The series begining tomorrow in Cardiff between Australia and England will be the twentieth I have watched as fan and journalist, enough to make anyone feel their seniority, if not their obsolescence. I have vivid recollections of each, and senses of change to go with the general continuity, two of which have stood out recently in contemplating my very earliest memories of Ashes competition.
In 1974–75, the first Ashes series I saw, Derek Underwood provided the only variation on right-arm over-the-wicket, and John Edrich and David Lloyd the only alternatives to the phalanx of right-handed specialist batsmen (Wally Edwards was there for Australia too, but, I hope he’ll pardon me saying, never for long).
Cricket today is almost unthinkably different. For the third consecutive Ashes series, the opening batsmen on both sides will be left-handed; likewise four of Australia’s top six. Mitchell Johnson is the first left-arm quick to lead an Australian attack in England since Alan Davidson. Simon Katich should purvey his chinamen. England have excluded Ryan Sidebottom, but look like opting for Monty Panesar.
This not only makes for more various cricket, full of angles and inclines, tugging techniques in different directions, but adds a particular layer of complication to a captain’s deliberations in England, where the gradient of grounds is a factor as in no other country, and pitches are soft enough to wear unpredictably. How, for instance, might the excavations of Johnson’s front foot enhance Graeme Swann’s effectiveness to Ricky Ponting and Michael Clarke, Australia’s best players of slow bowling? How might they complicate the challenges to Matt Prior’s glovework?
In 1974–75, Australia enjoyed an advantage in sheer pace not experienced by an Ashes side for twenty years: Jeff Thomson and Dennis Lillee omnipotent reigned, and Bob Willis could be testingly quick at times too. Yet we never knew exactly how quick they really were. Pace was judged the old-fashioned way, correlating the length of the ball with the height of the bounce, the batsmen’s degree of hurry, and in due course their observable flinching. Australians were happy enough with two ideas: Thomson and Lillee were very quick, and they were on our side.
With the modern craving for quantification has come the tyranny of the speed gun, these days rather more reliable than the one I saw at Headingley eight years ago that clocked (an admittedly languid) Alan Mullally at 11 miles per hour. With Brett Lee’s incapacitation for the First Test, reported the Daily Mail this morning, England achieved a vital edge in speed:
The Aussies are still not short of pace and Mitchell Johnson can deliver at 94mph—although Stuart Broad is capable of matching that. England also have Freddie Flintoff, Jimmy Anderson (both 93mph) and Graham Onions (90mph), and there is always Steve Harmison (96mph) in reserve. Peter Siddle (92mph), Shane Watson (90mph), Ben Hilfenhaus (89mph) and Stuart Clark (88mph) are Ricky Ponting’s other pace aces.
Never mind the scoreboard—look at the speedo!
Silly stuff, of course, and not merely because it looks like Shane Watson will only clock 90 miles per hour this season in a sports car. Cricket’s infatuation with precision of pace also contains a degree of looking backwards: the game remains stubbornly imperial in a metric age. Yet it has had its impact, even at first-class level. ‘In the county game whenever the TV cameras turn up, so does the speed gun,’ admits Martin Bicknell in his recent autobiography. ‘All the bowlers are conscious of it; they want to be the fastest bowler on show.’ He says that what worried him most about his return to Test cricket was how surveillance would confirm the passage of years. It seems almost like spoiling the game to recall that the most effective seam bowler in the corresponding Test four years ago was the slowest on either side: Glenn McGrath.
One element of the Ashes that has not changed is the acute sense of accompanying expectation, this one not least of all, the anticipation sharpened by the summer’s structure, Twenty20’s unrelenting roll. Everything stops for the Ashes; everything has to stop for the Ashes. Let’s hope it is worth the stopping, and always will be.