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There’s no love lost between Ian Chappell and Ian Botham. The Australian and the Englishman came to blows way back in 1977 in a Melbourne bar, and they were almost at it again on Monday. The duo went at each other in the car parking at the Adelaide Oval — the venue for the second Ashes Test. Had it not been for people around, who pulled them apart, things could have turned nasty.

According to reports, Chappell, 67, and Botham, 55, squared up to each after the end of play on Monday. They were in the parking area when “Chappell muttered something highly provocative as he went past”. A surprised Botham turned around to retort: “What did you say?”

And after Chappell made another incendiary remark, both were at each others’ throats before being quickly separated.

“They went for each other and it could have got very nasty if there hadn’t been people to keep them apart,” the daily quoted a source.

Clearly, the two aren’t in a mood to call truce anytime soon

England have ended a 35 year drought by winning the World Twenty20 title in Barbados.  The Australians batted first and struggled to 8-3 thanks to some diciplined bowling and some great fielding by England. The danger men Watson and Warner were out and England were in the driving seat. The Aussies regained their composure thanks to the likes of Michael Hussey and Michael Clarke posting a respectable 147-6 which was certainly a competitive score considering the dreadfull position that they were in at the start of the innings.

The Aussies started their fielding attack well claiming the wicket of Lumb off the bowling of Shaun Tait. But then with Kieswetter and Pietersen at the crease the england batting attack was in full flow reaching the 100 partnership off just 62 balls! Both batsmen went out rather cheaply giving England fans something to worry about and the Aussies hope but this was short lived as Paul Collingwood and Eoin Morgan made sure there was no late drama reaching the required score with 18 balls to spare.

This victory sets the 2010 Ashes Series up perfectly, to see the Official Living With The Lions Packages to Australia please click here.

England strolled to a seven-wicket win over Sri Lanka in the World Twenty20 semi-finals to reach an ICC tournament final for the first time since 2004.

Led by Stuart Broad, the bowlers excelled in St Lucia with only Angelo Mathews (58) making any sort of contribution in a total of 128-6.

Craig Kieswetter and Michael Lumb then put on 68 for the first wicket to put England firmly on course.

New dad Kevin Pietersen made 42 not out as they eased home with 24 balls left.

England’s eyes will now turn towards Sunday’s final in Barbados, potentially against this winter’s Ashes opponents Australia, should Michael Clarke’s unbeaten team put paid to Pakistan’s defence of the trophy on Friday.

England have never won a major global tournament, a statistic their fans are keen to see consigned to history, but Paul Collingwood’s side will go into the final full of confidence after an impressive all-round display.

Sri Lanka captain Kumar Sangakkara looked pleased to have won the toss as he elected to allow his batsmen to take first use of what transpired to be a blameless wicket at the Beausejour Stadium.

England knew it was vital to remove Mahela Jayawardene, who has been in red-hot form in the Caribbean, as early as possible.

And everything went entirely according to plan for Collingwood’s men as two wickets had already fallen by the time Jayawardene departed to Broad’s first delivery.

Broad, summoned up to bowl the fifth over after Tim Bresnan and Ryan Sidebottom had shared the new ball, bowled a delivery just back of a length outside off-stump, seaming away a fraction. Jayawardene’s thin defensive edge was easily snapped up by wicketkeeper Kieswetter.

By then, the 39-year-old Sanath Jayasuriya had been caught at second slip off Sidebottom, before Tillakaratne Dilshan was superbly held at deep square leg by a diving Luke Wright off Bresnan.

With Jayawardene following the procession back to the pavilion, England were already firmly in control, and Collingwood now turned to eight overs of solid spin bowling from Graeme Swann and Michael Yardy.

Sri Lanka’s batsmen could not take too many risks, and one of the few that was taken, Sangakkara’s lofted off-drive off Swann, resulted in an easy catch for Pietersen

he return of Broad and Sidebottom presaged a curious period of play withbatsmen flailing desperately at bouncers of varying speed

On one occasion, Chamara Kapugedara, who was eventually put out of his misery when driving Broad to mid-off, threw his bat out of his hands all the way to square-leg umpire Aleem Dar.

Mathews, who hit Sri Lanka’s only six, finally began to make sense of England’s tactics and, with the scoring choked to the tune of 96-5 off 17 overs, took Bresnan for 14 runs in the 18th, an over made more profitable by the Yorkshireman’s three wides.

But with no boundaries coming off either of the last two overs, there was little momentum for Sri Lanka to take into the England chase.

Sangakkara tried five different bowlers in the first five overs, to little avail.

Kieswetter and Lumb had the luxury of having a couple of overs to play themselves in, and once they had done so played some meaty shots to put pressure on the Sri Lankans.

England’s openers did get lucky on occasion - umpire Simon Taufel rejected a perfectly good lbw appeal by Mathews against Kieswetter when the right-hander had made 16, while Lumb only avoided being run out on 11 when Ajantha Mendis made an embarrassing mess of taking Lasith Malinga’s return.

Jayasuriya’s exploratory over saw both batsmen hit handsome sixes, though Kieswetter finally departed to a Malinga yorker.

Lumb should also have been caught on 23 by substitute fielder Nuwan Kulasekara, running in from long-off, in the ninth over.

He stayed to carve Thissara Perera over the off-side for two boundaries, before being bowled round his legs by the same bowler.

Pietersen announced his arrival back in the Caribbean - after a quick visit to London to attend the birth of his son - by hammering Suraj Randiv for an enormous six.

Skipper Collingwood, yet to make a significant score in the tournament, made just 10, but Pietersen continued to playbrilliantly , hitting Malinga for another six with what was little more than a simple flick over midwicket.

A straight drive along the ground for four off the same bowler ended the game in perfect fashion for an extremely focused England side.

Click here to see LWTL’s Ashes tour details>

We are pleased to announce that the England and Leicestershire wicket-keeper batsman Paul Nixon has informed us that he will is looking forward to joining Living WIth The Lions on tour in Australia in 2010. As an Official Travel Agent for the 3 Mobile Ashes Tour, Living WIth The Lions are able to offer a range of packages to all 5 of the test match series.

Australian cricket coach, Tim Nielsen, is set to leave the tour early in order to get a couple of weeks at home prior to a busy fixture list in the coming months.

Nielsen will leave after the fourth one-day match and the assistant coach, Troy Cooley, will take over. This will also coincide with Ricky Ponting’s return after a short break following the Ashes.

Michael Brown of Cricket Australia said:

“The Australian team has played back-to-back international cricket since September 2008 and we have a busy schedule over the next 12 months. This will also provide an excellent opportunity for Troy to continue his professional development by stepping up as acting coach for the remainder of the tour.”

Cooley previously worked as England’s bowling coach where he earned a great reputation after playing a key part in the creation of England’s 2005 Ashes-winning bowling attack of Harmison, Hoggard, Flintoff and Jones.

England were unable to retain his services however and he left to take up a similar role with his native Australia.

Despite losing three out of Australia’s last four Test series, it is not thought that Nielsen’s position is in doubt. Cricket Australia are seemingly willing to acknowledge the fact that the side is in transition following the departure of a number of great players around 18 months ago.

Cricket tours often throw up anomalies, within which a selection is made baffling many and causing the chattering of tiny laptops, this cannot be said of the West Indies tour to England however. Not that the West Indies would change many personnel in a team that beat England only a few months ago, no it is to England’s selectors that we must look for something ‘different’.

Whatever your opinion of the selectors is - and there are many opinions, not all repeatable in these pages, you would have to admit that their selection for the first test here against the Windies was a success. What? Onions and Swann were a great choice on a wicket that was bowler friendly because it get’s their confidence up for further Tests.

Look at the choice of Bopara at No3, a potential banana skin awaited him and the selectors as he went to the crease but the lad did well- even with a bit of help from a fumbling, bumbling dropped catch by Nash when Bop was on 76.

At Chester-le-Street we’re going to see the return of Bell and Sidebottom to the squad if not to the team, again a good piece of psychological skill here, boosting the players just before an Ashes series that could see a return of the little urn.

England batted out the final day of the fourth Test against the West Indies to draw the game, as Alastair Cook knocked 139 not out, his first Test century for over a year. England finished on 279-2 after declaring in their first innings for 600. The West Indies had already declared on 749-9.

The game was always headed for the draw after England’s first innings haul, but in typical England fashion they tried to make hard work of it, losing the wickets of Straus for 38 and Shah for 21.

The in form Pietersen knocked 72 not out to see England draw the Test, but they still trail the Windies 1-0 ahead of the final Test match in Trinidad on Friday. England now have to win the final Test to draw the series, the best result they can hope for.

Even though the game was clearly heading for the draw, the batting collapse England suffered in the first Test would have sparked doubt in the minds of England fans as their team headed out for the second innings.

Another England collapse was never on the cards though, as the pitch was too flat for the bowlers to get any change out of, allowing England to comfortably see out the game without any major scares.

A cricket tour is expected to be cancelled by New Zealand which was supposed to be held in Zimbabwe in July. This will be a difficult decision for the Cricket Board of New Zealand as they will need to pay compensation for the potential loss to Zimbabwe. The reason for cancellation of the tour was due to health concerns in the country because of a recent breakout of cholera.

The debate over July’s cricket tour between New Zealand and Zimbabwe is ongoing; however the chances of the game to be held in Zimbabwe are growing slimmer. Prime Minister John Key spoke on local television yesterday saying that, he was ready to consider the fact that the New Zealand team shouldn’t play at this point in time. In addition, he also stated that he would be threatening the player’s personal security by sending them to play in Zimbabwe.

However, it is said that unless the government takes action the New Zealand cricket association might have to face the problem of paying a penalty to the Zimbabwe board. Nevertheless, the game being held in Zimbabwe is on the verge of being cancelled.

The new official captain of the England team, Andrew Strauss has asked his team to make use of the beginning of his reign as the first step towards achieving their goal of being ranked as the top test cricket team.

The four-test match series against the West Indies held at the Sabina Park, marks the beginning of England’s cricket tour to the West Indies. Strauss is all excited about this series as it is their first assignment in the New Year.

This cricket tour proved to be a springboard for the English five years ago as they beat Australia with a momentum that lasted for 18 months.

Talking about this team, Strauss said that they generally liked to think of themselves as a young team since they have a number of young players. He also added that these players are gaining more experience and hence can be considered young only in age.

The performance of the team led him to say that they needed to be among the top 11 teams in order to rise higher in their rankings. He added that success for him meant pushing each other to give a great performance and he believed that this cricket tour was the best place to start doing it.

Australia’s cricket tour of South Africa has been a much awaited event not only for both countries but for cricket fans all over the world. Although this cricket tour is getting everyone excited, there is one person who may be quite down in the dumps at the start of the tour and that is Australia’s fast bowler Stuart Clark. The bowler, who was in the New South Wales side while they were supposed to take on Tasmania, pulled out of the match due to a swelling in his elbow.

Even though Clark underwent surgery for the problem before Christmas, he will be unable to play on the South African cricket tour which will be held towards the end of February.

The Australians are looking forward to their tour of South Africa and are slowly building their momentum for the upcoming games, according to Australian vice captain, Michael Clarke. However the team is surely going to miss the fast bowler and is hopeful of a quick recovery, which will be well appreciated.