And the television ratings aren't encouraging, either, with Tuesday night's game the lowest rated for an All-Star contest, down 14percentt from a year ago.
Australia, who won eight consecutive Ashes series between 1989 and 2002-03, will hope to salvage a draw from the series before the return contest down under, starting in November.
The dancing contest, down to the final four teams, delivered 20.5 million viewers from 8too 9 30 p.m., according to Nielsen's estimates.
"Lime in the eye!" he shouts, inviting the crowd to join a contest involving downing a shot, snorting salt and squeezing lime juice into their eyeballs.
In a contest that went down to the wire she beat her compatriot Mel Clarke, who won silver.
Susan Sarandon, the Academy Award-winning actress and a co-founder of the Manhattan table-tennis club SPiN New York, said in a telephone interview that writers were attracted to the sport because it is a contest that comes down to the individual and his or her paddle.
Although Romney narrowly defeated Christian fundamentalist Rick Santorum in Iowa in a contest that went down to the last ballot box in the early hours of Wednesday morning, it was a major setback for the former Massachusetts governor as he failed to emerge as the clear frontrunner.
She tries to fix him up with women and he tries to fix her up with dudes along the way including one who watches her win a contest to scarf down a mammoth four-pound steak and all its accoutrements so that she does not have to pay the 100 bucks for the steak.
"So sepulchrally resonant that it could have been synthesised from the combined timbres of Ian McKellen, Patrick Stewart and Alan Rickman holding an elocution contest down a well," sighed The Independent's Jonathan Romney.
For 2005, ISS counts 20 proxy contests, down from 30 in 2003.
