‘Cue the madness. Seas of champagne, cameras, songs, “Jersualem”. More champagne, KP managing to pour almost half a bottle of it into his eye. The Ashes. Vaughan holding the Urn. Us waving at the girls, Tears, loads of tears. Even more champagne. “Jerusalem” again. Sleep? What for?’
When I retrace the story of my fight against the illness that finally ended my International career, I cannot escape the feeling that it first revealed itself to me during the period immediately before and immediately after I joined England’s tour to South Africa in the winter of 2004–05.
Though it had an instant and disturbing effect on me, it was only a fleeting visit, then it flapped its black wings and flew away until it knew I was ready for the taking. I had no idea what it was or what it might lead to. And when it went I thought no more about it. But I can recall the time it arrived to the very moment.
Hayley was around five months pregnant with Ellie at the time, a few days before I was due to join up with the rest of the squad. We were at the big multiscreen cinema complex near where the road out of Taunton meets the M5 motorway, watching a movie with friends. Neither of us was particularly enjoying the film, in fact I can’t actually recall what it was we were watching, but I do remember at one point we both turned to each other simultaneously and I said: ‘This is awful. Shall we leg it?’
We decided to stay because our mates seemed to be enjoying the experience more than we were and then, a few moments later, Hayley turned to me again, this time with a little more urgency in her voice and said: ‘Marcus, I feel really funny …,’ and then she passed out.
Already super-sensitive because of her condition, I vaulted over the vacant seats in front of us and ran to call 999 for an ambulance. When we got to the hospital, the doctor performed various tests and what he told us sent a shiver down my spine. ‘Mrs Trescothick,’ the doctor began, ‘your baby is fine. But we have detected what may be a murmur in your heart. This is not uncommon for pregnant women and is almost certainly nothing to worry about, but we would like you to come back for an electrocardiagram, an ECG, from which we will be able to get a much clearer picture of what is going on …’
Even though the words were spoken with calm compassion, inevitably it all sounded utterly terrifying.
I tried not to show my fears in case I made Hayley feel worse than she already did. The first thing I had to do was contact the Board because the ECG was set for the following Thursday, the day after I was due to fly out. They were very understanding and told me to take as much time as I needed to sort things out.
The day of the ECG turned out to be about the happiest of my life. There was no problem, we were told. All clear. Hayley’s heart was having to work double-time to look after her and the baby, and what had happened to her was pretty normal. I was cleared to travel the next day.
When I got to South Africa, however, I very soon realized that something was wrong. As I have said, feelings of homesickness mixed with the disruption to normal sleep caused by jet lag were a regular early tour condition for me, and always in the past, once the cricket had given me something to focus on, the problem became manageable.
Not this time, not at first anyway. When the feelings persisted for a couple of bad days and shocking nights, I spoke with Kirk Russell, our physio and Steve Bull, our sports psychologist and told them: ‘I don’t feel right, here. I don’t feel myself.’
I told them I felt worried, more so than usual. I told them I was struggling to get a grip on what was happening, that I was sleeping poorly and not really eating much. I told them I was feeling very uncomfortable about being away from home and away from Hayley, that I was concerned about what had happened to her just before I left, that I couldn’t concentrate or get into the cricket, that I was struggling.
I was pretty miserable for the first six days of the tour, and it didn’t help that we were once again stuck in a four-star prison in a shopping ‘city’ in Sandton, a concrete and glass suburb of Johannesburg, which was decorated in every shade of brown you could think of.
I never said to anyone I can’t hack this or I’ve got to go home, and I never told Hayley how I was, but I remember just battling through it all feeling like crap and thinking I wish I didn’t have to do this. And worrying about how things were at home, how Hayley was, how our baby was. After a couple of sleepless nights left me exhausted, I asked for and was given some sleeping pills, which at least helped in that regard. In the next year or so I found Zopiclone; it’s better than Horlicks.
What probably worried me more than anything else was that the cricket didn’t seem to help like it had in the past. In fact, though I briefly felt better after making 85 not out in the match against Nicky Oppenheimer’s XI, a couple of low scores in the opening first-class match against South Africa A at Pochefstroom sent me spinning back down again, now also nagged by the thought that I might actually have started a slow but possibly terminal decline in form.
Steve Bull advised me to start writing down these thoughts in a diary but to end my daily entries with a few self-affirming thoughts, and gradually it seemed to do the trick. As I wrote down all my stats, the number of runs I’d scored and the number of hundreds I’d made, the feeling dawned on me that maybe I wasn’t such a no-hoper after all.
My batting still wasn’t 100 per cent, but I did manage to get my mind back on the cricket enough to make a decent contribution in the first Test in Port Elizabeth, sharing an opening stand of 152 with Strauss, whose 112 made him the first batsman to score a century in his first appearance against three consecutive opponents, and his 94 in the second dig ensured we won by seven wickets. Eight out of eight.
Hayley had arrived by the time we reached Durban for the second Test starting on Boxing Day 2004. It was still early enough in her pregnancy for her to travel and a couple of days after we were reunited I woke up one morning and realized I was okay. Whatever the problem had been, it was over.
My batting, on the other hand, was still well short of okay and it took a crucial intervention by Duncan to help me regain my form and confidence. In fact, it enabled me to take a huge step forward.
I went to him and told him I felt unbalanced at the crease, that the bat wasn’t coming down straight even though I was trying my hardest to make it do so, and that I couldn’t figure out what was wrong. After I was out for 18 in the first innings and we fell for just 139, he took me to the nets and just watched me for about five minutes. The he brought the practice to an end, walked over to me and said: ‘Just relax your right arm, and slightly open your shoulder so you are a fraction more front-on to the bowler.’
I did as he advised, the bat started to come down and through the ball much straighter and I found I was absolutely smoking it. And, of course, it was not just my batting that felt better. My confidence soared. It is a dreadful thing to feel that your batting has got stuck; self-analysis, a surfeit of which I was always prone to, and self-doubt can take you over. What if I can’t solve this? What if I can’t bat anymore? And then a just a look or a word from a team-mate or a passer-by can set you off. And when you are in that frame of mind even an innocent question like: ‘Everything all right?’ sounds like ‘What the hell is wrong with you?’ Mere hard work is not always the answer, so a vicious circle can easily suck you in. Then comes the advice, some better informed than the rest and, in your desperation to cure the problem you listen to everyone and everything and your brain aches with the weight of it all. Sometimes simple rest can be a cure. More often than not, all you need is for a second pair of eyes connected to a good cricket brain. Five minutes with Duncan’s eyes and Duncan’s brain was all I needed. Shane Warne may joke that the coach is what you get on to drive to the ground. I wasn’t laughing much before our coach sorted me out here.
At the time I carried this slight technical adjustment with me onto the pitch in the second innings at Durban; we were in trouble, trailing by nearly 200, but, from the start, I was timing the ball better than ever before. You probably wouldn’t have noticed any change between how I looked at the crease now and how I had looked all summer, so small was the change I made, but the difference in how I felt was huge. Early on I recall playing an off drive against Shaun Pollock and it was almost like I had played the most perfect shot of all time. Instantly I wasn’t thinking about my troubles on or off the field, I was once again back online with the Vaughan principle of searching for victory in the wreckage of almost certain defeat. Now, where was I? And how are we going to win this match?
Strauss and I put on 273 for the first wicket of which I made 132 and he 136, Thorpe got our third century of the innings, Geraint Jones and Fred smashed a hundred partnership and suddenly South Africa were the team under pressure. We made 570 for seven declared, set them 378 to win and picked them off at regular intervals until, at 268 for eight, they looked doomed when bad light came to save them.
Relieved to have escaped and roused by a brilliant 149 from Jacques Kallis, they then hammered us in third Test in Cape Town by 196 runs.
We traded scores of 400 plus in the first innings of the fourth Test in Jo’burg, even though the track was always helpful to the seamers and Pollock in particular. Our bowling was pretty scratchy first up. Matthew Hoggard bowled nice and tidy, but Fred seemed to be limping, the first sign of the ankle injury that forced him home at the end of the Test series, for surgery. Harmy was also struggling with a calf injury and poor Jimmy Anderson was having a nightmare, spraying the ball all over the shop, in his first match after five months out with back problems and more remodeling of his action, and getting caned by Herschelle Gibbs. Indeed when Jimmy finally had Gibbs caught by Hoggard he shed tears of embarrassment. A measure of how desperate we were was that Vaughan threw a still fairly new ball to me on the Sunday morning and then kept me on for five whole overs.
But when it came to our turn to bat again, it happened; my next taste of batting in The Matrix, an innings of 180 that was the most memorable of my career thus far.
I experienced that super slow-motion effect almost from the first ball I faced and now, with my new improved technique, I just felt the ball had not yet been invented that could actually get me out. Because the match situation and the regular fall of wickets demanded it, I proceeded at first with something like caution. Even so, at the end of the fourth evening I was 101 not out, but we were only 189 ahead with half the side out and, while the draw was favourite an England collapse might let South Africa in through the back door.
Once again, though, the Vaughan principles came into play; of expression and positivity, of backing your ability and of looking to win at all times, no matter how lousy the view. I attacked and attacked and, with each falling wicket, attacked again. Ashley Giles, batting down the order at No.8 after dislocating his thumb two days earlier in the field, stuck around with me towards the end, helping me put on 50 for the seventh wicket and Harmy made another mammoth contribution to a tenth wicket stand of 58, once again unwrapping the score he saved for all such occasions, namely three.
And I had a blast, running down the track to hit Pollock over extra-cover for four and launching the left –arm spinner Nicky Boje out of the stadium with a massive slog-sweep. More, more, more.
When I was last out at 332, the draw was probably still favourite, especially as the South African skipper Graeme Smith had suffered concussion in fielding practice and was under doctor’s orders not to bat.
The fact that he later ignored them and did, making 67 not out in a last-ditch counter-attack coming in at 118 for six, was entirely down to Hoggard who was just magnificent, outbowling the hugely experienced Pollock and Kallis by finding exactly the right length to bowl and peppering it. He ended up with seven for 61 from the finest 111 balls he has ever bowled to secure a dramatic win and a 2–1 lead with one to play. Even Duncan, who never quite seemed to be on Hoggy’s wavelength, had nothing but praise for him that day.
When we held onto the advantage in the fifth and final Test at Centurion and secured our fourth series win on the bounce, people inevitably turned the Ashes hype up to full blast.
* * *
Reviewing the lessons thrown up by the tour so far, we could see nine virtual certainties for the series with Australia, fitness permitting: Andrew Strauss, Marcus Trescothick, Michael Vaughan, Andrew Flintoff, Geraint Jones, Matthew Hoggard, Ashley Giles, Steve Harmison and Simon Jones.
Graham Thorpe was considered by everyone outside the camp to be a shoo-in for one of the two remaining batting spots, and on ability and experience he had no rival. But a few of us had noticed that his back problem seemed to be affecting him more and more. Some also thought his eyes and his reactions might be slowing down, though I don’t recall ever thinking that myself. Rob Key and Mark Butcher were also still in the frame for the two remaining batting places. Rob was highly rated by many Australians who he had impressed on the 2002–03 tour down under and had proved he could concentrate as hard as he could whack the ball in his double-hundred against West Indies at Lord’s. Butch had been suffering from a wrist injury since being hit in the first Test at Port Elizabeth and almost certainly would have carried on had it not taken most of 2005 to even start to heal properly. Ian Bell, who made his Test debut in the final match against West Indies at The Oval the previous summer and made an assured 70, was also considered ready for elevation soon, but some feared putting him in against Australia might be a baptism of fire that could leave him badly burned.
But even though we were mullered in the one-day series that followed, losing five out of seven with two washouts, another young batsman we had been waiting to see for some time played with such breathtaking panache that he instantly propelled himself near to the top of the list of contenders.
Kevin Pietersen was born in South Africa and played most of his young cricket there, but had abandoned his native country due to what he perceived to be the lack of opportunities resulting from the South African Board’s quota system.
Now the home crowds and some of their players, including Graeme Smith, showered all over him every name under the hot African sun associated with treachery and defection that they could think of.
And his reaction was just amazing. He scored 108 in the second match in Bloemfontein. He scored 75 in the fourth in Cape Town. He scored exactly 100 in the fifth in east London in 69 balls, beating my 80 balls against India and Srinath at Eden Gardens as the fastest century in a one-day international for England. And finally, he scored 116 in the seventh match at Centurion, by which time the booing and carping from the crowds had long been drowned out by the cheers and even the on-field sledging stopped.
All of which meant that when we got around to the serious planning for the task ahead, the one thing we knew we had to do was somehow get him in. Two things struck me most about KP. First, that while some players take time to get used to the environment he made it his own, running down the wicket to the spinners in particular and smacking the ball out of the park, and secondly how he fed off the stick he was getting. A positive attitude against spin and the ability to take stick. Now, against whom might those qualities come in handy?
Ellie was born on 23 April 2005, St George’s Day, bouncy and beautiful and, despite the early scare, Hayley was fine. But the first few days after they came home were a real bolt out of the blue for me. No sleep for Ellie meant no sleep for Hayley and no sleep for me. All three of us were exhausted, for very different reasons, but there just seemed no end to the tiredness. Hayley was very emotional and prone to crying and the whole business of being first-time parents was a massive shock to the system.
When I went back to play for Somerset at the start of the season, and I was asked to captain the side against Essex on 27 April, just four days and four sleepless nights after the birth, I just couldn’t get going at all. I had been suffering terrible migraine caused by a combination of lack of sleep and worry about Ellie and Hayley. And after a net session just before the start of play on day two, I walked into one of the vacant rooms in the clubhouse after about my worst net session ever, put my head in a towel and cried my eyes out. I was feeling the usual strains all new parents go through, but I found the emotion of it all really wearing. We were due out on the field soon afterwards and I told the coach, Mark Garraway, ‘Sorry, mate. I need to take five here. I’ll be all right but I’ve got a migraine and I just can’t go on the field right now.’
Then I saw Mike Burns drop a catch standing at first slip, the position I should have been standing in, and I felt considerably worse.
The next match, against Durham at Stockton-on-Tees, was even worse. By now my GP had put me on betablockers for the migraines which had the effect of making me incredibly sleepy. I couldn’t seem to get up in the morning. I couldn’t seem to get myself out of bed. I couldn’t run and, when batting I could barely see the ball.
The day of my first innings against Steve Harmison I was absolutely cacking myself because he was bowling very fast and I was basically blind.
I was obviously concerned because the first Test series of the summer, against Bangladesh, was about to begin, not to mention who was coming next. But I came off the medication straight away, Ellie started sleeping better, as did Hayley, and things started to settle down well enough for me to see the wood from the trees again. I was still struggling for rhythm, though, and it took a couple of long sessions in the nets with Tim Boon, our new assistant coach, just hitting ball after ball to help me into some kind of form. Finally something clicked and, at the end of May and start of June, I scored 194 in our victory at Lord’s by an innings and 261 runs by noon on the third day, and 151 at Chester-le-Street as we won there by an innings and 27.
The Ashes selection issue was by now a topic of huge debate. Thorpe had been retained and won his 100th cap at the Riverside, making 66 not out in our only innings. Bell made his mark against the inexperienced Bangladesh attack, making 65 not out at Lord’s and 162 not out up north, but the most unfortunate aspect of these mismatches from our point of view was that they were two of only five batsmen to actually have a bat, along with myself, Strauss and Vaughan. And that meant that the only international cricket players like Fred, back and fit again after his ankle op, Geraint Jones and the tail would have before contesting the Ashes would be the one-day stuff that came next.
Even so, when we pitched up at Southampton to play Australia in the first ever ‘Ashes’ Twenty20 match on 13 June it was clear we were not the only team with problems.
The talking and planning had been going on for some time. Strategies for how to bowl at their batsmen had been developed, all kinds of people had been studying tapes of their batting and no suggestion was ignored. More detailed planning would take place a month hence when we met up before the first Test at Lord’s. For now the priority was to make a positive statement of intent.
Duncan and Michael had both spoken about getting in the space of the Aussie players, not overtly offering them outside, of course, but challenging them at all times, trying to make the Ashes experience as uncomfortable for them as it had been for so long for us.
We tore into them at the Rose Bowl, after making 179 for eight, having them 31 for seven with Gough, still playing one-dayers for us even though he had packed up Test cricket twelve months earlier, absolutely on fire, taking three for 16, including the two openers, Adam Gilchrist and Matthew Hayden. Jon Lewis took four for 24. When the crowds taunted: ‘Are you Bangladesh in disguise?’ they didn’t see the funny side.
I enjoyed myself in the first match of the NatWest triangular series, against Bangladesh at The Oval on 16 June, making 100 not out in my 100th ODI and my ninth one-day ton which took me past Graham Gooch’s England record of eight. When Australia then lost to Test cricket’s newest member in Cardiff on 18 June, after having dropped and fined Andrew Symonds for turning up the worse for wear after a big night out in the Welsh capital, we just p***ed ourselves.
Next day we beat Australia again by three wickets in Bristol, thanks to an innings from KP that was to have huge repercussions.
We had known, of course, that KP would have to be fitted into our Ashes Test side; but this innings of 91 not out from 119 for four, chasing 253 to win, showed us and them what he might do when he got there. It was confident, aggressive and brutal and it came off 65 balls. The final piece of the jigsaw was ready to be rammed into place. The only problem was, with Thorpe and Bell apparently also certain to play, we now had one too many. The one-day matches continued in breathless fashion, with Australia stunned by their early reversals, now showing why they were the world champions at all forms of the game. They beat us twice in succession to qualify for the final, but not before an incident at Edgbaston in a washed out day–night match on 28 June.
If ‘get in their space’ had been one of the orders of the day, the other was ‘none of us stands alone’, and now a clash between Simon Jones and Matthew Hayden gave us the perfect opportunity to carry out both. Simon had already dismissed Gilchrist and when Hayden played a ball defensively back down the pitch towards him, he picked it up and hurled it in the general direction of the stumps as a warning that if he was going to bat in front of his crease he had better make sure he got back in time. Unfortunately, or rather, fortunately, as things turned out, Simon’s aim was dreadful and he accidentally threw the ball at around 100 mph straight into Hayden’s shoulder. Simon, a little shocked by what he had done, spluttered an apology straight away, but Hayden, clearly ruffled, reacted aggressively, letting fly with a barrage of f-words.
What happened next was a big statement on our behalf. In other times, that might have been that and we would probably all have shuffled back to our places. This time, four or five of us rushed to the scene to back Simon up. I was on my way as well, but Paul Collingwood’s flame-red hair right in front of the colossal Aussie batsman, seemingly big enough to swallow Colly whole, was a sight for sore eyes. The message: bully any one of us and we will come right back at you, and bring our mates.
At Lord’s in the final of the NatWest series, an amazing match gave us all an indication of what kind of excitement was to come. Gough, Jones, Fred and Harmy shared the wickets as we bowled them out for an eminently gettable 196, but when we slumped to 33 for five, the crowd’s sense of resignation and disappointment that they might just be too good for us after all, quickly spread. As for me I was unsettled by an unintentional 90mph beamer from Brett Lee – sorry I killed you, mate – then got out by Glenn McGrath for the third time in our three meetings. Good job Warne wasn’t playing, I thought to myself. But Colly and Geraint Jones put on 116 for the sixth wicket, Gough clattered 12 before being run out and with three needed off McGrath’s last ball, Giles and Harmy scrambled through for two leg byes to level the scores.
Sadly a very different kind of drama hung over our next clash, the first of three one-dayers at Headingley on 7 July.
News of the terrorist atrocities during the London rush hour was filtering through to us all morning up in Leeds. No one could tell for sure how many casualties had been caused by devastating bombs on the London transport system, but loss of life was expected to be heavy.
There was no solid discussion about not playing the game, though it was very hard to get into it as whenever a new snippet of information came through all thoughts drifted back to the capital. But I switched myself off mentally, concentrated on what I had to do and made my first hundred against Australia at any level, and my tenth in all one-day cricket as we won easily.
The Aussies were clearly just as stunned as we were by events in London and the final two matches, on 10 July and 12 July, were scheduled for Lord’s and The Oval.
I personally would not have blamed them if they had upped sticks and gone home there and then. I tried to put myself in their shoes. Heaven forbid this ever happens, but what if we had been touring Pakistan, or Sri Lanka, or anywhere for that matter, and 56 people had died in the city in which we were due to play not one but two matches in the next week? We would probably have been out of there in a flash.
We lost them both, but in the circumstances, we were just glad to get this one-day series over and done with.
* * *
The final act in the construction of our Ashes team ended in cruel disappointment for Thorpe. He had been a fantastic batsman for England all over the world and he would have loved to have bowed out from Test cricket with one more Ashes series under his belt, especially as I think he quietly fancied our chances with the bowling attack we had at our disposal. But three batsmen into two places just wouldn’t go and in the end it came down to a straight choice between him and KP.
Several factors swung it in KP’s favour. First was the Vaughan principle of attack whenever possible, defend when only absolutely necessary. In Thorpe we had a batsman we knew we could rely on to bail us out of bad situations. In KP we saw a batsman who would be up front trying to win us the game before we got into a bad situation.
Second was the idea that the fewer players we had who carried the psychological scars of being beaten by Australia before, the better. We all respected Thorpe’s Ashes experience but most of that was experience of losing to Australia.
And thirdly, Thorpe’s back was clearly an issue and even if we discovered we really couldn’t match them for skill the least we could do was field as well as they did.
Thorpe was cut up when he was told he was not in the squad for the first Test at Lord’s and we all sympathized as we owed him a huge debt, especially for innings like his hundred in Barbados the previous spring which turned a tight match in our favour, his brilliant batting in my early career in Sri Lanka and Pakistan and his quiet friendly advice. True to form, he made sure he didn’t outstay his welcome and retired from all cricket almost immediately.
But we were all tremendously excited by the buzz around Lord’s and the buzz around KP, bizarre dead skunk hairstyle and all.
And by the time we prepared to walk out on the first morning of the 2005 Ashes series, even the usual 5–0 victory prediction from McGrath sounded less threatening than usual.
The first thing that struck us all was the noise inside the pavilion. Walking out of the dressing-room down the stairs holding the polished wooden handrail, we noticed a build up of noise like the thunder of an underground train approaching the next stop. At the moment we entered the Long Room the roar exploded in our ears. It felt like we were going out to fight Mike Tyson. ‘Come on lads!’ the members shouted. ‘Come on!’ And when we emerged into daylight the noise of the capacity crowd was just overwhelming.
And it never really relented from then until the end of the series.
Ricky Ponting said later the moment he knew they were in for a fight was when a ball from Harmy, who had already hit Justin Langer a fearful crack on the right elbow, pushed the grille of his helmet into his cheek, drawing blood and no one, but no one from our side went to check on how he was. It was quite deliberate, if near to the wrong side of the line we wanted to draw between us and them. But it had the desired effect. The fab four, Harmy, Hoggard, Fred and Simon, were quite brilliant that day, with Harmy taking five for 43 and blowing away the tail as we bowled them out to increasing mayhem in the stands, for 190. Maybe the best wicket of them all was Hayden, bowled Hoggard according to plans, tucked up for space from around the wicket. The most emotional had to be Simon’s from his first ball of the match and the first he had bowled in a Test against Australia since the knee injury that nearly ended his career back in 2002, to have Damien Martyn caught behind. Payback time in grand style for those who barracked him when he was lying in agony on the Gabba outfield.
And now, Glenn McGrath didn’t so much let all the air out of the balloon as stamp all over it. I’d prepared myself of course. In fact during the week before I had worked a lot with Steve Bull on staying calm in the cauldron. But I just wasn’t ready for the quality of the stuff he sent down ball after ball, always at you, nothing to hit, moving the ball off the seam either way, at will. He made Straussy and me look like camels in clogs. I was his 500th Test victim and I felt like I’d been the other 499 as well. Glenn finished with nine wickets in the match.
KP, as we hoped he might, took to the place as though he owned it, and one day he probably will, by the way, but as the game progressed it was clear they were just too strong. Something was missing: in a word, belief.
By the time we arrived at Edgbaston for round two, we were all still trying to stay positive. It wasn’t easy. Giles had taken a hammering in the press –’ playing against Ashley Giles was like playing ten men against eleven’ according to one analyst – and was clearly concerned. And this is where Vaughan came into his own. He could sense how down we all were and how worried that we might turn out to be just another bunch of Ashes losers. But, instead of castigating us, pointing out the flaws in our performance at Lord’s, telling us we had to do more of this or less of that, he employed reassurance and positivity to inspire us. That was Vaughan’s trick. Steve Harmison once told me that one of Vaughan’s strengths was that he was a great liar. If he believed it was the right thing to do, he would tell you what he thought you needed to hear to inflate your confidence, even though he may not have believed it himself. Now, at a team-talk in the Warwickshire committee room, he started by reiterating our goals, told us we had all the tools we needed to achieve them and urged us to go out and enjoy the experience. It worked so well that, by the end, we were thinking: ‘Well, what the hell have we got to lose?’
Our spirits were raised even further when, an hour before play was due to start Glenn McGrath failed to spot a stray ball on the Edgbaston outfield and put himself out of the game.
The correct reaction would have been to say ‘hard, luck, mate.’ But inside Strauss and I and the rest of the lads couldn’t stop ourselves from thinking unkind thoughts like ‘You beauty!’ And when Ricky Ponting made the barely believable decision to offer us first use of what looked a good pitch without his first choice paceman at his disposal, we all thought to ourselves: ‘Now or never.’
And it was now. We went out and attacked. Just before lunch Brett Lee bowled me a couple of hittable balls and I hit them, taking 18 off the over, and when Warne came on to bowl his first over, I prepared to do something I had wanted to do ever since he told the world I had been found out as a Test player. I didn’t say a word; I just hit him back over his head for six. It was a completely sublime moment, for which I owed some thanks to the inventors of Merlin, the bowling machine we used to replicate the experience of facing Warne, which, unlike the real thing, had the great added virtue of not trying to get in your ear all day and all night. The wizardish machine had been on the blink at Lord’s, but its recovery here came just in time.
I finished on 90 and KP and Fred carried on in the same vein as we reached 407 all out before the end of the first day.
I could sense a difference in Fred. At Lord’s he seemed for the first time overawed. Now he was smiling and relaxed and about to turn the series on its head. He said later, sessions with sports psychologist Jamie Edwards had restored his ego.
Indeed, after taking a first innings lead, we got the jitters in our second innings and without Fred might have ballsed it up completely. But he just kept hitting and we ended up setting them a target of 282 to win, though a nasty looking shoulder twinge had us crossing everything that he would be able to bowl again in the match.
Our spirits wavered while Hayden and Langer started in some comfort and then Fred came on to bowl the 13th over of the innings, the best of his entire career and maybe the whole history of the Ashes.
First ball, to Langer, blocked. Second ball, fast and straight and climbing rapidly off a length, cannoned off his arm guard down onto his thigh and into the stumps. Third ball, swinging into new batsman Ponting’s pads from outside off stump and a huge lbw appeal, eventually turned down by Billy Bowden. Fourth ball, another steeply bouncing ball arrowed into Ponting which he did well to steer into the gully. Fifth ball, another big inswinger, another appeal, another no from Bowden. Ponting left the sixth ball with some relief, but only because he didn’t hear the cry of no-ball. And then the incident that changed everything. Fred turned the ball around in his hands at the start of the run-up and sent down the perfect outswinger that took the Aussie captain’s outside edge and carried comfortably to Geraint Jones. It was sensational stuff. For six balls Fred had made Ponting look like he wasn’t good enough to play him, and we’re talking about one of the best batsmen who ever lived. The most sensational over of all our careers had come to an end with Langer and Ponting out, Australia rattled, and Fred, fuelled by Red Bull, adrenaline and desire, massive. As I passed him I told him, ‘Fred, if you play until you’re ninety, you’ll never bowl better than that.’
There soon followed a brilliant slower one from Harmy to bamboozle Michael Clarke and, at 175 for eight, we were all but home and hosed. Except for Warne, Lee and Kasprowicz taking them to within three runs of winning.
Had they done it I’m pretty sure we would have been cooked for the series. We had high hopes and we had had our moments, some of them great. But Australia’s enduring strength was winning the battles they really needed to win. Three more runs now and they would have done so again and the effect would almost certainly have been catastrophic for us. When Lee smoked a ball from Harmy through the covers towards the rope I was sure it was all over, but Simon Jones, stationed on the boundary cut it off and threw it in and moments later Harmy made one lift straight at Kasprowicz, he could only fend it off to Geraint behind the stumps and we all went completely berserk.
We should have won at Old Trafford where I made 63 and Vaughan rediscovered wonderful form. Simon Jones, the bowler whose pace, menace and reverse swing they just hadn’t bargained for, took six for 53 to give us a lead of 142 and Strauss’ second innings 106 and Bell’s first half-century enabled us to set them too many to win in enough time for us to bowl them out. They were queuing for half a mile on the final morning to shout us home, and we got to within one wicket. Ponting was magnificent for them, making 156 when the next highest score was 39, and without it we would have won easily. Jones limped off with cramp at a crucial moment, however, and though Fred thundered in to take four for 71 we just couldn’t finish the task.
But we did at Trent Bridge, in heart-stopping style. I made another 65 in our first innings and Fred a sensational hundred, his best-ever innings for England in my opinion, due to its importance in the context of the match and the series and his patience and intelligence throughout. Fred could slog and did, occasionally, and he loved doing it, but this time he put his cudgel away and used a sabre instead and he and Geraint, with whom he loved batting because he never let the game go quiet, put on 177 for the sixth wicket.
Simon again bowled beautifully to take five for 44, though the fantasy highlight was a full-length catch by Strauss to take Gilchrist off Fred, horizontal and several feet off the ground. After bowling them out for 218, Vaughan enforced the follow-on. This was a huge moment. This wasn’t asking Bangladesh or Zimbabwe to follow-on but Australia, the team otherwise known as ‘The Invincibles’. So enthusiastic were we to get amongst them again that we failed to notice that Simon was by now starting to limp and though he managed four overs in the second innings, his series was over.
Ponting made a prat of himself after being run out by our sub fielder Gary Pratt, carrying on like a pork pie and accusing us of cheating by overdoing the comfort breaks for bowlers, forgetting that Pratt was legitimately on for Jones who had already left for hospital x-rays. In any case, did he expect us to use bad fielders as subs?
The tension as it built up on the fourth day was almost unbearable. We only needed 129 but it soon felt like a thousand as Warne took over and nearly bowled us to death. Nerves, pure and simple, overwhelmed us. The prize was so big and so close but we seemed uncertain as to whether we were entitled to grab it.
With four needed, Giles played and missed a ball from Warne he was convinced had bowled him, which would have left us 125 for eight with Harmison the only fit man left, but Jones got padded up and was ready to bat on one leg if necessary. But the ball somehow slipped past his stumps and then, to total delirium, Warne bowled a ball of slightly fuller length and Ash drove it through mid wicket to the boundary.
At that moment I actually felt physically sick. The emotional outpouring in the dressing-room was quite overwhelming. Fred didn’t know whose arm to punch first so he punched everyone’s before launching Elton John’s sodding ‘Rocket Man’ for the thousandth time that summer. Vaughan’s veneer of ice-cold calm melted everywhere. Even Duncan smiled, or maybe it was just wind.
One more match, one more result and the Ashes would be ours.
For five days in September 2005 The Oval was the centre of the known universe. We knew that because it said so on the front page of the Daily Mirror. All week long, then all morning long on Thursday 8 September, no other news mattered except what was going on at the Kennington Oval.
The plan was simple. Win the toss, bat them out of the game, take the draw, get on that open-topped bus and kiss Nelson’s Column.
And despite some incredibly harrowing moments, we carried it out, thanks largely to Strauss getting his most important 100 for England, 129, Fred making another big contribution with the bat, 72 and a massive one with the ball, five for 78 in 34 impeccable overs to bowl them out for 367, but eventually thanks to KP, we did it.
Pietersen was simply inspired. Tragically for Warne, he managed to shell a chance from his Hampshire team-mate at slip off Lee when KP had made just 15. By the time he was eighth out for 158, I wonder how many times KP had said thanks, mate.
And, after Giles made 59 to settle the issue, we were all of the same mind.
To be honest, I was so nervous I could only bring myself to watch KP’s innings on the dressing-room TV.
Cue the madness. Seas of champagne, cameras, songs, ‘Jerusalem’. More champagne, KP managing to pour almost half a bottle of it into his eye. The Ashes. Vaughan holding the Urn. Us waving at the girls, Tears, loads of tears. Even more champagne. ‘Jerusalem’ again. Sleep? What for?
I spent all of the night and half of the next morning attempting to counter acute dehydration by drinking more and more beer, and when I got back to our hotel around 4 a.m. I realized I was absolutely starving.
Sitting in the lobby I ordered a ham and cheese toastie and while waiting realized I had absolutely no chance of getting any sleep even if I had wanted to, which I didn’t. So I decided to stay up and wait to see what Her Majesty’s Press had in store for us.
The next bloke I saw was one of the journalists, who had been up drinking with Fred and Harmy in the hotel bar.
‘What’s up, Marcus?’ he asked me.
‘Mate, I’m so happy. I’m so excited. I cannot wait for the open-top bus ride.’
‘But that’s not for ages. What are you doing here now?’
‘I’ve ordered all the papers and I’m waiting for them to arrive,’ I explained.
‘As long as it takes,’ I said.
* * *
We’d done it. We’d bloody done it.
Up on the open-top bus, Fred looking terrible, unable to open his eyes. Even more ‘Jerusalem’. Sunglasses as standard issue for sore heads and to keep the glare of KP’s hair out of our eyes. Hoggy, chortling and getting ready to take the piss out of Tony Blair at the No.10 reception, at which I was so soaked I could barely string two words together. ‘What do all these photographers want, I wonder?’ asked the PM. ‘A photo, you knob,’ replied Matthew, who is from the North.
Harmy flying. Vaughan still fairly cool, Duncan suffering from Smileyman’s disease. Ash still shaking with emotion. Geraint Jones faintly embarrassed, so too Bell and Collingwood, in for Simon Jones who was there, on crutches, legless. Strauss eyes-glazed but still somehow focused.
Me? Gone, mate. Absolutely gone. Hayley, get me to bed before I wake up. All this, a seat at Ashton Gate, an MBE and the freedom of Keynsham – surely nothing could stop us now.