. While England, once again, attempt to wrestle the tiniest trophy in sports from our Australian cousins, get in the swing (ha ha) of things with this little lot of cricket kit…

Official 2009 Adidas England Cricket Ashes ODI Shirt (£34.77) Dress like your cricketing heroes KP and “Freddie” Flintoff and don the Official 2009 Adidas England Cricket Ashes ODI Shirt. It’s made from super-light fabrics and short-sleeved, so you can resist this unnaturally hot summer we’re experiencing. And who knows, should England somehow win, it might even become a collectors’ item!

Panasonic TH-65VX100E (£8,000) If you’re considering getting a few mates round to watch the cricket, you should do it on a TV that makes a statement. And none make a bigger statement than the Panasonic TH-65VX100E – a 65-inch television. This 60,000:1 contrast, pedigree plasma panel is to a normal HD telly what Freddie Flintoff is to you or I as a cricketer. Simply awesome.

Ashes Cricket 2009 (£39.99) Don’t fancy getting physical? No worries. Just play the game on your PS3, Xbox 360 or PC instead. Ashes Cricket 2009 provides an “authentic” Ashes experience, from enhanced bowling, dynamic and intuitive batting and fficial Hawk-Eye tracking to a Cricket Legends mode that allows you to get coaching from the likes of Beefy (Sir Ian Botham) and Warney (Shane Warne). Don’t you love sporting nicknames.

Adidas Pellara Pro cricket bat (£220) The choice of bat of King Kev himself, the Adidas Pellara has a long low middle that’s perfect for players on the front front – like England’s best hope for the Ashes, Kevin Pietersen. Pellara means to beat/push away, and you shouldn’t have to much trouble threatening to beat annoying bowlers with this nifty bat.

Sky Player Can’t get to a telly? Sky Player, Sky’s online TV service for PC and Mac, will be streaming the entire Ashes series this Summer, and even better, for July and August, the whole shebang will be available completely free to Sky TV customers. And if you don’t have a satellite you can watch Sky Sports 1, 2, 3, Xtra and Sky Sports News for just £17 a month on Sky Player. We’re thinking not much work will be done…

Limited Edition Cricket Ball Marmite (£3.49) Love it or hate it, you’ve got to love this limited edition cricket ball-shaped jar of Marmite. The 250g jar of the black stuff costs one pound more than the normal jars of Marmite, but look at what you’re getting. A slice (arf!) of history. Only 500,000 of the jars have been produced so keep an eye out for this commemorative yeast extract packaging on your supermarket shelves!