Boland, Bumrah and Raspberry Jam on Toast
“Rasputin and Raspberry Jam” Vol.7
“Boland, Bumrah and Raspberry Jam on Toast” acts as the sixth and final chapter within the final Act of 3 inside my latest self-published book “Rasputin and Raspberry Jam”, a day-by-day and match-by-match breakdown of England’s 2024 overseas tours to Pakistan and New Zealand and as an added extra in Act 3, the 5 Test Match series between Australia and India too.
Released in paperback and hardback on 7th January 2025 and free to read if you have an Amazon Kindle “Unlimited” membership, but please consider supporting an indie author by purchasing the physical, tangible book (reasonably priced on both formats and it looks FAR better in paper published form than the Kindle version!) if you are financially able.
Thanks.
Here follows a larger version of the front cover (rather than the cropped image to fit the article headline here) as well as a link to the book in paperback, a link to my original article (6th January 2025) and the original article in full:
"Rasputin and Raspberry Jam" - link to Amazon
INDIA 185 and 157
AUSTRALIA 181 and 162–4
Australia win the Border/Gavaskar Trophy Series 3–1
It’s the 5th of January in a new year of 2025 and whilst there’s a light dusting of snow here in middle England a world away in the future and in the sunshine of Sydney those old stagers and a team I’ve long monikered as a tight “gang of mates” have triumphed again in a come from behind win to wrest back the Border/Gavaskar trophy from India in a series for the ages and as Mitchell Starc was so quick and proud to announce on the outfield immediately post-match in Sydney, they now hold every major honour in the game from the ICC World Cup through to being World Test Champions as well as The Ashes they’ll be defending like lions in ten or so months time.
I’ve departed from my usual script for this final Test Match in the series but rest assured I have pages of scribbled notes as per usual as nestled beneath a mound of duvets I’ve watched every ball of every session of play, from the 10.30pm pre-day countdown show on FOX TV Australia through to 7am and three hours sleep before rising like a sleepy sloth to prepare breakfast for my son and I before clearing away the biscuit crumbs and any remaining signs of the raspberry jam on toast that aided my faintly ridiculous odyssey of watching Test Match cricket “through the night” and an odyssey that for another English winter, has now officially reached its end.
So departing from the norm and penning my thoughts on each and every day of a Test Match I’ve instead decided to conclude yet another winter’s odyssey with the human beings that populate this grandest of all games and as India won the toss on a Thursday night come Friday morning in Australia, and on a wicket that resembled the green seamers across the Tasman Sea in New Zealand, we’ll start with the vanquished. Stand-in captain Jasprit Bumrah won a toss that, in one of my final uses of the vernacular of the great game was “a great toss to lose” and although his counterpart Pat Cummins said he too would have batted if he’d won the toss, Bumrah chose to bat first on a green wicket that was described immediately by all and sundry in the television world of FOX as “spicy” and by the middle of day 3 and the conclusion of this fantastic spectacle of a Test Match, described by a victorious Nathan Lyon as “naughty”.
Add in the overhead clouds of an overcast Sydney and Scott Boland bowling like a tiger and exploiting the cricketing conditions provided him, India could only limp to 57–3 by Lunch on the opening day and Australia, and especially the brilliant Scott Boland, were already scenting sporting blood. But that’s excitedly getting ahead of ourselves as always and we’re starting here with India and so we must, as is tradition, commence with the captains new and old, currently with a defeated feeling of blue and perhaps, and hopefully not, living on a sporting sense of borrowed time too.
In the captain’s own words, and that of his replacement Jasprit Bumrah, Rohit Sharma “rested himself” from the fifth and final Test Match here in Sydney and of course this is just the word play of papering over the cracks of the 37 year old’s severe loss of form. As one of his biggest fans for over a decade I hope the end isn’t nigh, in a Test Match sense, for the stylish batsman from Nagpur, but one fears that it is, and with over 4,000 runs in the whites of India I see the veteran only in the coloured clothing of the one day game and especially so the Indian Premier League from now on. Time will tell, as it always does, but my oh my have I marvelled at his belligerent yet considered, punishing yet stylish batting, even when putting England to the sword! Bumrah, 6 years junior than his current captain, was forced from the field of play through injury on Day 2 and whilst he batted today he couldn’t field or bowl and one hopes this isn’t a recurrence of the back injury that kept him from the Test Match team for many months and prevented the wider world from watching a genuine master craftsman at work. 205 Test Match victims and 32 wickets in this series alone doesn’t come anywhere close to describing how dominant his performances were this winter as time and time again he ripped through the Aussie batting order when not making them look foolish by bowling simply unplayable deliveries that would’ve defeated the world’s best from any era you care to name.
Bumrah vies with his opposite number Pat Cummins as the world’s best bowler as well as the emblematic talisman for their team and I ADORE watching him bowl, so here’s hoping the injury is just a niggle that with time and rest he will fully recover from. Although they have separately ruined many a long night watching England play, I can’t but admire Pat Cummins greatly too and whilst we’re getting ahead of ourselves once more, it seems fitting at the halfway mark in my final journal of the winter to incorporate the parting words of the captains before we continue. We’re breaking with tradition here, so let’s continue in this same vein.
Bumrah was magnanimous in defeat and after confirming what the wider watching world saw and “the whole series was well fought… so it was not like it was totally one-sided” praised an unbeatable Aussie team and “it was a great series, congratulations to Australia. They fought really well for a well-deserved win”. Pat Cummins correctly described the series as a whole as “seesawing throughout” and “to hold the trophy is an amazing feeling” before speaking for the connoisseur and even a mad-dog Englishman eating raspberry jam on toast at 4am every morning with “one of the things I love most about Test cricket is it challenges you in so many different ways. You need more than 11 players, you need an amazing squad, you need amazing support staff to be able to win everywhere in the world”. He would go on to praise the three debutants in the series as this relentless team of winners are in a rebuilding phase as I’ve long posited before ending, perhaps ominously ahead of The Ashes late this coming year “it feels like we are building something nice”.
Before we appraise and give praise to the winners, Jasprit Bumrah didn’t deserve to be on the losing side of this cricketing coin and neither did Mohammed Siraj (who has long since proven me wrong as not being a Test Match worthy bowler) and bowled his heart out all series long. Yashasvi Jaiswal left the dropped catches of Melbourne behind with two stunning catches here and whilst the wunderkind didn’t score the volume of runs expected of him in the series he will in the future, and perhaps as early as this summer in England for another eagerly awaited 5 Test Match series. Ravindra Jadeja continues to be the “rock star” Shane Warne lovingly predicted, Virat Kohli the pumped up pantomime villain (and how he must be looking forward to this summer in England!) and then there’s the mercurial Rishabh Pant. Top scorer in both innings with as dogged and determined 40 runs in the 1st innings as you’re ever likely to see (whilst being peppered about the body with six blows that I counted, twice, and very painfully, in the unmentionables area!) before a sizzling 61 from just 33 balls in the 2nd innings and a 29 ball half century that was a pure joy to watch live. Even in spite of some beautiful bowling from Prasidh Krishna who scalped 6 of the 14 Australian wickets to fall, India just didn’t have the firepower in the absence of Jasprit Bumrah to win here and tie the series. But they will be one hell of an adversary in the English summer ahead of The Ashes in 10 months time.
To the victors belong the spoils and a bunch of bloody Aussies who refuse to bloody lose! My tongue is firmly in my cheek as I’ve followed this “gang of mates” for many years and written about them extensively since the 2021–2022 Ashes and whilst I’ve continually written them off as a team in transition, the core of 7/8 players still remain and still retain that nagging Aussie trait of not only refusing to lose, but being desperate to win. One can only admire such sporting desire. You may well have the debutants and newcomers (although Nathan McSweeney has almost certainly dropped down the pecking order in favour of Sam Konstas) and Beau Webster was mightily impressive with both bat (only half century in the entire match and on debut too) and with the ball, the spine of this relentless Aussie team appears as ageless as ever. Usman Khawaja staked his claim to continue at the top of the order with an uncharacteristically expressive and expansive run-a-ball 41 in the 2nd Innings, Marnus Labuschagne is going nowhere at number 3 and am I allowed to laugh at Steve Smith being currently stuck at 9,999 Test Match runs? Whether or not I’m allowed to laugh I did, and loudly, and cheered him all the way back to the Pavilion.
Bad luck Smudge!
But Smith is staying put alongside his chirping and chuckling brother-in-arms Marnus Labuschagne and with Travis Head at number 5, the Aussies continue to have a mighty impressive top to their batting order. Next they have the luxury of a three-way battle for number 6 with a soon to be returning from injury Cameron Green desperate for his place back ahead of an out of form Mitchell Marsh and debutant Beau Webster. Alex Carey is going nowhere with the wicket-keeping or batting gloves at number 7 before you have the batting “tail” of the world’s best bowler and captain Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc and “Goat” Nathan Lyon ahead of Josh Hazlewood at number 11, and there you have an Australian cricket team that refuses to lose and revels in victory.
Ah, but then we have the beautiful enigma of the unrequited love of my cricket life, Scott Boland. Only back in the team due to an injury to Josh Hazlewood and yet, again, he repaid the adoration of the MCG with his wickets once more and here in Sydney, he was damn near unplayable once again. On Day 1 alone he had bowling figures, at various times, of 5 Overs 1 Wicket for 5 Runs, 10 Overs 3 Wickets for 14 Runs before ending the 1st innings with 4 Wickets for 31 Runs and then running rampant late on Day 2 with a further 4 wickets before mopping up 2 further wickets on Day 3 to finish with match figures of 10 Wickets for 76 Runs.
Scott Boland. Be still my beating heart!
Will the 2025–2026 Ashes be an Ashes series too far for this gang of mates?
(I’ve posed this question now for 2+ years!)
Will the Aussies retain their World Test Champion status in the summer against a resurgent South Africa?
How will the English revolutionaries fare against India in the summer before it’s Australia Fair again in 10 months?
Will Scott Boland ever reply to my love letters?
Alas my winter odyssey is over and a sporting flight of fancy that began in Pakistan at 4am in early October (and my prediction of a 3–0 England series victory that ended 2–1 in favour of Pakistan!) before late November in beautiful New Zealand (and a predicted 2–1 defeat ending in a 2–1 England victory!) and now here, through a light dusting of snow on 5th January in a new year that will end, and begin anew in 2026 as I watch England “through the night” once more.
I need some sleep before the ladies Ashes starts in 6 days.
Anyone for a cup of tea and some lashings of raspberry jam on toast?
Thanks for reading. I hope this message in a bottle in The Matrix finds you well, prospering, and the right way up in an upside down world.