Fade in. Interior, an extraordinarily messy room with a massage bed in the middle. Clothing and footwear are strewn across all visible surfaces and large bags are scattered haphazardly across the remaining floor space. Pads and bats are piled up, leaning against benches and walls. Exposed pipes meander around the ceiling, not in a trendy architect‑inspired Pompidou‑Centre way but just in a couldn’t-really-be-bothered-to-hide-them way. In the corner a television is attached tightly to the wall, so that instead of facing into the room it points straight ahead, allowing hardly anyone to watch it comfortably, especially given that it’s almost at ceiling height.
It is, anyway, off. Television is not being watched in this room, it is being produced. A solitary figure stands amid the clutter: it is Matt Smith, BT Sport’s Ashes anchor. “This is the England dressing room here at the Gabba,” he says. “This is where the magic or the misery happens. That [he indicates the only space in the entire room where someone has actually folded their laundry] is Joe Root’s corner. What he says in here over the next few minutes might be – might be – pivotal for what comes over the next few weeks.”
The same could be said of Smith, tasked with introducing BT Sport’s first experiment in live Ashes coverage. Cricket fans, asked to pay yet another costly subscription, needed to be instantly reassured that they were in capable hands. Smith might be more closely associated with football but handled the occasion well – at least until, late in the day, he suggested that the excellent throw with which Nathan Lyon did for James Vince “deserved something, if not a wicket then a dismissal” and responded to a comment from Michael Vaughan by desperately asking the rest of his panel: “Who’s got something to say about that?”
He did, though, have a fine panel: Vaughan, Ricky Ponting, Adam Gilchrist and Geoffrey Boycott, who gathered alongside him at the start of the day, have 99 Ashes appearances between them. Then Gilchrist disappeared during the first ad break and Boycott vanished in the second, leaving three people now awkwardly scattered around a large and entirely unnecessary waist-high table whose only purpose appeared to be to hide the pundits’ trousers. “It’s a bit like another show in Australia – we’re losing celebrities every time you come back to us,” Smith joked.
Alison Mitchell was meanwhile standing next to a different table, on a different part of the outfield, with Graeme Swann and Damien Fleming, who proceeded to banter with each other for a while. The blossoming bromance between the two former bowlers might become one of the themes of this series. While everyone else continued uncovered when a gentle rain started to fall at lunchtime, Swann and Fleming huddled together, sharing an umbrella. Mitchell’s table was at least getting some use, because both she and Fleming had placed notepads on it, the latter revealing a predilection for novelty four‑colour ballpoint pens.
During the afternoon rain delay the reason behind the makeshift outfield studios was revealed, as action moved indoors and Smith huddled with a pair of pundits in a space no larger than the average wardrobe. Remaining outside, Swann revealed: “It’s still banging it down,” and explained the groundsman’s plans to remove surface water from the square “with a big squidgy mower thingy”. Highlights of the 2010 Gabba Test were shown, and then cut off mid-sentence to crowbar in another ad break.
It was not the only awkward commercial interruption. England’s Stuart Broad and Jimmy Anderson were interviewed, both wearing the logo‑festooned shirts of the wine and men’s grooming brands they respectively endorse. Meanwhile, a report on a sleepover at the MCC Museum at Lord’s was introduced as being organised “in conjunction with Yorkshire Tea”. Alex Gordon-Martin, the reporter sent to cover it, pointed out that focus had switched “from one urn to another – we’ve got copious amounts of Yorkshire Tea to keep us refreshed” and then interviewed Matthew Hoggard, who was wearing a Yorkshire Tea top. When they crossed back to Lord’s later he was also holding a Yorkshire Tea cup, just to make sure we had got the message. Hoggard was optimistic about England’s chances, and revealed: “There’s a lot of pressure on Australia’s much-haunted bowling attack.”
But there is another ghost at play here. There is throughout an unsettling absence of Gower, a strange lack of Botham, and a particularly vexing loss of Ian Ward’s technical analysis. BT Sport’s Ashes debut featured few significant missteps but they have yet to shake off the spirit of Sky.
Ashes diary: Pooled thoughts on day one at the Gabba
KP charms the locals
Kevin Pietersen, commentating for Channel 9 and BT Sport, remains at the back of the queue to become England’s goodwill ambassador to Brisbane. “It’s a shithole,” Pietersen was quoted as saying in the local Courier Mail. “I’ve got the Test match then I’ll be on the first aeroplane out of here as soon as the last ball is bowled, don’t worry.” Ali Martin
Corking pun from ungrateful sponsor
“Why can’t the Poms open a bottle of wine? Because they don’t have any openers.” So quipped the Gabba big screen throughout the first day in an advert for Hardy’s, the official plonk‑producing partner of Cricket Australia – and of the England and Wales Cricket Board. AM
No need to be green with envy
Once upon a time, getting a baggy green required playing for Australia. Or at least buying one at a Christie’s auction. Now replicas are sold cheap at department stores, as seen all over the Gabba terraces. In greater numbers again were the baggy golds given out to fans in stoic support of the local beer – Castlemaine XXXX Gold is now the official beer of Cricket Australia, would you believe. It’s adored in Queensland, even in its lower-strength form. Adam Collins
Lyon spells trouble for some
Green and gold sombreros are now more or less Aussie national uniform, typically coupled with flag capes of course. One chap wore a shirt with the aggressive burst “This belongs to US” with a picture of the Ashes urn, while another had “Nice Gary” printed across his chest, unaware it is the former Australian rules football player Garry (not Gary) Lyon after whom the tweaker is nicknamed. AC
Brief introduction making waves
Mark Stoneman, James Vince and Pat Cummins were not the only Ashes debutants to catch the eye. The Gabba pool deck, a small swimming pool by the boundary, was a regular port of call for BT Sport. Nor was it all gratuitous shots of women in bikinis: a couple of images of ample gentlemen wearing nothing but wacky Speedos and a roguish smile will stay in the subconscious for quite some time. Rob Smyth
Bat to the future?
One of the most distinct atmospheres in the world is that of an Australian crowd thwarted by English batting. Even by the end of the first session, Brisbane spectators were heckling about England batting for a draw. A gentleman with a full tray of XXXX Gold barracked that it wasn’t the 1950s. Geoff Lemon
