Aggers’ Ashes. Jonathan Agnew
on a diet of Aussie domination, it’s all rather unsettling, almost too good to be true. Even the Brisbane weather and Gabba pitch appear to be on the side of the tourists – grey and sweaty overhead, greenish and a little juicy underfoot.
Whether the track stays that way is another matter. While the forecast for Thursday morning is for clouds and warmth, the pitch may just be a late developer. Queensland might have been skittled for 75 and 96 here by New South Wales earlier this month, but Aussie captain Ricky Ponting thinks groundsman Kevin Mitchell has prepared a classic Gabba wicket-spicy enough to keep the pace bowlers interested, but one which will offer something for the spinners later on and bring full reward for disciplined batting.
“I think it looks particularly good,” a chirpy Punter said at the stadium on Wednesday. “It looks exactly like wickets look here the day before a match.” Ponting won’t be drawn on whether he’ll opt to bat if he wins the toss. Nor will Andrew Strauss (“I’ve got pretty firm ideas of what I want to do, but you’ve got to be prepared to do both.”) After England’s chastening experiences on the first day in 2002 and 2006, it should be a no-brainer for the tourists: call correctly, and get the pads on.
Except it’s not quite so straightforward. England’s bowling attack requires seam-friendly conditions. If there’s early swing in the air, goes the argument you increasingly hear in local bars and cafes, might it be better to shove recent history to one side and go hard for the jugular? The stats aren’t quite as onesided as we might imagine. In Ashes Tests at this ground, the team winning the toss has batted first 13 times, and gone on to win on six occasions. In the five matches where a skipper has opted to stick the opposition in, they’ve won two. In all Tests at the Gabba, 64 per cent of games have been won by the side batting first, 36 per cent by the team batting second. Yet since the end of the 1970s, Australia have opted to bowl on nine of the 15 times they’ve won the toss.
What isn’t in doubt is how spicy the atmosphere will be inside this gold and green concrete bowl come the first ball. The most telling moment of Ponting’s ebullient pre-match news conference came when he spoke about forcing his side to watch England celebrate after they had regained the urn last summer. “I made sure it hurt them as much as possible when the Ashes were handed over to Andrew Strauss at The Oval,” he said. “There is no doubt that that’s been driving us – that empty feeling after walking off the pitch after two unsuccessful Ashes series.”
Ponting, combative as always, intends to lead from the front. He has begun the last two Ashes series with a century in the very first innings; while he averages an impressive 66 in Tests at the Gabba, that rises to 100 against the oldest enemy. If he has concerns about Michael Clarke’s dicky back, he’s keeping them well hidden; if he’s worried about giving the unheralded 28-year-old Xavier Doherty (84 first-class wickets in his entire career) his Test debut in the cauldron of an Ashes opener, he wasn’t about to admit it to a home media scenting blood.
His England counterpart Strauss has had none of those last-gasp selectoral headaches. He’s known his first-choice XI since last summer. After wins in two of the three warm-up games this month, he will also feel his side are coming into form at the ideal time. “We’re all very keen to get going,” he says. “We’re in a good place as a side. At the same time we understand the size of the challenge ahead – not many teams come here and win. But we couldn’t be better placed mentally to take on that challenge. I’m fully confident that we’ve got the players to do that and we thrive on the idea that we could pull off something pretty special.”
The mood in the camp has been upbeat and confident from the moment they arrived in Brisbane. Others might worry about Alastair Cook’s supposed technical deficiencies, or Kevin Pietersen’s Test drought, or the inexperience of the attack in Australian conditions, yet Strauss knows that England will never have a better chance of breaking their dismal run Down Under. Australia have won an intimidating 75 per cent of Tests they’ve played at home over the past 20 years. But the luminaries who sparked those performances are gone, replaced in most part with players big on honest toil but low on star quality. “The prospect of turning that record around excites us,” says Strauss. He knows that for all Marcus North’s application he is no Steve Waugh; for all Peter Siddle’s snarling aggression, he would rather open against him than Glenn McGrath or Brett Lee.
What England need to do is start well. Graham Gooch, who played in four Ashes series in Australia and is now his country’s batting coach, has been telling anyone who’ll listen out here how critical the first session of each day will be. Even if a repeat of the Harmison horrors of four years ago is unlikely, the first skirmishes could establish the lines for the battle to follow.” There’s no doubt that the first hour here set up the whole campaign for us last time,” says Ponting. “We were able to capitalise on some very nervous England players.”
Seventy-seven per cent of Tests at the Gabba end in a result. Win here, and England will know the mutterings among locals about Australia’s flaws and Ponting’s perceived inadequacies as skipper will become a clamour. Already there are signs that the hosts’love affair with cricket might not be as passionate as we always assume. Television viewing figures for the sport are down 24 per cent over the last decade, and while there has been a strong growth in participation among children under the age of 12, there has been a bigger dropoff in the 13-18 age group. Australia needs these Ashes as much as England.
Tourist numbers too are down on last time. The recession back home, allied to a strong Aussie dollar that makes travelling here much more expensive for Brits, means there are fewer England fans visible in the pubs and clubs. The Barmy Army is in position, but its ranks are denuded. For the sport as a whole, the series could not have come at a better moment. At a time when corruption scandals are dominating the headlines, this is one clash you can really believe in.
EVE OF SERIES THOUGHTS:
Has there ever been such a feeling of anticipation before a Test series before? This is my sixth Ashes tour, and I certainly have never felt anything like it. This huge excitement has been generated by the optimism among England supporters who genuinely feel that Andrew Strauss’s men have a real chance of defeating Australia. At the same time, there is serious trepidation in the Australian media and the general public that their great run of two decades without a home Ashes series defeat is finally coming to an end.
A great deal has been made of England’s preparation for the tour. I’ve watched it, and it has gone well. I would have liked Kevin Pietersen to make a big score – he, Jonathan Trott and Matt Prior have all looked in nice touch, but got out too early. This series will not be won by breezy half-centuries. The batsmen have to go on and register the big scores that really make the difference in Test cricket. England are also lacking a genuinely fast bowler; someone to come on and bowl a blistering, intimidating spell of four overs in the heat and when the pitch is flat. Someone like Andrew Flintoff. Australia don’t have one either, mind you, and both teams have the scope to add annoying lower-order runs as a result.
In many ways, though, the preparation will not count for much come the start of play, when the nerves and adrenalin kick in. We all remember the ghastly opening hour here four years ago when poor Steve Harmison was so wretchedly nervous that he fired the first ball straight to a startled Flintoff at second slip.
Ricky Ponting states that his team knew they would regain the Ashes as early as that first drinks session. True, England’s build-up contributed to their downfall, but it is the cricket on the Test field that matters in the end, and England know that they have an awful lot of history to bury, and poor starts at the Gabba to overcome if they are to succeed.
The last time England won here at the Gabba, they won the Ashes. If they do win here, it will be fascinating to see the reaction of the Australian selectors who are already under pressure to bring in new faces in place of Mike Hussey and Marcus North in particular. There is even talk of Ponting’s career being in the balance should he lose his third Ashes series. However, should Australia win this opening match, I can see them regaining their confidence – which has taken quite a battering recently – and combined with an inevitable feeling of ‘here we go again’ from the England perspective, they could become very difficult to beat.
So much depends on this first game. A key