Now that both sides have named their Ashes squads, we can ask the really important question...which side has the most google hits?
England
Andrew Strauss - 471,000
Alistair Cook - 491,000
Both unremarkable, a professor and a magician almost as famous
Kevin Pietersen - 897,000
KP's 2nd favourite band, McFly, performed a song about him called 'It's all about you.' None of these hits involve KP talking about anyone else.
Ravi Bopara - 361,000
Decent total at first glance for the newcomer, but it turns out that most of these are about KP and just happen to mention Bopara.
Paul Collingwood - 501,000
Seems to be a lot more interest in him than is warranted
Ian Bell - 901,000
Suprising result, further research indicates 897,000 of these results also include the word 'sherminator'
Matt Prior - 10,500,000
Surely some shenanigans going on here...suspect Zaremba's involvement. Regardless, expect Flintoff and Pietersen to demand 'google parity'
Andrew Flintoff - 525,000
Yet again the results do not live up to the hype
Stuart Broad - 466,000
Including Stephanie Broad adds another 3.08m results
Adil Rashid - 326,000
Slightly more popular than Chris Hinton
Graeme Swann - 582,000
Less popular than his brother
Ryan Sidebottom - 251,000
Sponsored links to hair salons make up the bulk of these results
James Anderson - 21,100,000
James Anderson didn't know that James Anderson was so popular
Graham Onions - 717,000
98% Involve at least 1 pun
Monty Panesar – 195,000
Results for Monty Panesar + Scaly Piscine total 187,694
Tim Bresnan – 68,100
My ISP may have filtered out links originating from unreliable areas
England Total 38,352,100…average 2.397m
Australia
Phil Hughes – 1,090,000
Before he became a cricketer he was George Best’s Agent, so presumably he can sink a few
Simon Katich – 111,000
Apparently he likes to be known as Duck Blaster
Ricky Ponting – 921,000
92% also include the phrase ‘We’ll have a bowl’
Mike Hussey – 366,000
Used to have the highest number no. of hits since Headley, has slumped recently
Michael Clarke - 23,100,000
Virtual Fairs – Why Bother?, indeed
Marcus North - 3,660,000
There seems to be a whole town named after him, kudos.
Shane Watson – 402,000
Amongst the double glazing adverts, it seems Shane has written a handy guide for those of us
looking for a man after 40
Brad Haddin – 147,000
Adam Gilchrist has nearly 4 times as many
Andrew Macdonald – 3,690,000
None of these hits are about him
Mitchell Johnson 8,950,000
For those who haven’t seen him he looks like this:
Nathan Hauritz – 47,800
Slightly lower than his bowling average
Stuart Clark – 465,000
Has his own breakfast show on Delta Radio
Brett Lee – 1,720,000
Is apparently named after a greyhound. I did not know this.
Ben Hilfenhaus 44,400
Peter Siddle 94,200
Graham Manou 47.400
If they made a pact between them to talk about each other all the time they could boost their profiles.
Australia total – 44855400, average 2.803 million
So it looks like a victory for a Michael Clarke inspired Australia, England deserved underdogs for the Ashes