Cricket is the greatest sport in the world. There’s nothing else like it - no 90 minutes of football, in the biggest stadium, between the richest players can come close to capturing the sheer tension, strung out through the overs, stretching minutes into hours into days, only for the game to shatter in front of your very eyes.
There’s no game of rugby, as physically demanding and brutal as it can be, that could ever match the intimate contest between bat and ball; bowler and batsman.
And there’s one series that still tops all other cricket. The World Cup final is a huge event; the IPL all glamour and skill; but stretched out over twenty-five days’ play and 150 years of history, the Ashes is the pinnacle of the sport. More people may watch the rare clashes between India and Pakistan but the ebb and flow of a five-Test series is unmatched.
And we, the English and the Australians, must wait, for the height of summer or the depths of winter, as old duels are resumed once again, the familiar battlefields revisited and old insults cast anew, with the desperation and joy of victory incomparable.
And so it is that on the first morning (or evening) of each new series we cling to each fragment of news - who’s in, who’s out? What’s the pitch like? Will the same players dominate or will fresh blood rise to the top? Our palms grow damp and our legs shake, the result of the toss is anxiously awaited like news of a newborn. The anthems are sung and the players finally enter the pitch.
And that’s when, if you’re English, it all starts to go wrong.
You build up to these things, you see. You convince yourself that this time, this time, it’ll be wonderful. Because you have Jofra Archer, or the conditions will be on your side, or your team has spent the last 18 months preparing. And so often it takes seconds to burst your bubble, and send your bouyant hope down through the pit of your stomach like a block of concrete.
Incredibly, for a contest that plays out over weeks or months, the first moments are often of vital importance. In 2002, Nasser Hussain won the toss, chose to bowl, and then had to watch as Australia piled up a mammoth 492 in the baking heat.
2005, Lord’s. The first day of the contest literally drew blood from Australia’s captain, Ricky Ponting, and showed that a new England side was not going to be cowed by the great Australians. They may have lost that Test, but they set the tone for the series.
2006/07 and Brisbane again, where Steve Harmison bowled the first ball of the series straight to his captain Flintoff at second slip, and set the tone for the Aussies’ great revenge.
2010/11, back at the Gabba - Andrew Strauss cuts the third ball of the day to gulley, deflating English hopes within five minutes. That side had the character to rally and draw the first Test, setting up England’s only win Down Under this century.
In 2015, the Ashes came to Cardiff, where Joe Root struck a magnificent hundred1 but England failed to seize the initiative, setting the scene for a nip-and-tuck series that the hosts eventually took by three Tests to two.
And, most recently (and nightmare-inducingly), in 2021. England had been preparing for the series right through the pandemic - or so they said. Trust us. Rest and rotation will leave us with our strongest team for the Ashes. Instead, they dropped their two greatest bowlers and left poor old Rory Burns utterly overwhelmed by the occasion as he was bowled off the very first ball of the series.
And so we came to Friday. The buildup could hardly have been bigger - Ben Stokes’ swasbuckling Bazballers against the world champion Australians, who were falling over each other to tell us that they really didn’t care about England’s new approach, no sir, we aren’t even thinking about it at all, not on our minds even a tiny bit.
First ball. The titan Cummins to Zak Crawley, a man most England fans didn’t even think should be in the side. World champions against upstarts, at England’s favourite ground. This will set the tone for the series.
And Zak Crawley hammered it to the cover boundary.
We still don’t know who will win the First Test, but we do know that the series is set up to be utterly captivating. It’s been a while since I wrote a piece like this, trying to capture the emotion of the game rather than some tactical, technical or statistical element. If you enjoyed it, please click the Subscribe button below, or share my work to help it reach a wider audience.
And his last Ashes hundred until his effort on Friday at Edgbaston