Perhaps it will be close this time. It is getting serious now; possession of the urn can be decided in Nottingham, which should concentrate the minds of both sides.
So far in this series only one team per match has had their eyes on the ball. Maybe both teams will turn up on Thursday.
Moreover recently Trent Bridge has witnessed two climaxes sufficiently nerve-racking to prompt the unwitting chewing of umbrella handles.
Two years ago Jimmy Anderson took 10-158 in the match, which helps to explain why Australia are favourites, and England prevailed by just 14 runs despite the heroic efforts of Brad Haddin, who is also likely to be an interested spectator this time.
Ashton Agar laughed off being dismissed for 98 (batting at No11) with the thought that there will be other chances to score a Test hundred down the line.
After that astonishing innings, which kept Australia in the game, Agar played one more Test, the next match at Lord’s, and has been on the sidelines ever since. Given that he is still only 21 there is time to return but the game will never be as joyously simple for him as it was in July 2013. Agar is currently in Chennai playing for Australia A.
In 2005 after a majestic first innings century from Andrew Flintoff, England required Ashley Giles and Matthew Hoggard to conjure 13 runs in their eighth-wicket partnership to ensure victory.
At the time with Shane Warne prowling and plotting, there seemed to be no guarantee that they would get there. That was a lively contest which saw the Australian captain, Ricky Ponting, storming from the pitch and shouting at the England coach, Duncan Fletcher, having just been run out by Gary Pratt, something which is unlikely to be repeated by Michael Clarke since everyone – on both sides – is a fervent admirer of the current England coach, Trevor Bayliss.
In fact just about every player in the match has been coached by Bayliss somewhere along the way.
Another lively contest is anticipated this time but the Australians may be relieved to be away from the bear pit that is Edgbaston.
The crowd at Trent Bridge will be partisan but this remains the most decorous ground outside of St John’s Wood. It has been sympathetically renovated with each new addition offering something out of the ordinary. Somehow it would be out of place to have a constant cacophony of support for the home side from such elegant stands.
Mind you, the Australians will still be reminded that they are not playing in their own backyard. It was reckoned that the building of those stands has somehow caused the ball to swing more at Trent Bridge in recent times. Most scientists and fast bowlers reckon this to be nonsense.
Even so, the likelihood is that the ball will swing and that there will be a winner. In the distant past, the Tests here were often drawn. That has been the case in nine of the 21 Ashes Tests played in Nottingham. Neville Cardus once described Trent Bridge as “a lotus-land for batsmen, a place where it was always afternoon and 360-2”.
But from the 1977 Test against Australia – an eventful one, in which Geoff Boycott returned from exile, ran out local hero Derek Randall and scored a century in between observing the debut of Ian Botham – there have only been two draws in nine Ashes matches. Mike Brearley’s side won that game but this is a ground upon which Australia have often been successful. In between the England wins in 1977, 2005 and 2013 there were four emphatic Australian victories.
Australia prevailed by four wickets in 1981 in the match that no one remembers from that series; in 1989 England failed to take a wicket on the first day as Mark Taylor and Geoff Marsh added 301 together, a chastening debut experience for Devon Malcolm and Mike Atherton as Australia went on to win by an innings and 180 runs.
In 1997 the margin was a mere 264 runs when the two Hollioake brothers made their debut together. In 2001, Warne yet again tormented, taking 8-71 in the match. And in 2015? Well, from various viewpoints I’ve been keeping an eye on these Ashes skirmishes for about half a century … but your guess is as good as mine.
