The Black Caps are returning home, most of them anyway, and they can carry with them our thanks for invigorating not just the first part of the summer but for their part in revitalising the whole culture of cricket in this country. The cricket they and England have played has been compelling all the way through, from the first Test match at Lord’s, to the single T20 at Old Trafford. Just as much, though, has been the manner in which the game has been played, something that is sneered at in some quarters, as if the values of sportsmanship, good manners and pure enjoyment, which both teams have managed to convey, are somehow redundant ideals and secondary to success.
The response of the cricket-following public to the tour as it has unfolded has shown emphatically that this is not the case, the pity only that it has all been too short. The fullness of time could well show this visit of the New Zealand team to be one of the most important in memory simply for what it has done for the game.
It is against this backdrop that the Australian team has arrived, and, attending Michael Clarke’s first press conference of the tour, rather than the frisson of excitement that has always preceded an Ashes series in this country, it all seemed rather flat, as if the best, or at least most entertaining part of the summer has passed with the solstice. This has nothing to do with the Australian team itself, except in the sense that the visit of New Zealand was always regarded (not least by themselves one imagines) as the precursor to yet another Ashes series, and Clarke’s men will no more enjoy having their thunder stolen by the warm-up act any more than the Who would if Paul Weller play them off the Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury on Sunday.
Already the talk, largely but not entirely media-driven of course, has turned to aggression, attitude and confrontation. Clarke is probably wearied of fielding the same questions, but then there are elements within his side – David Warner’s recent interview with ESPN Cricinfo a case in point – who have done little to divert the issue. But then Clarke talked of “the line” and “headbutting” it, whatever that means, and without quite explaining what that line is, and where exactly it is drawn. Or indeed whether it cannot be moved as Brendon McCullum has managed to do. It is, he said, “the Australian way”, which, repeated as it was by Shaun Marsh the next day, sounds suspiciously like the latest PR euphemism for what was once termed “banter” (as an aside, one of the first cricket books bought for me, which I stlll have, is called Cricket, The Australian Way by Jack Pollard, and I can find no reference therein to intangible lines, banter, attack dogs or sledging ).
The turnaround in the England team since they slunk ignominiously away from the World Cup has been huge. There were good signs in West Indies, although some passive selections were not helpful, but since then self-belief and confidence has grown. Two months ago, the majority view would have been that England had the slimmest chance only of competing against a strong Australian side. Now though, that has changed from something beyond even guarded optimism into a feeling that the series will be a lot closer and harder fought than was anticipated.
In this, there is a historical element, for although England have suffered two hideous whitewashes in Australia either side of their brilliant win there in the winter of 2010-11, there is not one member of the current Australian touring party who was here in 2001 when they last won a series in this country. In terms of matches here in that time it is 7-2 to England, a massive record of Australian underachievement away from home, and one they now must realise they will have to scrap mightily to rectify.
The “Dad’s Army” jibes have been predictable and misplaced in intent for the selection of the touring party has been pragmatic: age, as they say, is just a number. Whatever the outcome of the last Ashes series in Australia, it is undeniable that the top order batting had weaknesses, and it was to England’s detriment that they could not destroy the lower order as the Australians managed to do so effectively to them. This time, much of the batting is largely unproven in English conditions, and hence the inclusion of both Chris Rogers and Adam Voges, experienced county players, at ages well beyond those at which they might once have been selected: they know the ropes. On the other hand, the rise of Steve Smith has been phenomenal but his technique will be challenged if the ball swings, so too those of Clarke, Warner and Shane Watson: Rogers and Voges are important cogs in this wheel and well chosen.
The key to this whole series will rest with the respective attacks, however, and here it is hard to get away from the view that it is Australia who are better equipped. Bowlers who can swing the ball are always a great asset in England: those who can do so at pace are gold dust.
Perhaps the most interesting aspect will be to see quite how Darren Lehmann and the selectors balance the attack for in the two Mitchells, Starc and Johnson, Josh Hazlewood, Ryan Harris, and the redoubtable workhorse Peter Siddle they have performers for all conditions, the deepest pool of quality pacemen in the business. In particular it will be intriguing to see how high up the pecking order Johnson comes now. His success against England in Australia has not been matched by that in England, and as a potent threat he has been overtaken by Starc, a pacier version of Trent Boult, the New Zealander who gave England considerable trouble in May.
In Hazlewood they have a relentlessly accurate seamer, likened in method and attitude to Glenn McGrath, while England have encountered no more skilful bowler in the last five years than Harris, this barn door of a man with the most gently sublime wrist action around, whose fitness will be the only issue. It may well be Johnson, along with Siddle, who is sidelined at the start. This is the group, the wolfpack, in which the destiny of the Ashes lies.
Maybe us poms have seen the best of the summer – but it won’t be without a scrap.
