50 Monday January 3 2022 | the times
SportThe Ashes
5
Gideon
HaighColumnist for
The AustralianApproaching the Olympic Stand
entrance to Melbourne Cricket
Ground during the Boxing Day Test,
patrons encountered one of those
fairground exhibits common at Test
grounds to enrich the “fan
experience”: a giant inflatable Ashes
urn anchored to the ground.
Everything, I guess, must now be
made huge for people to notice it,
even if the whole point of the urn is
how tiny it is, how one’s wonderment
derives from the totemic significance
of an object so insignificant.
But on reflection, no object could
be more evocative of the 2021-22
Ashes than a big, bouncy urn full of
wind. The struggle is as much off-field
as on-field to see as following in a
great tradition such a travesty of
competition.
Periodically this summer, the big
screens have flashed some black-and-
white footage designed to evoke the
dramas of yesteryear — a Bradman
drive, a Larwood bouncer etc.
Yet it is difficult to relate these
precious antique glimmers to whatLike ‘The Simpsons’, Ashes is
you’ve been watching, which is just
Australia beating up another
underprepared and overmanaged
international visitor who’ll be gone
before we know it. To put it in the
business lingo that administrators
favour, the Ashes has been reduced to
a once-venerable brand name trading
on prior associations but denuded of
meaning.
The Australians have been fine, as
they generally are at home: since
Boxing Day ten years ago, their
record is 38 wins and seven
defeats, two of those last
summer. But Ricky
Ponting’s memory is not
playing him false: this is
the poorest England
team in memory.
The Ashes arrogates
to itself outsized
significance. The rivals
insist on a four-year cycle
and a five-Test length, out
of kilter with the World Test
Championship.
They can do that because, of
course, the franchise pays its way:
broadcast deals are structured to
maximise the amount of Ashes
cricket; sponsors crave involvement;
venues compete frantically for the
prestige of hosting; corporates regard
it as offering premium hospitality.
But this is the prevalence of
capitalist logic rather than cricketsentiment. It is treating the Ashes as
cricket’s equivalent of The Simpsons,
felt by aficionados to have peaked
about season ten, but still profitable,
and thus continuous, in season 33.
Cricket is not merely content.
Integral to the Ashes’ prolonged
success has been its relative closeness
over time: 34 Australian series
victories versus 32 English.
Sooner or later, quality must be
attended to and equilibrium
addressed, which entails a degree of
seriousness that seems beyond
the England & Wales Cricket
Board, whose idée fixe is
entirely commercial,
whose first-class
competition has long
ceased being fit for
purpose, whose
overmighty executive
are unchecked by a
board devoid of cricket
intelligence.
Alongside the XL Ashes
urn at the MCG, funnily enough,
was a VR “cricket simulator” offering
visitors the opportunity to “Be Your
Own Ashes Hero”.
Goodness knows it seemed to
parallel England’s preparation for this
tour, which involved exhaustive
immersion in trivial detail to the total
exclusion of substance, and nothing
so passé as actually playing cricket.
You prepare for tough cricket inFourth Test
Australia v England,
Sydney Cricket Ground
Tomorrow, 11.30pm GMT
TV: BT Sport 1
Radio: BBC 5 Live
Sports ExtraStokes, above, has thrown his support
behind the England captain and coach
Ben Stokes has thrown his support
behind England’s beleaguered man-
agement. As the Covid net closed in,
rendering the prospects of finishing the
Ashes increasingly precarious, Stokes,
a potential candidate for the captaincy
if a vacancy arises, reiterated that Joe
Root and Chris Silverwood continued
to enjoy the loyalty of the players
despite a year in which England have
lost more matches than ever before.
Speaking at the Sydney Cricket
Ground three days before the start of
the fourth Test, Stokes said: “The most
important opinions are those guys in
the dressing room and they [Root and
Silverwood] have got our full support.
Captaincy is more than about setting
fields or picking the team or making
decisions out there in the middle. A
captain is someone you want to go out
and play for. Joe Root is someone I
always want to play for.
“Chris Silverwood is exactly the
same. He’s a real players’ coach. He
stands up for you as individuals and
players as well. All the hype in the
media recently about their futures, they
know full well they have the support of
everyone in there and that’s all that
matters.” After isolating with his family
in Melbourne, Silverwood has tested
positive for Covid-19 and will remain in
isolation until January 8. He remains
asymptomatic and in good health.
Silverwood is the most likely fall guy
no matter how the series finishes, but
an improved performance would help
Root, who retains the support of key
figures at ECB. Ashley Giles, Silver-
wood’s boss, landed in Sydney
over the weekend, but was
waiting on a negative
PCR test before joining
the team, while the
former England one-
day captain, Adam
Hollioake, who had
been enlisted to pro-
vide support for the
stand-in head coach,
Graham Thorpe, had
to pull out when a
close contact tested
positive.
The chaotic feel to events
generally was exacerbated at
Sunday’s practice session when two
local net bowlers, already engaged in
bowling at England’s batsmen, tested
positive for Covid after pre-ground
entry tests. Although Cricket Australia
(CA) insisted these reflected prior
infection and did not pose a risk, it led
to the withdrawal of all the net bowlers,
leaving England’s seamers to carry the
load: fresh from hearing news of his
father’s OBE in the New Year’s Hon-
ours, Mark Wood ran in with his usual
gusto and Stuart Broad, potentially in
line to replace Ollie Robinson, had a
long stint.
It is a small miracle that, with the
exception of Travis Head, who will miss
the Sydney Test, the outbreak has yet to
affect either set of players significantly.
The rising rates in Sydney and Melb-
ourne especially have begun to
decimate availability in the Big Bash
League, which is running concurrently
with the Ashes series. The match
between Melbourne Stars and Perth
Scorchers yesterday was scheduled to
Stokes: I’ve never wanted to
go ahead, despite ten players and eight
staff having tested positive for the Stars
and four for the Scorchers.
The Sydney Test will turn pink in
memory of Jane McGrath, late wife of
the Australia former great fast bowler
Glenn McGrath, and each year money
is raised for the McGrath Foundation,
which supports those families suffering
through a diagnosis of breast cancer.
McGrath tested positive for Covid over
the weekend and will require a negative
PCR test before he is able to attend the
third day, the Jane McGrath day.
Against this backdrop, CA is deter-
mined to plough on with the series.
Bradley Hazzard, the New South Wales
health minister, described the Sydney
Test as “sacred” and especially impor-
tant this year as a sign of a return to
normality, while the financial implica-
tions of a cancellation for CA would be
significant.
So far, England players have toed the
line — in public at least — with Zak
Crawley saying that he was “absolutely
comfortable” with the Test going ahead
and that he would be fine if Covid
protocols were tightened further. All
Australia’s players returned negative
Tests yesterday and England’s under-
went a further round of testing, their
seventh in the past eight days.
Crawley and Stokes were among the
batsmen forced to make do at a practice
session resembling that from a genera-
tion ago, with coaching support down
to a minimum and players taking up re-
sponsibility to throw balls to each other.
“The next couple of days are about get-
ting what you can out of the resources
we have available. You have to do your
own stuff, look after yourself and your
own preparation,” Stokes said.
Stokes has endured a tricky return to
the team after missing a large chunk of
the summer to look after his mental
wellbeing and a finger injury suffered in
the Indian Premier League. He has
struggled to impose himself
on the series, with a top
score of 34 in six innings
and a three-wicket
haul his best with the
ball. He has looked
as though he has
found it hard to get
up to speed for the
intensity of Ashes
cricket.
He reflected on
the last hour of the
second day at Melb-
ourne, where he rated
the bowling from Mitchell
Starc and Pat Cummins as good
as he has seen and said it was the first
time he had been taken aback by an at-
mosphere in the ground, so wild and
frenzied was it. For Stokes to say that
shows the challenge faced by some of
England’s younger, less experienced
players. Nathan Lyon, the spinner, sug-
gested there would be no let up in the
desire for a 4-0 or 5-0 scoreline.
Should that happen, the calls for
Stokes to replace Root will intensify, but
Stokes was adamant he has given this
eventuality little thought. “I’ve never
really had an ambition to be a captain,”
he said. “That’s totally Joe’s decision; he
shouldn’t be forced into doing it [quit-
ting]. I’m sure Cooky [Alastair Cook]
felt the same way. He did it for so long.
When he knew his time was up, his time
was up. Those discussions haven’t been
entered anywhere near Joe, yet.
“He’s brought this team a long way.
He’s done some great things. Obviously
this series hasn’t gone too well. Not
from a captaincy point of view but from
a team and results point of view. Unfor-
tunately, the captain and coach bear the
scrutiny for that but there are ten other
guys out there besides the captain.”Mike Ather ton
Chief Cricket
CorrespondentBroad’s disappointing year
Broad took his fewest Test wickets in
2021 for 14 years at his worst average
for 13 years
Wickets Average20071
95200825
43.24200947
28.36201026
37.69201133
22.3201240
31.7201362
25.8201430
26.7201556
23.82201648
26.56201730
36.06201835
28.28201943
25.11202038
14.76202112
39.5in Sydney
ut was
tive
ng
ea
edevents
erbated at
ssion when twostruggled to
on the s
score o
and
hau
ba
as
fo
u
in
cr
H
the
secon
ourne,
ttthe bowlin
SSStarc and Pat C
ashe has seen and sa