I love Australia. And I have nothing against the Australian people. Why, then, does the rare spectacle of the Baggy Greens looking broken, battered and bewildered bring me so much delight? Why does their each and every victory over England bring such pain?
As England prepare for an Ashes series Down Under, the memory of Adelaide comes back to me with unstoppable force: the dreadful agonies of Adelaide, the overwhelming joys of Adelaide... That fair city was the site of two matches, four years apart, that captured the delirious extremes of partisanship in sport.
In 2006, after a long losing streak, England held the Ashes and were expected to retain them. They began with a hapless defeat in Brisbane – remember Steve Harmison’s first ball of the series that went straight to second slip? – but they batted up a storm in the first innings of the second Test at Adelaide and Shane Warne was reduced to defensively pitching the ball outside leg stump to Kevin Pietersen. Captain Andrew Flintoff declared at 551–6.
Yet England still lost. They collapsed on the last day when Warne imposed his will. He also imposed it on the umpire, who started the slide with a dodgy decision against Andrew Strauss. England were all out for 129. Australia knocked off the 168 runs to win in just 33 overs and England went on to lose the series 5–0.
Four years later in Brisbane, England managed a draw in the first Test of the 2010 Ashes, thanks to a second-innings score of 517–1 declared. “Nice to see your boys making a bit of a fight of it,” was the sarcastic remark from a press-room attendant. England went to Adelaide undefeated and it soon became the sweetest city in the world. It’s an attractive place. I saw black swans on the Torrens River on the way to the ground on the first day. Good job I was in good time, as within ten minutes Australia were three wickets down with just two runs on the board – a smart run-out from Jonathan Trott got rid of Simon Katich, Ricky Ponting was caught by Graeme Swann off Jimmy Anderson’s next ball and Michael Clarke went with the first ball of his second over. When England went in to bat, it got even better. Pietersen scored a brutal 227, as fine an innings as I’ve ever seen. Australia couldn’t match him and Swann completed an innings victory with a five-fer. If Australia could have held on just an hour longer the weather would have saved them. I wrote my match report watching the rain bouncing knee-high off the pavement outside my hotel. Extremes of emotion are part of the Ashes experience. It’s not just about wanting England to win, it’s also wanting Australia to lose. Badly, if possible.
The Ashes lasts for nearly two months and that gives them a peculiarly indelible quality. I’m still wincing at the Bazball excesses of the last series, in England, in 2023: Ben Stokes’s ridiculous declaration at 393–8 on the opening day with Joe Root well set on 118 not out, and then the epidemic of witless hooking in the second Test. Australia won both. England levelled the series with a great comeback, but they shouldn’t have needed to.
This time round, England should be the stronger side, if Stokes is on fire with both ball and bat and all the fast bowlers are fit. All the same, Australia start as clear favourites. That’s because it’s in Australia, and the will of the entire nation is against England. England have this dreadful tendency to wilt in Australia. Call it the Adelaide Fade.
So what about Joe Root? If for the first time in his career he manages to bat in Australia in the manner he can, England have a serious chance. He has never scored a century in Australia, a fact remarked on at least 100 times every day in the course of the preliminaries. But he’s in a better place to do so than he was in 2021, given he’s no longer carrying the weight of being captain.
Last summer Root moved into second place (behind Sachin Tendulkar) in the list of Test match run-scorers. He’s already an all-time great. But this would be such a nice moment to score that elusive first Ashes century in Australia. In Adelaide, perhaps.
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