Tea and Biscuits at The Ashes: The Debrief
A Root and Branch Review of English cricket? Your stars of a cricketing winter? And reflections and ruminations over a final cup of tea.
A Root and Branch Review of English cricket? Your stars of a cricketing winter? And reflections and ruminations over a final cup of tea.
Before we delve into the human condition and resultant twisted psyche that 7 weeks of late night and early morning Test Match cricket can produce, here are six blogs that I hope are indicative of why I enjoy Ashes cricket so much when played “down under”, in the middle of the night in the UK, and always in the dark, with only tea, biscuits and the dulcet tones of Shane Warne for company:
A cricketing journey
Why I’m going to Australia at 2am this winter for lunch and why cricket memories never fail to make me smile.medium.com
Tea and Biscuits at The Ashes
Bellerive Oval, Hobart, Day 1: Rain tops and tails a day that Travis Head will never forget.medium.com
Tea and Biscuits at The Ashes
SCG, Sydney, Day 1: Australia make progress in the Sydney rain whilst in the New Zealand sunshine, Bangladesh beat the…medium.com
Tea and Biscuits at The Ashes
MCG, Melbourne, Day 1: England 185 all out. Australia 61–1. Yet another Christmas Test Match and far too many gifts for…medium.com
Tea and Biscuits at The Ashes
Adelaide Oval, Day 1: Australia 221–2 and with their feet firmly on the throat of a tired looking England.medium.com
Tea and Biscuits at The Ashes
The Gabba, Brisbane, Day 1: England win the unwinnable toss and are bundled out for just 147. Australia on top.medium.com
As is custom following yet another Ashes humiliation in the land of the kangaroo “England Cricket” will undergo yet another debrief, yet more forms will be completed, yet more “brains trusts” will be convened and yet another final report will be delivered amongst much English pomp and circumstance and the wailing and gnashing of the media teeth, and at the end of this particular sporting rainbow will be a pot not containing gold, and certainly not the much vaunted Ashes either. The customary review will be carried out and the result will be exactly the same as the last report on the last failure to win even a single Test Match in Australia: that things have to change, the county cricket system is too bloated and watched by too few, the counties have to be trimmed down considerably and more emphasis must be placed on the longer 3 day county cricket game rather than the slap and dash of the multi million pound(s) inducing 20/20 format or one day games. But turkey’s don’t vote for Christmas and county cricket clubs aren’t going to go voluntarily to their demise, even if persuaded in doing so means England will once again triumph in Australia and right the cricketing wrongs of 34 years.
And counting.
And we could keep counting and we could run a diagnostic check as to why England are so regularly beaten, and comprehensively so in Australia, and we could chew the fat endlessly as to the impending death of Test Match cricket in a world where length and quality has been replaced by highlight reels, Tik Tok videos and instant gratification for the shortening of the collective attention span. We could delve into the conspiratorial too if you wish, but I don’t particularly encourage you to do so. The submergence into The Matrix and the everything now world we so joyously endure, juxtaposed against a battle of wits and sporting endeavour over five days (FIVE DAYS!) that may still not see a winner? FIVE DAYS! Five days of ever changing sporting fortunes, being in and out and in again, before being back out again and somebody else is in? Linguistic rhymes and in jokes, of a “silly mid off” or a “deep point”, “dead balls” and “no balls”, “pink balls” and “swinging balls”.
Who’s got time for this sort of linguistic madness? Who’s got time for a match that lasts 5 days when no-one (aside from the stereotypical one man and his dog) watches the shorter 3 day county format and now, within our brand new sparkling digital world, why not just make hay at the foot of Mammon with a game that can be over (cricket pun there for you is ever there was one) in just a few hours? Insert the highlights into a 45 second Tik Tok video to be shown in the advertisement break for “Celebrities Dancing on Frozen Water” and the whole thing can be forgotten about in minutes.
Who needs a long drawn out debrief and review process when I’ve already solved the problem? Just put the final digital nail in the coffin of Test Match cricket and burn it comprehensively into ashes. Nobody in their right mind has time these days to relax into a long drawn out sporting contest between two conjoined Nations who both proclaim their love for the same Queen but who bitterly squabble over a tiny urn full of the ashes of a burnt “bail” from over 100 years ago. Five days you say? A dirty ball that swings against the grain of agreed physics? Short Legs and Long Legs? Vice Captains who are really the actual Captain? No Balls and Wide Balls? Bouncers, Bumpers, Yorkers and Grubbers? Not to mention the sledging and the chirping or the intense one on one cricketing battles that might be over in an hour or tiptoe into the following day, or the following week’s match or that crucial fifth match in a long drawn out series such as The Ashes.
Who has time for all that?
Not to put too finer a backward point on all this, but the human being who had such time as this, one who loves to litter his rambles with cricketing puns and who actively encouraged himself to put his psyche through this sporting wringer, was me. And obviously I blooming loved every single tension filled opening session, every English afternoon batting collapse and those last elongated sessions that as the sun was setting in a far away land a sun was rising here amongst the frosty confines of a bitingly cold English winter’s day. But English cricket needs to change and although they very definitely need to protect it’s Root, the branches need stripping back to see the wood for the trees before the Test Match game is lost amongst the noise of a world that’s creating it’s own history right now, right this minute, and cares barely a jot for the much older version in the history books, Wisden, or otherwise.
I’m a problem solver not a creator of one, and as such the freedom of my long association with my publishers, Sports Unillustrated eschews that I do not in fact need to provide the debrief that England Cricket will indeed carry out and then never really implement. So in the fashion of all good cinematic stories I shall split my own alternative debrief into three distinct parts or “Acts” and should you think my use of “Act” is pretentious, wait until I tell you that I wanted to have a cricketing “Oscars” Section but my Cricket Editor nearly fell off his high horse when I told him! So Acts they shall be and there will be three, and in a very numerically factual order too. For your convenience.
Act One — A Cricketing Story
In the 34 years since England last won The Ashes in Australia in 1986/87 (and a tour I remember fondly being as it was the first real time I’d watched cricket live through the night from Australia), England have only won 6 individual Test Matches in those near three and a half decades. 6 wins, and 3 of those came in 2010/2011 when they won The Ashes on Australian soil for the last time. So is it any wonder that between Rory Burns losing his leg stump and Ollie Robinson surrendering all three of them that England again failed to win a single match this winter and lost 4–0 (out of 5) in the process? I was as excited as anyone when on December 8th, and on a frozen UK night, Mitchell Starc came roaring in from the other side of the world, steam flowing from both ears as he pounded towards the wicket and smashing his full pitched “yorker” into Burns’ leg stump. One ball, England were 0–1 and as the old saying goes “It can’t get any worse than this”. But the repeaters of such old fashioned clap trap hadn’t been watching this England team, had they?
As Ollie Robinson, in the cricketing vernacular, “backed away” and tried in vain to hoist the pink cricket ball high into a Hobart night, Aussie Skipper Pat Cummins wheeled away in delight as his ball, his “delivery”, and the final delivery of this Ashes series crashed into all three of the Englishman’s stumps, and England had not only collapsed again but crumbled like a wet newspaper in the English rain and in double quick, record breaking time too.
In between these dastardly Australian feats of bowling came 2 further Test Match defeats, all by huge margins, and a drawn game by the thinnest of possible measures before collapsing, yet again, under the weight of an incredible Australian bowling quartet, under the Hobart floodlights, and dramatically in just under two hours of play. The first 3 matches that ensured the Ashes stayed in it’s protective casing in Lords, London, but very firmly in the metaphorical grasp of Australia, came in 3 huge and mightily decisive wins. The first Test was won by 9 wickets (effectively an Innings win), the second was by 275 runs (again close to an Innings win) and the third was by an Innings and 14 runs. The brilliant draw in Sydney whet the appetite for the denouement in Hobart, but the Aussies rolled England over in under 2 hours and in only the third day of five. England were comprehensively beaten in every Test Match (even the officially drawn game) and were never, ever in front of their Aussie hosts or able to put them under any pressure whatsoever. It was truly one way traffic from the beginning to the end of the tour, yet at the Tea Break in Hobart England had a tiny glimmer of redemption and were “ahead” (kind of) and debatable marginal favourites to win for the first time in the series. Under 2 hours later they’d been “skittled” and collapsed yet again and the Ashes was over down under for another 4 years.
Act Two — Your Stars of the Cricketing Big Dance 2021/2022
Mark Wood (England)
“Woody” bowled his sporting and metaphorical heart out for his team and finally in the last Test Match in Hobart received his rewards and finished with 17 wickets at a cost of 26 runs per wicket. The statistics do not do justice to his continual whole hearted displays throughout the tour and I rather believe he actually relished being asked time and again to bowl by his Skipper Joe Root. Root often didn’t have any alternative but to throw the ball to his fast bowler, and Woody often simply smiled before pinning his ears back and roaring in at 85mph time and time again. He finished deservedly as England’s top wicket taker and 4th overall behind the Aussie trio of Skipper Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc and new cult hero Scott Boland.
Pat Cummins (Australia)
The Aussie Skipper (Steve Smith jokes aside) was magnificent both on and off the field. He missed a Test Match due to the stringent virus protocols and still finished as the top wicket taker of the series with 21 wickets at a cost of just 18 runs. Unheard of and unreal numbers and whilst I detest statistics and try to veer away from such things, the numbers here do not lie. In today’s statistics driven world he is officially rated as the Number 1 bowler in the world and he showed why in this Ashes series with his relentless pace bowling on a nagging and annoying Glenn McGrath type length and with aggression, a smile and a constant leaping into a gaggle of teammates he led to cricketing success. Raised the urn. National hero. Number 1 bowler in the world.
Quite the Australian summer for the Australian Captain.
Scott Boland (Australia)
New Aussie cult hero and I couldn’t be happier for him. Aboriginal heritage, shy, reserved, awkward and avoider of the limelight, the ovations he received from Melbourne’s notorious “Bay 13” after he bowled his way into their cricketing hearts was a bittersweet marvel to observe. Boland finished 3rd in the overall wickets table with 18 scalps at the ridiculous cost of just 9 runs each and only played 3 of the 5 Tests as his debut at the Melbourne Cricket Ground was somewhat of a surprise. A surprise that was clearly on the English batsmen who were skittled out as he grabbed 6 wickets for just 7 runs on a glorious afternoon in the vast MCG. Deservedly stayed in the team for the final 2 Tests and always picked up a vital wicket at a vital time and always, always cheered to the rafters by his newly adoring cult fans. If you were a fast bowler in your youth, you dreamed of what Scott Boland achieved.
And Scott Boland went out and did it.
Despite the team loyalties, I couldn’t be happier for him.
Cameron Green (Australia)
If Green can keep his giant bodily frame fit, this 22 year old will have a huge role to play in several Ashes series to come. Being the team’s “all rounder” he struggled with the bat early in the series but eventually hit a top score of 74 and like Boland above, whenever Cummins needed a vital wicket, he turned to Green and the big Aussie grabbed 13 wickets at a cost of just 15 runs per wicket. Couple all of this youthful promise inside a huge bouncy fast medium bowler who can really bat and a fantastically accomplished close fielder in the “Gully” position, Australia have a potential all round cricketer for a decade or more to come.
Travis Head (Australia)
Officially both the “Man of the Match” in Hobart and crowned “Man of the Series” too, Head missed one match due to the virus protocols and still scored two centuries, took valuable catches in the field and led the total runs scored column in the entire series with 357. Head, like Boland, Michael Neser and Jhye Richardson deserved his initial place in the Test Match team but came from a large pool of Aussies desperate to play and desperate to stay in the team when they do. He returned after scoring an unbelievable hundred and scored another! Boland kept his place through sheer brilliance and only illness, fitness and protocols kept the likes of Neser and Richardson from returning to the team. Travis was “head and shoulders” (oh come on, I’m allowed one lame gag, surely?) above the rest and watching his attacking and counter attacking batting was a joy, even at 4am on a cold, frost covered UK morning.
Stuart Broad (England)
Veteran Broad only played in 3 of the 5 matches and whilst this is expected of a player in his 36th year, he often played in the wrong matches too! Regardless of the whys and wherefores of England’s selection policy, Broad had to bowl his heart out like Mark Wood above, and he did, taking 13 wickets at a cost of 26 runs apiece. He resumed his years long tussle with Australian opening batsman David Warner and often got his man whilst demonstrating his lionhearted spirit in the process. Like his bowling partner of so many years Jimmy Anderson, if Broad had played more maybe he could’ve swung a Test Match in England’s favour but it would have been a huge ask to wheel him out for every match. Like so many of his bowling compadres he was on his knees come the end of the series and England, whether they played him more often or not, had got the very best out of him when they did.
Cricketing Cinderella's
The players who didn’t quite merit attendance at the Big Dance include the very best from each team: England’s Skipper Joe Root scored 3 half century’s, top scored with 89 and averaged 32 runs over the series but he got in, established himself, batted well and then succumbed to the pace bowling of the Australians, and the same could be said for a young Zak Crawley who impressed in only 3 Tests, top scored with 77 and may well go to the cricketing Ball and Big Dance in future years. Dawid Malan constantly flickered into life but was equally constantly snuffed out, Jonny Bairstow’s century was a highlight of the series for England and Jimmy Anderson may only have snagged 8 wickets on his last tour of Australia but was supreme at times.
Australia’s roll call of players not quite hitting their stride in this series, and surprisingly so, include David Warner who twice got into the 90’s before failing to register historic centuries and only averaged 34 runs with the bat. Marnus Labuschagne, that annoying (if entertaining) chirpy songbird so often caught on the technological “Stump Mike” chatting and chirping non stop, hit just one century in this series and despite the average of 41 runs never reached the heights of the officially sanctioned Number 1 batsman in the world. Nor too his partner in wisecracking crime Steve Smith who only reached 50 twice, no centuries and a very, very average (average) of only 30. Usman Khawaja hit back to back centuries in the 4th Test but barely troubled the scorers in the 5th and Marcus Harris flattered to deceive before being dropped for the last match.
Act Three — Your Belle of the Cricketing Ball
I’d encourage and thank you to read the first blog linked at the top of this article entitled “A Cricketing Journey”. I won’t rehash it here but suffice to say it’s one of my most personal pieces of writing to date as well as elucidating the varying reasons why I dedicated myself over these past weeks to really delving into and enjoying the cricket from Australia, regardless of the sporting outcome. I’m not a patriotic sort but I do have an affiliation for the England cricket team and that was fostered over many formative years with my cricket mad parents. I don’t, for example, cheer on the England football team and haven’t done so for over 2 decades now. I simply do not enjoy the pervasive and jingoistic tub thumping that comes in spades anywhere and everywhere around the football team. But I vividly remember watching Ian Botham and Graham Dilley smashing the Aussies all over Headingley on a cold Monday morning in 1981 with my Dad. Botham allegedly told Dilley when he arrived at the wicket that they had nothing to lose and to give it some “humpty”. And boy did they! Bob Willis came screaming in, the Aussies were blown away akin to England so many times on this current tour, and England won a Test Match that they were, at one stage, quoted with odds of 500–1 against winning.
Growing up, the summer was cricket filled, either my playing or coming home to see my dear old Mum happily in her chair in the kitchen and riveted to the action. The 1986/87 tour was the first I watched from Australia (compiling unofficial scorecards for my Mum for when she arose in the morning to see me still sitting in my pyjamas and babbling on about how great Ian Botham had played) and I’ve watched virtually every Ashes series from Australia since. I’ve annoyed girlfriends and partners with my obsession, I’ve sat up all night to be greeted at 7am with a hat-trick from Darren Gough from absolutely nowhere and I’ve ushered family members to retreat to bed on Christmas Day because I wanted the TV all to myself as I raided my Sister and Brother in Law’s fridge, threw yet more logs onto a beautiful open fire and disappeared into the Boxing Day Test Match at 11pm on Christmas Day, and a whole world away from Australia and a seemingly future time zone away from our reality.
The irony is I rarely watch a lot of cricket during a traditional English summer as quite frankly the sun rarely shines on this tiny island of ours and when it does, I need to be outside enjoying it. And I’ve always loved the illicit feel of watching cricket at 4.23am and having already been awake for 4 hours and with those 4 hours of cricket already under my televisual belt. I turn my body clock around as best as I can (and when life allows) and love that strange feeling of wondering if I’m the only person on this entire floating island who’s watching cricket from a sun drenched Australia whilst I look out on a frosty and frozen mist descending upon a sub zero and freezing neighbourhood. This often means retreating to bed in the middle of the day or at the end of a long morning, or snoozing away as my beautiful son looks on in bemusement, but I’m veteran of such gigs and had to push myself to do it one more time.
Why is again covered in the article “My Cricketing Journey” and please don’t mistake this for false modesty or being faintly ridiculous for imposing such a chore on myself as to watching cricket! This was my decision and a decision born of simply allowing myself to actually enjoy something, anything, rather than railing against everything else and sitting in a depressive stupor. I adore Test Match cricket and love the longer format and the individual battles for supremacy that pepper a good match. I could wax lyrical on the merits of swing bowling, spin bowling, leg theory, attacking fields or the perfect time for a team to declare and really put their opposition under pressure. Rather, I’ve always been enchanted by the fact that all day cricket can act as a kind of wallpaper or a background to the day/night. You may not always watch every ball but it’s there, humming along in the background with Shane Warne or Adam Gilchrist or Mark Waugh chatting about the weather, their past glories or being ribbed on their rare failures. There’s an old cricketing adage that “one wicket often brings two” and even if you’ve missed a wicket (I drink plenty of Tea and the kettle is always boiling), suddenly there’s a new batsman at the crease and the batting team, so supremely in control when you switched on the kettle are now on the back foot, and soon enough I’m safely ensconced back on the sofa with a packet of biscuits as I await the next wicket to fall.
Sadly in England’s case that was far, far too often this winter.
So I didn’t watch The Ashes and disappear to bed at seemingly crazy hours because I was desperate for an England win. Far from it, and indeed very far from sporting reality! I did it out of pure selfish enjoyment, to be me, the real human being as opposed to the depressive maniac who too often takes over my controls. To give myself a break from myself if you will, but then again, that argument may fall short if you consider the amount of time I’ve spent quite literally on my own. To give myself a break from my other self? Maybe. And that’s where the blogs have arisen from, and from a silly idea that for once, just once, to not listen to the voice of doom and rather dive headlong into something I’ve never done before. So I was going to determinedly enjoy the cricket come what may and I was going to write about the day’s play too.
And that I did and I thoroughly enjoyed doing so. It was a forward defence of sorts, and a determination that I had to escape a maddening world in a positive sense as I worry for the direction our human family is heading in. The world has always seemed upside down to me but now it’s inside out, left merged with right, blob think is the order of the day and I have questions. Lots of questions. But there seems to have already been established an answer. The only answer. And that worries me. And I had to escape my maddening other self and the constant intruder into my thoughts.
I guess I’m a writer on cricket as much as I’m a writer on film, or on my favourite football team and my often tangled stream of consciousness rambles. A rank amateur but I love writing and I love a fresh page and just one idea, an idea that hopefully catches alight, sprouts a couple of tangents, and away I go. This was more formulaic, reporting on a day’s cricket, but I hope I’ve written my day by day articles in a slightly fresh way, I hope against hope that some(one) found my articles entertaining, unique or just plain informative. I was never going to swamp the articles in statistics although, like another favoured sport baseball, cricket is awash with numbers, ratios, averages and statistics of every possible flavour. The articles had to be human driven, about the personalities involved and not reliant upon the number of runs scored or the wickets taken. Despite the falling rain I loved watching the spectacle of two Australian groundsmen repeatedly trying to outdo each other as they sprinted onto the playing area as quickly as possible to cover up the wicket or listening to Shane Warne or Glenn McGrath, Steve Harmison or Alistair Cook regale us as viewers and let us into their human lives. These were legendary Ashes winners all, Warne and McGrath rather more often than their English counterparts! But they achieved their legendary feats as human beings who played cricket to a world class standard, but they’re human all the same. New Aussie cult hero Scott Boland said something along the lines of simply not believing he would ever play in the Ashes at the age of 32. Instead, he made his debut in the hallowed Boxing Day Test at Melbourne and was catapulted into the sporting consciousness as well as the hearts of the Australian cricket fans. Forever. Jonny Bairstow scored his century mere days either side of the anniversary of the passing of his famous cricket playing Father. Usman Khawaja scored back to back centuries for Australia, and in front of his young family for the first time. Mark Wood celebrated a birthday and then bowled his heart out for his team. Ben Stokes recovery from his mental health struggles and the gainful way he played through physical pain and obvious injury to help his team. Sam Billings driving 900 miles across Australia in an emergency and then debuting in the last match of the series.
There are many more human stories from this Ashes series I have no doubt missed but it’s the cornerstone of all my writing. Be it film appreciation, a ridiculously contrived football match report, a stream of consciousness or day by day piece of cricket writing, it’s the human context I seek. Yes England need drastic changes to continue competing at Test Match level and perhaps, in the longer term, helping to preserve this great, great game. They need to cajole their Skipper Joe Root into staying as Captain and being the cricketing role model and template for all future players. And I found a modicum of my own mojo and a whole heap of pleasure from writing the day by day reports as well as finding the inner workings of my mind fascinating as it whirred and cranked into motion during these bitingly cold past few weeks in England. I really didn’t care a jot about the results. I cared about the cricket and of enjoying watching a sport that constantly transports me in a time machine back to my earliest days of playing as a colt cricketer, not being able to afford official white cricket trousers, playing for a men’s team when still a young teen, and sitting next to a blazing fire in my Sister’s house as Christmas Day became Boxing Day, and there was still rather a lot of chocolates lying around.
And chocolates go rather well with a piping hot mug of English tea. Biscuits too. Tea and biscuits whilst watching the cricket from Australia at 3am in the dark, and with Shane Warne as an excitable companion?
Bliss.
I may not understand our world or the perilous journey we’re all collectively on. But I do understand cricket.