England and Australia must live the moment again in this Ashes summer of 2015.
– The Ashes: A statistical review of cricket’s greatest rivalry
– #360debate: Who will claim 2015 Ashes glory?
– Cricket Xtra: Shah turns Ajmal into Pakistan’s forgotten man
Yes, it may be a decade exactly since English cricket entranced the nation in one of the greatest tussles for the urn – one they won too, of course, after almost 30 years of failure. As the next Ashes battle approaches, 2005 inevitably is being re-bottled across the country with a bombardment of broadcast archive footage, talking heads and eye-witness reminiscences.
It is all irresistible fare, but a glorious irrelevance too. Memories of 2005 will not win the Ashes again for Alastair Cook’s England or lose them for Michael Clarke’s Australia.
By all means, delight for a few minutes in the camaraderie of Edgbaston – or the post-match excesses of the Oval even. But if you want to make the most of 2015, tomorrow in Cardiff you had better be ready to snap out of it.
Cook, Clarke and their fellow protagonists certainly will. But they will be wanting to carry their countries with them too – because that is how early gains will be consolidated, or fightbacks begun.
Good luck to England in the #Ashes. I’ll be watching. And waiting, if needed… @sportsbetcomau #Pommel http://t.co/cJrfxcgnAT
— Kevin Pietersen (@KP24) July 6, 2015
Cricket, and the world, has changed since the days when Andrew Flintoff and Brett Lee gave their last ounce – just as it had back then, a near quarter-century after Ian Botham and Bob Willis were forces of nature at Headingley.
The Ashes story goes back much further than that, of course – another century, in fact. But next month, it will be bang up to date again.
On the pitch, reverse-swing will be a generation old but still a potential match-winner if conditions are conducive to honed skills.
It will be fascinating as well to witness whether the ever more expansive shot-making of this year’s World Cup, and then England and New Zealand’s set-tos at the start of this summer in all formats, will have a knock-on influence on the oldest cricketing contest of all.
Adding to the intrigue is DRS. Absent a decade ago, but decidedly not so at the start of the last Ashes in this country – when it dominated a titanic opening Test at Trent Bridge – the technology has added an extra layer of controversy which is sure to play a prominent role at some point this summer.
The noises, though, will all be secondary when the captains toss up in Cardiff and still more so when someone – a left-hander presumably, looking at the likely line-ups – has to face the first ball of the Ashes.
Success or otherwise, in that moment and then for the next seven weeks, will make or compromise careers.
Among them it is Australia who are expected to dominate after their whitewash victory at home in 2013-14 and England’s overhaul of management, twice over, in the aftermath. The counter-argument is not quite so persuasive, but bears repeating – as it was by Australia captain Clarke, no less, at his first press conference of the summer.
He has never won the Ashes in England and Australia have been second-best in their last three attempts since 2001.
A more recent potted sequence of respective fortunes is maybe more pertinent. Since trouncing England two winters ago on the back of the unstoppable Mitchell Johnson’s 37 wickets, at under 14 each, Australia have beaten South Africa away, lost 2-0 to Pakistan in the unforgiving climes of the United Arab Emirates, and then won 2-0 at home to India and 2-0 in the West Indies just last month. There is also the small matter of a home World Cup triumph, under Clarke’s captaincy.
England were embarrassingly eliminated from the global tournament before it reached its knockout stages, but have since reinvented themselves in the white-ball formats and edged a thrilling series against World Cup finalists New Zealand this month.
They can perhaps tap into that feel-good factor for the Ashes, albeit with few of those who matched the Kiwis shot for amazing shot included in the Test team.
Of more relevance is the mixed bag of drawn Test series in West Indies and then at home to New Zealand this year, both of which saw England hint at significant improvement only to be hauled back to 1-1 by defeat in the final Test.
So it is that Australian Trevor Bayliss, arriving less than two weeks before the start of the Ashes to take on his new role, replaces the sacked Peter Moores to work again alongside assistant Paul Farbrace.
It is an intriguing set of circumstances, portrayed as another new era under Cook, and an uncanny echo of Australia’s decision to sack Mickey Arthur and appoint Darren Lehmann in a similar time frame before the last series here.
Australia lost that one, of course, and England are favourites to do likewise this time. No one knows, though; it is all anticipation and guesswork.
