Ever since the maiden Test at Melbourne during March 1877, cricketing history always had a special place for the Ashes, the series that involves England and Australia, the rivals from that inaugural joust. The series-nomenclature Ashes was coined by a British newspaper in 1882 and that term and the trophy, the urn, have become part of sporting folklore. England lost the 1877 game and cut to the present, Old Blighty suffered defeat yet again at Melbourne to hand over the current Ashes at 0-3 to host Australia while two Tests still remain in the series. The juxtaposition of history and the present may seem like a one-way street but the Ashes remains far from it with Australia having won 34 and England 32 through a series that has attained mythical proportions over the decades. However, recent history would vouch for Australia’s dominance with the Ashes being snapped up in 2017 and 2019, and the latest result too favours the former colony while the mother-country is resigned to eating humble pie. The three defeats in consecutive Tests have shown England in poor light. The will to fight seems to have declined and Joe Root’s men have been tagged as the worst tourists to land in Australia and as it has been pointed out, all that the host needed was just 12 days to seize the urn.
There have been times when England looked anaemic, especially in the contests in the 1980s against the marauding West Indians. To those tales of ignominy, cricket’s birthplace has added the latest chapter. England’s batting has leant on Root while his colleagues fell with tentative feet, itchy hands and an insipid mind. With the batters failing, England’s attack has struggled to mount pressure. And when the bowlers did strike with James Anderson belying his 39 summers and clocking a masterly spell in Melbourne, the England batters failed to offer support and Australia won by an innings and 14 runs. Debutant Scott Boland’s six for seven in the second innings further reiterated Australia’s talent base and its strong domestic structure while England was left to ponder about its County circuit. That an injured Josh Hazlewood was not missed spoke volumes about the inherent strengths within the Aussie pace-pack. Boland showed that at 32, hope could still float for the committed athlete. That he is the second after Jason Gillespie to emerge from the aboriginal community to turn out for the Australian men’s Test team also revealed cricket’s democratic footprint. Before the series, Australia seemed unsettled having lost its regular captain Tim Paine to a hushed-up scandal. But in Pat Cummins, the Aussies have found a calm skipper, and with England in disarray, the Ashes will stay in the southern hemisphere.
