ISSUE

4

OUR ASHES GUEST EDITORMEET FRED

“It waS crIckEt on anothEr lEvEl”2005

Punter, Fred & Harmy recall tHe series tHat cHanged everything

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Italy and dEnmark throUgh to Icc world twEnty20 QUalIfIErThe Pepsi ICC European Division 1 Championship took place this month in Sussex in England, as twelve European teams battled it out to secure one of the two qualifying places for the ICC World Twenty20 Global qualifier in United Arab Emirates in November.

It was a fantastic tournament, with great weather and some high quality cricket. The venues of Horsham Cricket Club, Preston Nomads Cricket Club and Brightonandhovejobs.com County Ground, Hove played host to some great games.

It was competitive all week with some tightly fought matches, resulting in Denmark, Jersey, Guernsey and Italy confirming the Finals Day spots. Finals Day was a fantastic occasion hosted at the home of Sussex county club, a good crowd in, under blue skies and high temperatures; the cricket aptly matched the setting.

A very close first final between Jersey and Italy, with Italy winning by 6 runs got all

those watching in the mood. In the second match Denmark defeated Guernsey by a whopping 113 runs, but the man of the moment was most certainly Denmark’s Freddie Klokker who scored 129 not out. Italy and Denmark had qualified for the ICC World Twenty20 Global Qualifier in the UAE, all that was left to decide who was going to be crowned Pepsi ICC European Division 1 Champions?

Under lights Italy batted first posting 215 runs on the board, Denmark tried their best to keep up on the chase, but were always behind and losing wickets resulted in a victory by Italy of 18 runs.

Italy’s captain Damian Crowley was delighted with the victory, “I am pretty much lost for words, winning the tournament has been great effort and shows the character in our squad,” said Crowley.

Most Valuable Player was announced as Denmark’s Freddie Klokker who said, “It is

always nice to win prizes, but we are very disappointed with the loss. My 129 not out in the semi finals was the best I have ever batted. It was an amazing wicket here at Hove and it has been a great tournament.”

Final positions

1. Italy 2. Denmark

3. Guernsey4. Jersey5. France6. Austria7. Germany 8. Norway9. Isle of Man10. Gibraltar11. Sweden12. Belgium

It has been a hectic month for ICC Europe, with the Pepsi ICC European Division 1 taking place in Sussex; it was a fantastic event with some great cricket played and two worthy qualifiers to the ICC World Twenty20 Global Qualifier. The highlights package and live streaming in partnership with QuipuTV was a great addition so that cricket could be enjoyed across the continent and assisting the countries with taking part in community visits to primary schools were excellent for all those involved. It doesn’t stop here as we look forward to the Pepsi ICC European U19 Division 1 WCQ and the ICC Women’s World Twenty20 Global Qualifier.

Nick PinkICC Regional Development Manager - Europe

Keep up-to-date with all the latest news and events from ICC Europe by following us on Twitter and liking us on Facebook!

Twitter Facebook www.icc-europe.org

wElcomE TO YOUR MAGAZINE

Welcome to another issue of All Out Cricket magazine, brought to you in partnership with ICC Europe. This month, with the Ashes in full flow, we lead off by getting the great and the good to tell us what the age-old contest means to them, while elsewhere, to celebrate the acquisition of a certain Mr Flintoff as this month’s guest editor, we go back to 2005 and the summer everything changed. And that’s not all. Fred brings us his top ten toughest opponents, we round up the best bits from the ICC Champions Trophy, Chris Gayle swaggers into south London, Willis talks Dylan, and the Duckworth-Lewis Method takes us through the songs from their latest cricket opus. If you like this little lot, you’ll find a splendid magazine subscription offer on page 40, while on alloutcricket.com we’ll be running daily news, features and competitions throughout this huge summer for cricket. Enjoy.

Phil WalkerEditor, AOC

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mEdIa cornErICC Europe in partnership with QuipuTV aired highlights and live streaming for the tournament. Select matches of the group matches brought cricket to life for those all cheering on across the continent. Live streaming of the finals day at Hove was a fantastic success! For all the footage click here.

There was a great amount of media coverage and interest around the tournament with BBC South, BBC Channel Islands and ITV all coming down to the venues. The District Post, West County Sussex Times, The Argus, The Cricketer and The Cricket Paper showed a fantastic interest posting and printing stories. Talk Sport spoke with Danish international Freddie Klokker to listen click here (11.30 – 12 slot, approx 10.35 to 13.50).

Icc womEn’S world twEnty20 QUalIfIErThe ICC Women’s World Twenty20 Qualifier, which is to be staged in Dublin, Ireland from 23-31 July will now see three teams advancing to the ICC World Twenty20 2014 in Bangladesh which include Europe’s Ireland and the Netherlands.

The eight-team tournament is the final step in a global qualification pathway to the ICC World Twenty20 2014. Following an ICC Board decision during the ICC annual conference week in London in June, three teams from the Ireland event will progress to Bangladesh instead of one.

As a result, it is not just the tournament winner, but also the runner-up and the winner of the third-fourth place play-off that will progress to the ICC World Twenty20 Bangladesh 2014.

The three qualifying teams will join Australia, Bangladesh, England, India, New Zealand, South Africa and West Indies in the 2014 tournament, which will be staged from 16 March to 6 April 2014. The ICC Women’s World Twenty20 2014 will now be a 10-team tournament, and will again be held alongside the men’s event.

The ICC will stream live the final two days of the ICC Women’s World Twenty20 Qualifier 2013, including the final, the 3rd v 4th place play-off and the semi-finals free of charge at www.icc-cricket.com. This is the first time that women’s qualification matches will be broadcast by the ICC to a global audience, marking another important step in the growth of women’s cricket globally.

For more information on this event go to www.icc-cricket.com

‘comE and try’ dayICC Europe and Cricket Factory hosted a ‘come and try cricket skills and drills session’ on the Hove Lawns this month in the build up to the Pepsi ICC European Division 1 Finals Day. Language schools in the area and the local community were invited to the Hove Lawns to undertake cricket activities in a fun inclusive environment along the sea front. Many people joined in the skills games and found out more about Cricket Factory and ICC Europe. Cricket Factory have worked in partnership with ICC Europe in many events as well as providing many European member countries with sets.

Gibraltar Cricket were one of the first countries to take the delivery of Cricket Factory Core Skills Set. The equipment was used to support youth participants and encourage engagement in Gibraltar Cricket with current and new participants. Other nations including Jersey who have used the equipment in cricket festivals and Austria have also invested in the skills set.

School vISItSFive European cricket teams who participated in the Pepsi ICC European Division 1 Championship visited local Sussex Primary schools in partnership with the Sussex Cricket Board.

Five visits were planned throughout the week four members of the Denmark team visiting St Mary’s Primary School in Horsham on Tuesday 9th July. The St Mary’s students took part in a mini cricket tournament which included batting, fielding and bowling coaching as well as an introduction of what cricket looked like in Denmark and a presentation of caps and gifts to the school.

Six Jersey team members on Wednesday 10th July took part in two cricket matches at Kingslea Primary School in Horsham and provided the students with more information on what cricket meant to those in Jersey. France, Isle of Man and Germany all also took part in these school visits which are great educational for players, but also to create the link with English schools.

ICC Regional Development Manager, Nick Pink said, “These school visits have been a great way to widen the reach and raise the profile

of our Pepsi ICC European Division 1 championship to the wider Sussex community. At the same time the participating countries have enjoyed the opportunity to showcase cricket and demonstrate the appeal of our great game across Europe,” says Pink.

Sussex Cricket Board who have organised the visits are very pleased with the visits, Development Manager, Steve Feazey says, “We are thrilled that some of our local schools have been given the opportunity to receive a visit from the countries participating in the ICC competition. All of the children have thoroughly enjoyed meeting the players involved and let’s hope that these visits inspire everyone to continue playing cricket in their schools and at their local cricket club,” said Feazey.

Icc European U19 division 1 wcQThe ICC European U19 Division 1 WCQ will take place in the Netherlands early next month with Denmark, Guernsey, Ireland, Jersey, Scotland and the Netherlands all taking part.

ashes in EuropeYou can now watch the Ashes in mainland Europe on YouTube. The ECB’s official YouTube channel is hosting live streaming as well as one minute highlights of every sessions. Click here (Selected countries only)

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The former England fast bowler turned twinkle-eyed commentary curmudgeon took time out from prep ahead of Sky Sports’ coverage of the Middlesex v Somerset Yorkshire Bank 40 � xture at Lord’s to talk wickets, wonder spells and Wagner, with Jo Harman.

Fancy a drink, Bob? I’ll have a co� ee, thanks.

So, the Ashes is nearly upon us. Do you ever get bored of talking about your own experiences of the Ashes, and Headingley ’81 in particular? No, not at all. That Test match was an absolute fairytale, you couldn’t have dreamt up the scenario. It was the sort of thing you’d fi nd in a Roy of the Rovers comic, with Beefy playing Roy. It was an extraordinary series and Mike Brearley coming in to captain the side was the catalyst for it all.

But you had your own Roy of the Rovers-style story didn’t you, in that you weren’t originally in the squad for that Headingley Test?That’s right. I had fl u during the Lord’s Test and the selectors decided they didn’t want to take a chance with anyone who wasn’t 100 per cent fi t, so I wasn’t picked for Headingley. Alec Bedser [chairman of selectors] rang me up at The Oval, where Surrey were playing Warwickshire, and I told him the only reason I wasn’t playing was so I’d be fi t for the Test match. He said they wanted me to play a game in order to prove my fi tness, so o� I went to play a one-day game for Surrey 2nd XI. Alec then rang up the secretary of Derbyshire to intercept Mike Hendrick’s invitation to play. It was that antiquated in those days!

In that famous spell [Willis took 8-43 to bowl England to victory a� er following on] you seemed to be in a trance-like state, completely focused on your bowling, almost unaware of what was going on around you…Yes, a ‘cocoon of concentration’. It was easier to get into that zone when I wasn’t captain. I was happy for Brearley to set the fi eld as he wanted, I just wanted to concentrate on bowling and that’s what he wanted me to do. He told me to forget about overstepping the front line: ‘If you bowl a no ball, then so be it, I just want you to bowl fast and straight at these guys.’ That’s basically what I did. It’s simple really.

How does commentating on those dramatic moments compare to the experience of playing in them? When you’re commentating on big moments you have to be aware that the footage is probably going to be edited and used in perpetuity, so you have to conjure up little sound bites in your mind that will suit the occasion, you can’t just ramble on.

Have you ever come up with sound bites in advance?You can’t prepare them; it’s defi nitely got to be ad-libbed. I did once, when Brian Lara broke the world record, and I made a Horlicks of it. I think I said he came from Trinidad and Tago, instead of Tobago.

Was commentary something you’d always thought you’d go into?No, I just sort of fell into it. I fi nished playing in ’84 and the next year the BBC asked me to commentate. I was appalling at it – some would say I still am – but I’m still going! There’s a bit of a di� cult balance

when you fi rst come out of the dressing room and into the commentary box. Some say the garden’s rosy and sit on the fence. I soon decided to take the gloves o� and tell it how it was.

Is that your style across all walks of life? To say it how you see it?I suppose across most parameters I’m a bit black and white, yeah.

Did you ever get riled by what commentators said about you in your playing days?Oh, absolutely. But it’s like a merry-go-round. You’re a player, you get o� that bit of the merry-go-round and then you’re a commentator.

Have you ever wished you’d been a bit less tough on a player? Oh, yeah, we’ve all been ticked o� once or twice about things we’ve said, going over the top. I’d better not name names though…

Who did you look to for inspiration when you started commentating?Most people would say Richie [Benaud]. He was very good to me when I started at

He’s the straight-talking, fast-bowling Dylan

obsessive with an Ashes story or two up his sleeve.

What’s your tipple, Bob Willis?

when you fi rst come out of the dressing

‘Cocoon of concentration’: Willis in the zone at Headingley

Tangled up in blue: Bob with our man Jo

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If you could describe your career in a Dylan song, which would you pick?[Laughs] That’s a tough one. Desolation Row is the one that springs to mind but I’d have to give it a bit more thought…

Do you play guitar yourself?No, I tried very briefl y but I know my position, and it’s not playing musical instruments.

And there’s really no one else but Dylan for you?I like Richard Wagner. It’s the bicentenary of his birth this year. It’s the best music ever written. You should put Ride of the Valkyries on in your o� ce – that’d get it going a bit!

This is Sky’s biggest year of sport across all six channels on Sky Sports and their year round schedule of live cricket includes back to back Ashes, Women’s international cricket and the best of the English domestic season.

the BBC. If he found I was repeating what he considered a commentary error, such as starting sentences with ‘so’ or saying ‘of course’, he would point it out to me.

What do you make of the art of fast bowling these days? There seems to be a dearth of express quicks compared to your day…Fast bowling is extremely hard work physically and fashions come and go. The dominance of one-day cricket, particularly Twenty20 cricket, has had an impact. Unless you can bowl express yorkers, bowling fast in one-day cricket is not that much of an advantage. I’m pretty sure that quick bowling was quicker in the 80s. Je� Thomson is the fastest bowler that I ever saw and there were some seriously fast bowlers around: Patrick Patterson and Colin Croft had real pace. I don’t think we’ve got anything like that at the moment.

If you had your time again would you still be striving to bowl as fast as you could, or focusing more on other skills?I’d need more deliveries in my armoury than I had. The game has progressed dramatically in terms of fi tness and improvisation. Bowling at Jos Buttler on his day would be quite a challenge for anybody in the fi nal stages of a one-day

the BBC. If he found I was repeating what

game – being able to dab a perfect yorker for four past the wicketkeeper is a great skill. There isn’t any incentive to bowl fast anymore. I think pitches are partly to blame; some of the pitches around the world have got very dull, the pitches in the West Indies are dead. They turn in the subcontinent but there’s no pace in them.

What does life outside of cricket look like for you? Are you still a Bob Dylan obsessive? I listen to him virtually exclusively. Old and new stu� – I love the new stu� . I think I’ve been to about 50 Dylan concerts, starting in 1965 at the Royal Albert Hall, and through the years ever since. Last November I went to see Dylan’s three nights at the Hammersmith Apollo.

What is it about Dylan that sets him apart from everyone else for you?Lyrics and rhyme. I’d say his voice, but not anymore. It was described as a death rattle in a review of his latest album!

Some say the garden’s rosy and sit on the fence. I soon decided to take the gloves o� and tell it how it was

LEFT: BobBELOW: Bob

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TOURNAMENT REVIEW A few bananas, as you’d expect at a cricket groundNasser Hussain reveals his bizarre expectations as he surveys the Cardi� crowd’s fancy dress during the Champions Trophy

CAST AS THE UGLY DUCKLING OF international cricket tournaments since its inception in 1998, there weren’t too many tears shed when the ICC announced that the 2013 edition of the Champions Trophy would be the last. In a full-to-bursting fi xture schedule – with the Test Championship mooted to start in 2017 further increasing the congestion – something had to give, and a tournament considered neither particularly distinguished nor lucrative seemed the most sensible option.

Two-and-a-half weeks of – for the most part (and when the rain

allowed it) – absorbing and competitive cricket has changed perceptions though, to the point that the ICC are now reportedly considering retaining the competition. Twelve of the 15 fi xtures had sell-out crowds, international interest was high and the punchy format – 15 matches over 17 days, with only one dead rubber among them – was a welcome contrast to the convoluted World Cups of recent years. If this does prove to be the Champions Trophy’s last hurrah, it was a send o� party that did this much-maligned tournament proud.

Having been consigned to the scrapheap, the success of the 2013 Champions Trophy may have given the tournament a new lease of life.

THE STUFF OF CHAMPIONS

SERIES LINK

Jos Buttler equalled the record for the

number of dismissals in an ODI innings in

the semi-fi nal v South Africa

Runs scored by Shikhar Dhawan – 134 clear of his nearest rival,

Jonathan Trott

ICC CHAMPIONS TROPHY

6

363“How can you have a clash of cultures when you’re playing

against a country with no culture?”David Gower stokes the fi re in the build-up to England’s opening match against Australia

“Let’s not beat about the bush – Aleem Dar is on England’s

case. He knows that one individual is scratching the ball for England and that’s why the

ball was changed”Bob Willis suspects England of foul play

after the defeat to Sri Lanka

New Zealand’s Kyle Mills is now the tournament’s all-time leading wicket-taker

REVIEW

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I’ve got butter� ies the size of Quinton de Kock in my tummyChris Morris confesses to being nervous about being called up to South Africa’s ICC Champions Trophy squad

Number of runs Ravi Bopara scored in one over v Sri

Lanka – the second highest by an Englishman after Dimi

Mascarenhas’ 30 in ‘07

“Today’s a bit of a damp squid”

Alastair Cook fears a calamari calamity on the eve of the fi nal

28

ALL FOR ONE, AND ONE FOR ALLSo� a Westaby was one of the merry band of men and women who gave up their time to lend a helping hand at the Champions Trophy.

“THE BEST THING THAT’S happened to this tournament are the Cricketeers,” says former England captain Alec Stewart as I talk to him in the overspill press seating that I’ve been tasked to look after in my role as a volunteer at the Champions Trophy. “I get the train up, I get o� at Vauxhall, walk down and you see them there. As soon as you walk into the ground you’re greeted. The Cricketeers add value to the spectator experience.”

Volunteering in cricket is not a new concept. Indeed, at grassroots level the game relies heavily upon individuals giving up their time. But what is new this summer is the 800-strong volunteer force assembled at this tournament. Cricketeers were everywhere, and whether it was a spectator or a celebrity who needed assistance we were on hand to help. One Cricketeer told me how she had helped David Gower rearrange his jaunty collar on the way to The Oval Media Centre!

My job as a Cricketeer involved meeting and greeting fans at Hobbs Gate, as well as o� ering media support. The hardest part of welcoming spectators into the ground had to be holding onto the giant foam-fi nger, branded with the words ‘Happy to Help’. An overexcited Indian fan snatched only the fi nger part of my hand and ran o� down the road screaming with glee. But, missing fi ngers aside, the crowds pouring into The Oval responded brilliantly to us as volunteers.

Several of the roles given to Cricketeers, such as on-fi eld activation, ground sta� and media support, involved behind-the-scenes access. “Working in activation means that you are given a coveted ‘pitch access pass’ to organise the on-fi eld entertainment and make sure everything runs smoothly,” explains Cricketeer Josh. “I was in charge of the fl ags for the national anthems and being so close to the players just before the start of the game, whilst they sing their anthems in front of 23,000 people, is an experience I will never forget.”

Unfortunately, I never got the opportunity to get a fl uorescent ‘pitch access pass’ around my neck and my media support role was altogether less glamorous. My duties included guarding the photographer’s equipment – which involved sitting in a room with a TV and watching the cricket – and attending to the journalists as they furiously worked away on their articles.

A glamourised tea lady though I was, supporting the media did mean that I was plucked out to represent the Cricketeers for Indian TV interviews, ICC TV and Test Match Special, with ICC head of Cricketeers programme Ally Jarvis, tournament director Steve Elworthy and myself all crammed into the TMS box alongside Aggers for my 15 minutes of fame.

So where next for the Cricketeers? “Part of the legacy will be to continue the programme for each venue, with volunteers supporting their international and domestic fi xtures,” Jarvis explained.

The Cricketeers have certainly had a positive impact, with England captain Alastair Cook saying: “They have not only provided fantastic support to all aspects of running the tournament, they have undoubtedly added to the experience and enjoyment of those watching.”

Number of centuries scored – the lowest in

Champions Trophy history

“God is not coming to save us”

MS Dhoni’s warning to his team after India posted a

below-par total in the fi nal

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A songwriting award was probably the last thing The Divine Comedy’s Neil Hannon and Thomas Walsh of Pugwash were thinking about when they formed The Duckworth Lewis Method in 2009, but after the resounding success of their eponymous debut, followed by recognition from the Ivor Novello panel, the boys are back with album No.2, Sticky Wickets.

Released this month, the new LP features turns from the likes of Stephen Fry and Daniel Radcliffe to Henry Blofeld and Bumble, and contains songs such as Boom Boom Afridi and Nudging and Nurdling.

On the origins of the band, Hannon says: “We were going down to record a charity single that Thomas was doing and something about cricket came on the news. It was an England score, which was crazy, as you never hear anything about cricket on Irish radio or TV. I asked them to turn it up, despite

the fact that none of them would care. Thomas then said ‘Of course I bloody care, I love cricket!’”

The two were planning on writing songs for mainstream acts such as Tom Jones but instead found themselves using the work for cricket. “There were so many things that didn’t happen,” explains Hannon. “In the end, we just got pissed and the conversation turned to cricket. We thought it would be the craziest idea ever to write an entire album about cricket. So we did!

“When you make something like that, it’s a paradox. You think, ‘This is the greatest thing that’s ever been done and it will sell three million records’ and, at the same time, you’re thinking ‘We’ll be lucky if we even get to release it! ’ We got somewhere in between, happily.

“There had to be a follow-up to the first album,” adds Walsh. “We had fun writing together and we can’t really write with other people. We have a good laugh together; there’s something there...”

THE BUMPER

DUCKWORTH LEWIS You wouldn’t say no, would you, if that call came and I would never say neverRicky Ponting responds to the speculation that he could be in line for an Ashes call-up this summer

Heard the one about the two Irish musicians who wrote an album about cricket? Turns out it all went awfully well and they were nominated for an Ivor Novello. Fresh from completing their follow-up, the boys tell AOC what to expect from the new one.

THE SCORECARD: STICKY WICKETS BY THE DUCKWORTH LEWIS METHOD

TRACK 1: STICKY WICKETSThomas Walsh: We came up with the concept of a heavy Stones/ Who ri . Then, of course, [Stones album] Sticky Fingers came up and from that came Sticky Wickets.Neil Hannon: Sticky Wickets was just an excuse for me to go heavy…TW: We were so close to having Mick Jagger on it, too.NH: In the sense that we asked him and he said no.TW: I almost like him more for not wanting to do it.Best Lyric: “It’s no good/Play it on the back foot/Wait for it, wait for it”

TRACK 2: BOOM BOOM AFRIDINH: Rather than an ode to Afridi, it ’s an ode to David Lloyd, who appears on it. I’ve always loved Bumble’s commentary. It goes a bit psychedelic in the middle and he goes quite distorted.TW: Cricket’s rock’n’roll. Let’s face it, the greatest rockers of all time loved the game: Clapton, Harrison, Lynne, Jagger and… John Major. Best Lyric: “If you want to f lash, f lash hard/If you want to touch, the stars”

TRACK 3: IT’S JUST NOT CRICKETNH: This song is like a pretty, summery Britpop song. It ’s the first single.TW: We got a Pussy Riot reference in there: “ Vlad the Impaler is taking off his shirt/To wrestle with the Riot girls down in the dirt.” We can do politics!NH: It has a wonderful cameo appearance by Henry Blofeld. He came into the studio in his slippers. When we told him what we wanted, he just ran with it and did 15 minutes of freestyle. Best Lyric: “Bend over bank man and take one for the team/A billion dollar bonus and a handshake from the queen/It’s not right, it’s not cricket”

back foot/Wait for it, wait for it”

RETURN OF CRICKET’S TROUBADOURS

DuckworththeLewisMethod

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I won’t be playing Ashes cricket this time, there’s no doubt about that.Make your mind up Ricky

TRACK 4: THE UMPIRENH: Lyrically, this song has a lot to do with all referees in all sports, as they get a bum rap; we wouldn’t be able to play or watch these sports if there wasn’t anybody to referee or umpire them.TW: We took a very man-on-the-street approach. A guy, persistently down, having to go to his job where he’s hated and he ends up not liking the thing he used to love.NH: A very Reggie Perrin vibe.Best lyric: “There was a time when we were held high/But now they’ve got technology/Replaying every scene to prove we are of no further use/Sport is just a computer game”

TRACK 5: THIRD MANTW: It’s incredibly jolly and poppy. Oh, and Harry Potter’s on it! He’s Daniel Radcli� e so can do anything he wants; he o� ered his time, came along and was such a lovely guy.NH: He talked our ear o� …TW: Third Man is about the movie with Orson Welles. The idea was that third man is a position where not a lot can happen. We thought this person could be stood on the boundary all day daydreaming about actually being The Third Man.Best Lyric: “To lessen my depression/I spend session after session/In the decadent decoration of a dream”

TRACK 6: CHIN MUSICTW: I bought a harmony guitar, which is four strings, and tried out a silly melody. I played it to Neil, and he really liked it.NH: We called it Chin Music, although apparently that original term is from baseball.TW: It’s a music reference, too, which we never thought of utilising. We didn’t think we’d have a lot of lyrics about chin music, so we decided to do an instrumental.

TRACK 7: OUT IN THE MIDDLENH: You’ve got no one else but yourself to blame when you’re in the middle. Nobody’s going to help you. I also managed to squeeze in a reference to one of my most hated things, which is when people blame God for their success. Leave him out of it; why are you more special than the next bloke?TW: All aspects of the game need to be right when you’re out in the middle. It’s good it comes after Chin Music, which is about psyching players out, and this song is about having mental strength. Best Lyric: “You could have money and fame/You could have crowds calling out your name/But you’ve got only yourself to blame out in the middle”

TRACK 8: LINE AND LENGTHTW: This is the curveball of the album.NH: I was watching the cricket and Geo� rey Boycott was criticising Stuart Broad’s bowling. He kept saying “line’n’length”, which sounded fantastic. The song is basically 80s Art Of Noise; a crazy hodgepodge of samples.TW: There has to be the track on the album that people aren’t going to take to straight away, as it makes it even better when they come to love it. NH: We didn’t work very hard on the lyrics; they’re just copied down from Google! They’re basically the explanation of line and length.Best Lyric: “Gotta get the ball/Where it oughta be/In the corridor of uncertainty”

TRACK 9: THE LAUGHING CAVALIERSNH: It’s an ode to my Taverners side that I play for. It’s a bunch of actors that kindly invited us along and I occasionally put the pads on to make a tit of myself. It’s basically a drinking song for cricket clubs.TW: It has a Yellow Submarine quality to it.Best Lyric: “Everything is better when we’re getting wetter/Propping up the bar/Pouring Guinness down our sweater”

TRACK 10: JUDD’S PARADOXNH: There’s a fi lm called Another Country, which explores spies. There was one scene where they were watching people play cricket, which is such a paradox as cricket is everything they despise about England and imperialism. I thought it was pretty cool, so nicked it. I wrote those lyrics at the end of the 90s.I suggested we got Stephen Fry to say the words. We had a good laugh, thinking it was never going to happen, and then he said yes!Best Lyric: “The bourgeoisie bat/The proletariat toil in the fi eld all day/I should be incensed by what it represents/Yet it’s a damn good game”

TRACK 11: MYSTERY MANTW: We just wanted to put every single delivery into one song! “Doosra, Slider/I just can’t decipher.” We somehow got every ball on that track. It has Matt Berry in it, giving the credits of the album as a scorecard on the outro, while we play ska-style music.Best Lyric: “Wrist spin?/O� spin?/ Leg spin?/Shake it all about spin?/In swinger?/Out swinger?/What’s it gunna be, uh-huh?”

TRACK 12: NUDGING AND NURDLINGTW: It just keeps going on and on, with a succession of people saying “Nudging” and “Nurdling.”NH: It could have gone on forever, really!TW: There’s 35 people saying it, varying from Joe Elliot from Def Leppard to Alexander Armstrong. Basically, we called in every favour we could for this album, just because we could. We didn’t do it for any wrong reasons, we did it because it was fun and it sounded good.Best lyric: “We don’t want to be superstars/’Cos that’s not who we are”

Sticky Wickets is out now on Divine Comedy Records Ltd

CRICKET’S ROCK’N’ROLL. THE GREATEST ROCKERS OF ALL TIME LOVED THE GAME: JAGGER, CLAPTON... JOHN MAJOR

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Keeper Jack Russell

1st SlipEric Clapton

FANTASY SLIP CORDONALEX GIDMANTHE GLOUCESTERSHIRE GLADIATOR SELECTS HIS GENIAL GRABBERS

Keeper Jack Russell

10THE

TOUGHESTOPPONENTS

10 WASIM AKRAMI played against him at the back-end of his career so I never got the full wrath of him but he was ridiculously good. He just did things that you couldn’t explain. I remember when we were playing for Lancs against Kent, Carl Hooper wouldn’t wear a thigh pad because he thought his legs looked big in them and Wasim hit him two in two balls f lush on the thigh! He was one of those players who just made something happen. From nowhere, he’d just start reverse swinging it.

In my first game at Hampshire, Bumble, who was Lancs coach at the time, said, “Fred’s got to field at slip, he catches pigeons.” So I was standing at second slip, having eased Neil Fairbrother out – he wasn’t happy! – and Wasim’s bowling. I’ve never stood so far back to a bowler in my life! Miles back. Third over of the day, the batsman edged one and it just hit me on the chest. I ended up dropping three in the first hour of the day. Wasim was going mad and said, “Get him out of there!” Then Neil Fairbrother pipes up: “Chuck him a pigeon, he catches them.”

9 ADAM HOLLIOAKEAdam was a tough competitor and a good mate. As a captain tactical knowledge is one thing, but it’s having everyone behind you that’s more important. You could make the best decisions but if nobody’s into them then it doesn’t really matter. You can make the worst decision but if everyone backs you, you can pull it off. I think Adam had that. Sometimes he made the wrong decisions but he had everyone buying in to what he was doing and had everyone right behind him. He led by example. He’d almost do things just for effect, just to show how tough he was. I saw him tackle a horse once in Kent. He ran straight into it, knocked it over…

THEAOCTEN

Preston’s finest picks out his most formidable adversaries.

Fred’sred’s

I saw him tackle a horse once in Kent. He ran straight into it, knocked it over

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GullySteve WaughGullySteve Waugh

2nd SlipJonny Wilkinson

3rd SlipAlex Gidman3rd SlipAlex Gidman

2nd SlipJonny Wilkinson

8 POMMIE MBANGWABit of a bogie for me! He used to bowl these little f loaters, like a club bowler, and because it took so long to come down it confused me!

7 KENNY BENJAMINI remember playing against Kenny Benjamin when I was 13 or 14. I’d just moved clubs to St Anne’s in the Northern League and that backfired a little bit. I played in the fourth team in my first game for them, then played a couple in the second team and then got in the firsts. I was playing at Netherfield and Kenny was their pro. He was very, very quick. My team were like, “Go on, son! Get in there!” so I got put in at No.3. I didn’t own a helmet – I just had my Lancashire schools cap on, which he tried to knock off! I got one shortly after that…

5 MARCUS TRESCOTHICKI did okay against left-handers. I’d come round the wicket and my action lent itself to nipping it away or just bringing it back in on the angle. I remember I was bowling at Somerset and getting them down really nicely. First over I hit Justin Langer and I thought, “Marcus can have a bit of this as well.” He took me for about 15 in an over, just smashed me everywhere. I reckon he’s better than most in the world. He was unbelievable to play with and I reckon him and Harmy [Steve Harmison] were the two reasons we did well over that period of time. If you’re coming in to bat at No.6 and Marcus has just destroyed them, your job’s pretty easy.

6 MATTHEW HAYDENHe was a big man. He just used to come at you with that big front foot. He was one of the few batters you bowled at that you just knew the bouncer was a waste of time – it would just go for four or six. The funny thing about Matt is he gives it the big ‘Raaaargh!’ but I played with him at Chennai and he’s the softest man ever. He’s such a nice bloke, the type of bloke you just want to spend time with. But he was tough to bowl at.

I upset him in one of my first games for Lancashire. I was 17 and playing against Hampshire and he was 96 not out overnight. We had a team meeting in the morning and Mike Watkinson was talking through how we were going to get Matt out when Neil Fairbrother piped up: “Someone needs to upset him, someone needs to have a right go at him, sledge him.” I was just minding my own business but I could feel everyone looking. “Why me?” I said. “Well you’re the youngest.”

First over of the day, Gary Yates is bowling off spin and I’d been put at silly point – the worst position to be. “He’s a big ‘un, this lad. Who’s this?” I said as Hayden came out to bat. He looks at me. “You alright son, what’s up?” I said to him. I just started going at him, calling him “son,” “kid,” just trying to talk down to him. Then Yates bowled this one short outside off stump and he tried to hit it so hard at me that he nicked it behind to the keeper. Matt looked at me and he had steam coming out of his ears! The dressing room at Southampton was on stilts and you could hear him just smashing it up, the whole room was shaking! When I walked out to bat in the second innings he said, “Here he is! This game’s got a funny way of biting you on the arse.” I got my first hundred and when I got there I said, “Alright, Matt. Not much biting today!”

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4 MUTTIAH MURALITHARANI was clueless against him! He’s a good friend as well, which makes it even worse. He always got me out. He came into the dressing room at Lancs and just took over. He knew more about us than we did ourselves; he was like Ceefax – he just knew everything. The funny thing was I used to practise with him all the time and stand at slip, and I was starting to be able to pick him. Then when I played against him for England at Old Trafford, I’ll never forget seeing him practising at 8am in the morning, bowling at a spot and developing these new balls. When I came to bat against him I couldn’t pick him – he was just a different bowler again. He just practised and practised. He knew I couldn’t pick him. He just used to smile.

2 SACHIN TENDULKAROne of my heroes. I felt that when I faced the better players it brought the best out of me. Bowling at Tendulkar, you didn’t want to just get him out but you wanted to get his respect. You never said a word or tried to sledge him. Then when you were batting, you’d hit a good shot and you’d look around to him for a little nod, but you never got one.

3 STEVE HARMISONHe just got me out for fun every time I played against him. Steve is a brilliant bowler and for a while he was untouchable. Part of the problem for him was that he was so good at one point he could never have kept that going. He was unbelievable. He bowled up to 97mph in his pomp, which is quick, but it was more about how awkward he was to face. When he got it right he swung it, got bounce and was nasty as well – in his own way, not ranting. I remember Chris Cairns coming out to bat against him and I’ve never seen a man look as frightened in my life – he was worse than me boxing! Harmy was bowling at the speed of sound and Cairns was stood two feet behind the crease – he didn’t want to get anywhere near it.

1 GRAEME SMITHHe was horrible to bowl at. You’d think you’ve bowled a good ball and it goes to fine leg. How the hell’s he got that there? And then he does it again and again and again. We just got off on the wrong foot – really badly on the wrong foot! He started having a go at me and I had a go back and then during that series in ‘03 I don’t think I’ve ever abused anybody as much in my life. I used to walk him out and wait for him, and he’d do the same. I don’t know what happened! I actually chatted to him about it years later. Because he took over as a young captain he wanted to get the respect of his team and he wanted to be tough, so he went for me. I wasn’t not going to come back at him, was I? It was bizarre, terrible! The last Test match at The Oval we sat in the dressing room together for about two hours and had a few drinks and actually got on. Then we went to South Africa the following winter and I went out to bat and he starts up again. I said, “What the f **k are you doing?” I said something about him being a bad captain or something and then we were going at each other again. So I said, “Graeme, shall I take you out for a drink tonight?” “What do you mean?” he says. I said: “Well last time we had to go through 25 days of cricket to sort things out, let’s just do it tonight and then we can play cricket for the rest of the series.” He agreed and that was that. We’re good friends now.

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Their desire is to be the No. 1 county, competitive across the board, supplying international cricketers and young cricketers. I believe I leave it in a position to do that and I’m proud of my achievementsChris Adams on his Surrey departure

On the Graham Norton Show…I enjoyed the Norton show. I was a little bit nervous sat next to J-Lo. A year or two ago I’d have sat there a bit shy, but now I just think, “Get on with it and have a laugh.” It was fun. J-Lo was lovely on the show, but

she didn’t hang around. I don’t think she understood half the stu� I said! One of the

stories was about getting hit in the nuts when playing for Lancashire and bathing them in ice

water with Gary Yates drinking it, which she was horrifi ed by! That was one story she did understand.

On his AF Foundation…It was set up a few years ago by Rachael and me. It’s a children's charity that raises funds to build, develop and improve child rehabilitation and physiotherapy units. The fi rst project was completed in Alder Hey, Liverpool. It was actually Neil Fairbrother’s daughter who had an operation and we went to see her during the rehab, saw the facilities and thought they were terrible. We’ve had functions and got Alder Hey done and now we’re doing the same at Great Ormond Street. I’d like to do another physical challenge to raise cash if I can. We need to get some more money in to complete the stu� we’re doing for Great Ormond Street. All help appreciated! A� oundation.co.uk

On his cricket academies…I’ve got 70-odd academies running this year. I like that the academy isn’t so much about fi nding the next England player, it’s just about kids playing. If they end up playing for a club’s third or fourth team, then the academy’s done its job. It’s not elitist at all. Because there’s so many, the hardest thing for me now is getting round to all of them, but if I can’t make it then Harmy, Jimmy Anderson or one of the other England lads will go along. Andrewfl into� cricketacademy.co.uk

On making plans…I think people around me have more of a plan than I do!

On the Graham Norton Show…

understood half the stu� I said! One of the stories was about getting hit in the nuts when

BITESIZEFRED

The big man in little bits

The big lad will be presenting a series of Ashes Roadshows on BBC Radio 5 live ahead of each Ashes Test beginning on Monday July 8 in Nottingham.

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ASHESTO

This year the cricket world effectively clears the fl oor for Australia and England. With so few other series scheduled around the world we’ll all be watching, and with 50 days of cricket spread across six months – the fi rst half up here, the return leg down there – it’s impossible to separate the two rubbers. This season’s box offi ce smash

opens at Nottingham, before concluding its epic run at Sydney in early January. The Ashes is back. And it’s so good they’ll be playing it twice.

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R iding along on the back of a surge in English confi dence, the summer hype machine is careering off the scale.

It’s all part of the fun, of course. But to Ashes-watchers of a certain age, all this braggadocio seems a bit shaky. Those scars run deep! I keep wanting to say to people that the Nineties are not so long ago, those baggy caps are still green, and the aura still remains.

Those memories of past great Australian teams are so unfl inching, not to say essential to our appreciation of what this contest actually means, that all that “5-0” stuff sounds, to these ears at least, about as hollow as leather on aluminium. While England start as favourites, with the Aussies seemingly on the verge of implosion, it’s written into the Constitution of the Commonwealth Government of Australia that their cricket teams fi ght to the bitter end, and this one will be no diff erent.

And I have a confession to make. I don’t want anything to do with a 5-0, a 10-0, or any nil. I want a humdinger: a twisty unknowable Russian novel of a contest, a gnarled arse-nipper, a strained, tense war of words, deeds and attrition, with dull bits, cock-ups, losses of form and sudden purple patches. I want to see young kids stepping up, underachievers pulling their weight, and class to out in the end. I want spectacle.

So here’s to it. Over the next gazillion pages we dedicate all our might to sport’s most beautiful rivalry. Sit back and enjoy it. And take your time; we’ve got six months of this…

AOC editor Phil Walker (occasional)

Kevin Pietersen is the kingpin of this side. We’ve seen it already this summer, England don’t score big runs without him. I don’t think he’s a great player just yet – he’s got potential to be, but whether he goes on to become a Tendulkar or a Ponting is yet to be seen.

With Kevin, some of the stu� with him last year when he was dropped from the team – I don’t think it was all him. I think he’s in there in the dressing room, and some of the lads look around, and see that if England win it’s usually down to Kevin. It’s Kevin Pietersen who’s just played a great knock. Everyone talks about Kevin Pietersen, then he’ll get his million dollar contract in the IPL, he’ll get all the endorsements, and some of the other lads will go around thinking, ‘Well what about us?’

There might be a few tricky times with Kevin, and there might be a few things which you can’t do much about, but when he starts scoring hundreds and winning games, you just take it. Of course we had the odd falling out! You spend that much time together, from time to time it’s going to happen. But of everyone who’s on the team, he’s one of the few that I’m still in contact with.

I think as well with the players, not just Kevin, when they’re told what they can and can’t say, they’ve got to realise that they’re competing with all these other sports, and you’ve got to give something, otherwise you may as well put up a hat-stand for an interview. You want someone who’s going to say something.

One of the charms of cricket is that the public can still identify with the players, whereas football has gone so far in the other direction. I don’t want cricket to go any further that way.

...on his old sparring partnerFred

KINGPIN KEV

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“I don’t think we’ve got that great a side, you don’t have to be Einstein to work that one out. We’ve got very good pace bowlers but I’m not quite sure who their Test team bowlers are going to be. Our opening bats, we’ve got four of them and I don’t think too many of them can open the batting, so that’s a problem for a starter. 

“I think our best option is to open with Warner and Watson, and then I think maybe try Hughes at No.3, Clarkey at No.4. I honestly think that’s our best line up and then the rest is a lottery. There’s no middle order. With Hussey gone, if we start to slide we’ve got no one to stop it. And our spinner is not up to world-class standard. I’m not talking Warnie standard, I’m talking about just general standard. It’s a real ra� e ticket.

“We beat the shit out of you, it’s time for us to cop ours. And that’s the way it goes. You can’t be good all the time. We have been good for a while but at the moment we’re grovelling, you guys have got a very good side. You’re all sorted. Cookie’s a fantastic batter at the top there and the rest I think manipulate around him. And your wicketkeeper is really, really good. I’d say maybe 3-1 to you boys.”

Thommo took 200 Test wickets for Australia, 100 of them against terrifi ed Englishmen.

PETER SIDDLEAge 2841 Tests, 150 wicketsHe’s not the same bowler English fans last saw in 2010/11. An intense training regime with an Australian Football League club has visibly improved his fi tness, strength and stamina. He can now bowl faster, harder and longer. At 28, he is at his peak and is the unquestioned leader of the Australian attack. He can do it all. He can bang it in short of a length. He gets just enough seam movement where it’s available. On quicker surfaces, he knows how and when to use his bouncer. He pitches it up a tad when the ball’s swinging. His control is excellent and he’s the kind of bowler who’ll run in all day for you.

JAMES PATTINSONAge 2310 Tests, 40 wicketsPatto comes from a family of fast bowling roof tilers. He likes to bowl fast — the kind of young quick who always looks like he’s straining for an extra few per cent, which may explain his propensity for getting injured. Nevertheless, when fi t, he is a proper, snarling, wicket-taking fast bowler who no batsman, not even an expatriate South African, enjoys facing.

JACKSON BIRDAge 262 Tests, 11 wicketsJust 19 months ago, Jackson Bird was a grade bowler who’d never played a fi rst-class match. Like so many talented cricketers in a nation where there are only six fi rst-class teams, Bird was stuck in a long queue in his home state. A move to Tasmania fi nally gave him the chance to show what he could do at fi rst-class level and he

has not disappointed: since making his debut in November 2011, he has taken 80 fi rst-class wickets at 17.53 for his adopted state. His rhythmical bowling action makes full use of his height, produces consistent line and length, and extracts su� cient seam and swing movement to catch the outside edge. In English conditions, Bird could well prove to be the most e� ective of all the Australian bowlers.

RYAN HARRISAge 3312 Tests, 47 wicketsHarris is a match-winner, the fi nest exponent of swing bowling in our Ashes squad. But he’s su� ered from knee, shoulder, ankle and Achilles injuries in the past few years. Therefore, he is unlikely to play in more than three of this summer’s Tests.

MITCHELL STARCAge 239 Tests, 30 wicketsStarc is the rawest of our quick bowlers, a junior keeper-batsman who only took up bowling in his late teens after a growth spurt. Now 6ft 6in tall, Starc’s potential as a left-arm quick is unlimited — he has an upright action, clocks 90mph, bowls an excellent yorker, and has, on occasion, demonstrated the ability to swing ball late back into the right-hander. But he still bowls too many four balls and appears uncomfortable at times bowling over the wicket to right-handed batsmen.

SB Tang is an Australian writer who blogs about cricket at A Straight Bat.

Jeff ThomsonFast Geezer

THOMMO’SASHES

THE WILDCARDSThe ability to score more runs than the opposition doesn’t

necessarily make a team capable of winning a Test match, but the ability to take 20 wickets most certainly does. Bowlers win Test

matches and Australia has a strong, well-rounded pace attack which is more than good enough to take the wickets needed to win

the Ashes, says SB Tang.

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T he frequently intoxicated and constitutionally irresponsible Homer Simpson once told his eternally patient wife Marge: “You have a gambling problem!” Surprisingly, he was right

— the normally responsible Marge really did have a gambling problem. A decade ago, the suggestion that Australia would one day have a Test batting line-up statistically inferior to England’s would’ve been no less implausible but, like Marge’s gambling problem, this once far-fetched notion is now an uncomfortable, undeniable reality — we have a batting problem. Gideon Haigh devoted his fi nal newspaper column of the Australian summer to highlighting it: “Twenty years ago, there were 60 hundreds scored in the She� eld Shield; this season there have been 31.”

When, earlier that summer, Ricky Ponting suddenly retired from Test cricket, the (short) queue of batsmen vying to replace him was populated mainly by a generation of Australian batsmen with fi rst-class averages mired in the 30s and a single-digit number of fi rst-class hundreds: Rob Quiney, Callum Ferguson, Alex Doolan and Shaun Marsh.

The contrast with the preceding generation could not be more stark: year after year, the likes of Jamie Siddons, Brad Hodge, Stuart Law, Michael Bevan, Darren Lehmann, Michael Di Venuto, Matthew Elliott and Martin Love piled on mountains of fi rst-class hundreds and built career averages in the mid-40s or greater, yet such was the depth of Australia’s batting stocks, none of them enjoyed a lengthy Test career. But, as inevitably as a macroeconomic boom is followed by a trough, this Golden Age of Australian Batsmanship has been followed by an Age of Batting Austerity.

Into this Age of Batting Austerity steps Phillip Joel Hughes, the one genuine, old school exception to a pernicious modern-day trend. Hughes is 24. He has 21 fi rst-class hundreds spread across four continents and a career average of 44.20. Two of his three Test hundreds were scored in a series win in South Africa against the world’s fi nest pace battery when he became the youngest batsman in history to score centuries in both innings of a Test match; the third was scored in the second innings of the fi nal Test of Michael Clarke’s debut Test series as captain and clinched the

series win by making safe the fi nal match with Australia already 1-0 up. By the age of 22, Hughes had scored his second hundred in a Shield fi nal. In the season just past, despite playing only six Shield games due to his national team duties, Hughes was one of only six batsmen who scored at least two Shield hundreds.

None of this comes as any surprise to long-time observers of Australian cricket. In a recent column on ESPNcricinfo, Ian Chappell reminded us of some of the elements of Australia’s centuries-old tradition of great batsmanship — a bush upbringing (see, eg, Bradman, McCabe, Walters and Hayden); “playing against men at a young age”; and the ability to think and “work things out for themselves”.

Hughes possesses all these traits. In a nation which is now more urbanised than the United States, he, like his teammates Peter Siddle and Nathan Lyon, hails from a small country town most Australians wouldn’t be able to fi nd on a map. Macksville has one high school and a population of 2,786. Hughes grew up there on a banana farm, “always being the youngest [in his cricket teams] playing guys that are always older”.

His batting technique — homespun and heterodox — refl ects that upbringing. When he fi rst burst onto the Test arena, Hughes, standing all of 5ft 6in tall, resembled a hobbit scurrying away towards leg to create room to scythe balls through the o© side. In and of itself, there is nothing wrong with being an o© side batsman (see Sourav Ganguly and Herschelle Gibbs), but Hughes had a technical fl aw: when he was out of form, his back foot stepped backwards in the direction of fi ne leg, which meant that his front shoulder was pointed towards cover.

This had two deleterious e© ects. Firstly, it closed him o© in the vein of Kepler Wessels, making it practically impossible for him to generate any real power in his on side shots, with the exception of his fence-clearing slog-sweep. Secondly, it caused him to not present the full face of the bat to the ball when playing a defensive stroke — because his batmaker’s name was facing cover. Consequently, he was predisposed to nick balls angled across him. After doing so on four consecutive occasions to Chris Martin, he was deservedly dropped from the Australian Test team in December 2011.

PHILLIPTHE HOBBIT IN AN

HUGHESAGE OF BATTING

A U S T E R I T Y9 9If Australia are to triumph this summer, they’ll need an eccentric larrikin with a method all of

his own to finally fulfil his teenage promise.

WORDS SB TANG

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Hughes responded by choosing to skip the inaugural T20 Big Bash League in order to undertake two intensive boot camps with his batting coach, Neil D’Costa, aimed at refi ning his game so that he could not only earn his spot back, but thrive at Test level.

It worked. Twelve months later, Hughes was back in the Test side thanks to the weight of Shield runs scored with his refi ned technique.

Now, when he faces up, his shoulders are aligned in the direction of a straightish mid on and his front foot is leg side of his back foot. This more open stance gives him a stabler base. Previously, much like Bradman during Bodyline, Hughes’s primary method of playing short-pitched bowling aimed at his body was to back away to leg and attempt to smack the ball through the o� side. Now, because his back foot is positioned o� side of his front foot in his batting stance, he is able to pivot onto his back foot when the fast bowler drops short, thereby enabling him to pull and hook with power.

Hughes, then, is an Australian batsman straight o� the pages of our glorious cricket history books: country-born and raised playing against men, technically unorthodox, hardworking, self-made, self-learning, and blessed with the ability to score fi rst-class hundreds like a hobbit eats food.

Yet, to some, he remains an object of ridicule. Bewildering though it may seem to technical fetishists in the lands of England and Twitter, Hughes has the unequivocal support of the people in Australian cricket whose opinions matter. Shane Warne gave Hughes a “tick” for the tour of India because he showed learning and improvement throughout. In his column after the tour, the fi rst cricketer that Clarke praised was Hughes. Ian Chappell applauded Hughes’ “positive mindset” and the “aggressive fashion” in which got himself out of his form trough in India. A third Australian captain, Steve Waugh, added in late March 2013: “I like the look of Phil Hughes, he’s got something deep within him that makes him a long-term Test player”.

Australia has the bowlers to take the English wickets needed to win back the Ashes. The question is whether we have the batsmen to outscore the English. According to every conceivable statistical criterion, our young batting line-up is inferior to its more experienced English counterpart. If Australia is to have any chance in this series, then at least two of our young batsmen must come of age, much like Mark Taylor and Steve Waugh did in 1989. Phil Hughes, the young hobbit with a fi rst-class record worthy of the last great Golden Age of Australian Batsmanship, is our best hope. But if the prospect of Australia’s Ashes fate resting on his shoulders worries us, then perhaps we can comfort ourselves with this thought: has Steve Waugh’s judgment of a cricketer ever been wrong?

WE’RE BRINGING CRICKET’S GREATEST RIVALRY

TO YOUR DESKTOPVisit www.alloutcricket.com/ashes for your daily dose of Ashes coverage this summer.

6 Exclusive columnists throughout the series from both camps, including Ashes-winning hero Steve Harmison, big, bad Merv Hughes

and Middlesex’s Aussie-turned-Englishman, Sam Robson 6

- Daily coverage to keep you up-to-date with the action -

Michael Vaughan, Freddie Flintoff and Bob Willis give their views on where the series will be won and lost

Fantasy Ashes game with great prizes up for grabs for each Test, including Investec Ashes tickets and top-of-the-range bats

d Celebrity columnists d

A sideways take on the action from the not-so-quiet American @UScricketguy and Twitter sensation @RichieBenaud_

Douglas Jardine says it how he sees it from beyond the grave

Prizes on offer for the best guest bloggers

Archive footage of classic Ashes moments

1 Player profi les, with a twist 2

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WE’RE BRINGING

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IXIXIXIq

Prince RanjitsinhjiEngland15 Ashes Tests (1896-1902)

CB Fry’s Sussex sidekick was never o ered the throne of Albania, as Fry was, but he did anoint himself “the Prince of Nawanagar” on thoroughly fl imsy evidence. The fi rst non-white to play for England, he forced his way into the Test side through sheer weight of runs, foiling horrifi ed selectors like Lord Harris, and fi nishing the 1896 Ashes with a batting average of 78. Ranji’s colour was always bound to be an issue. He was so badly barracked in Australia in 1897/98 that his opponent Frank Iredale wrote apologetically that, “The people here view all people not actually white as alien”. But the friendly fi re must have been harder to take. Lord Harris never forgave Ranji, either for breaking into the England team, or for fl outing the convention that gentlemen only played the ball into the o side. Ranji’s signature shot was the leg glance, which prompted the famous remark, ascribed to Yorkshire’s Ted Wainwright, that he had “never played a Christian shot in his life.”

q

Sydney BarnesEngland20 Ashes Tests (1901-1912)

Another man who provoked criticism from his own side, Barnes was one of the greatest bowlers the game has known – and a right royal pain in the arse to boot. It was he who prompted the classic line from AC MacLaren as the steamship carrying the 1901/02 Ashes tourists wallowed in heavy seas in the Bay of Biscay: “At least if we go down, we’ll take that bugger Barnes down with us.” Barnes rarely bothered with county cricket, despite a Test record of 189 wickets at 16.43. He preferred to stick with the Lancashire League team of Smethwick, where his teammate Bernard Holloway wrote that, “I was afraid of Barnes, afraid of his scowling displeasure, his ferocious glare, his crippling silences and his humiliating verbal scorn, and I played with and against him only when he was beginning to mellow.” 

FredEngland1 Ashes Test (1902)

The 1902 Ashes were a selection disaster for England. After receiving the line-up for the fourth Test at Old Tra ord, which left no place for Barnes, Fry or Gilbert ‘The Croucher’ Jessop, MacLaren remarked, “My God! Look what they’ve given me! Do they think we are playing the blind asylum?” So it was that England’s last bowling spot went to Fred Tate, an unheralded medium-pacer from Sussex. His single Test appearance was such a disaster that he is commonly referred to as ‘Poor’ Fred Tate. Not only did he drop an easy catch o Joe Darling – who played a lone hand in a low-scoring match – but he then found himself at the wicket with seven runs left and one wicket standing. His fi rst ball glanced o the inside-edge to the boundary to raise hopes of a famous victory; his fourth rattled his stumps. Tate was devastated: one account describes him calling a hansom cab, drawing the blinds and weeping. Eventually, he composed himself enough to tell a teammate: “Never mind, I’ve got a little kid at home who will make it up to me.” Maurice Tate, then seven years old, went on to take 155 Test wickets.

ix vii

viiiTate

WORDS: SIMON BRIGGS

THE ASHES? IT GOES WAY BACK...

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TIMELESS ASHES CHARACTERS

Pelham “Plum” WarnerEngland7 Ashes Tests (1903-1912)

One of the most quintessentially English Ashes captains, Warner actually had a Spanish mother and was brought up in the Caribbean. In one of his 21 books, he described learning to bat “in the marble gallery” of his father’s house against “the bowling of a black boy who rejoiced in the name of Killebree.” Warner’s contribution to Ashes folklore turned out to be as much literary as sporting. He did lead the 1903 team to Australia – the fi rst touring party to be selected by MCC, rather than put together ad hoc by an entrepreneurial captain – and did so with success. More importantly, though, his best-selling tour diary How We Recovered The Ashes revived a piece of vocabulary that had fallen out of use. One reviewer of the book decried the title on the basis that the very term “Ashes” was no more than “slang and of only very temporary signifi cance”.

WARWICK ARMSTRONGAUSTRALIA42 Ashes Tests (1902-1921)

Standing 6ft 3in and weighing anywhere up to 22 stone, the so-called “Big Ship” – did we hear that correctly? – was Australia’s answer to WG Grace. A star player before the First World War and a successful captain after it, he was also an uncompromising sledger and gamesman. Even Jack Hobbs, the Mother Teresa of cricket, once described him as “nasty and unsportsmanlike”.

The classic instance came up during the 1909 tour of England, when young Kent allrounder Frank Woolley walked out expecting to face his fi rst ball in Test cricket. Armstrong kept him waiting fully 19 minutes while he bowled a series of looseners – according to one eye-witness, they kept “trickling down to the Vauxhall End screen, there to be fi elded by urchins and handed over reverentially to the bobby on duty”.

 “It was a rather trying time for me,” wrote Woolley in his autobiography. “After my long wait it is perhaps not surprising that ‘Tibs’ Cotter bowled me for eight.”

TIMELESS ASHES CHARACTERS

The man who invented the googly was a surprise inclusion on Warner’s tour, and as Warner himself wrote in his tour diary, “unkind people said … that I ‘ran’ Bosanquet into the team because he was a friend of mine”.

 The two men had indeed played together at Middlesex, but Warner could consider himself vindicated during the decisive fourth Test, when – in one of those bewitching

spells wrist-spinner’s are prone to conjure up from nowhere –

Bosanquet claimed six wickets in less than an hour’s play. This purple patch must have

surprised even Bosanquet himself, as for much of the tour

his googlies had regularly bounced four times on the way to the batsman.

 The South Africans must have been following Bosanquet’s success closely, because they sent as many as four googly bowlers on their 1907 tour of England. But it was not until the advent of ‘Ranji’ Hordern, who played almost a decade after Bosanquet’s breakthrough, that the Aussies cottoned on. In Australia, the googly was known as ‘the wrong ’un’, a

term which – as the cricket historian David Frith has pointed out – was “often applied to felons,

divorcées and homosexuals.”

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vBJT BosanquetEngland7 Ashes Tests (1903-1905)

played almost a decade after Bosanquet’s breakthrough, that the Aussies cottoned on. In Australia, the googly was known as ‘the wrong ’un’, a

historian David Frith has pointed out – was “often applied to felons,

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II

CLEM HILLAUSTRALIA41 Ashes Tests (1896-1912)

Selectors may often disagree, but they rarely try to defenestrate each other. That is what happened in February 1912, when Australia’s captain Clem Hill spent 20 minutes in a full-blown fi stfi ght with his chairman of selectors Peter McAlister.

 This was more than just an argument over who should open the batting. McAlister was allied to Australia’s Board Of Control, which the players resented for its high-handedness and greed. He also had a reputation for bias, possibly stemming from his decision to pick himself on the 1909 tour of England. So when this selection meeting grew frosty, and McAlister told Hill he was the “worst captain in living memory,” Hill replied “You’ve been asking for a punch all night.” With that, he leaned over the table and delivered one.

 As the fi ght raged around the room – which was on the third fl oor in Bull’s Chambers, Sydney – Hill attempted to push McAlister out of the window, only to be pulled back by his coat-tails by BOC secretary Syd Smith. News of the fracas leaked out, hastened by McAlister’s black eye, and Hill received a variety of enthusiastic telegrams such as “Hip Hip Only regret blighter still living.” Nobody likes a management spy, least of all in Australia.

ARTHUR CARREngland3 Ashes Tests (1926)

The 1920s were a great decade for hedonism, it you were able to a� ord it. And many amateur cricketers could. The 1920s England captain Arthur Carr certainly had a taste for beer and cocktails, which may have cut short his time in the job. “The devil is that if you drink at all people are so apt to exaggerate about you,” he complained in his autobiography.

Exaggeration may not have been strictly necessary. Only four pages later, Carr related “the historic occasion on which, after having had a few, I was driving two of the Notts team back home at a fast pace. One of the two… went to sleep and fell o� the back of the car and I and the other did not know he was missing until an e� cient young gentleman in blue stopped us and suggested that I and my companion… should accompany him to the station. When we got there, I was invited to say, ‘Sister Susie’s sewing shirts for soldiers.’”

WAlly hammondEngland33 Ashes Tests (1928-1947)

While Carr and Chapman indulged their taste for alcohol, Hammond was motivated by a di� erent sort of appetite. He was the Hugh Hefner of English cricket, a man who thought nothing of telling his landlord, “If I tilt [the bedroom mirror] at the right angle, I can see your wife undressing.” As his England teammate Eddie Paynter once memorably put it, “Wally, well, yes – he liked a shag!”

After his fi rst tour, to the West Indies in 1926, Hammond returned home looking emaciated. He had a fever and an infl amed leg, which required frequent lancing of a septic swelling in the lymph glands around the groin.

His explanation was that he had been bitten by a mosquito in British Guiana, and contracted blood poisoning as a result. All the medical evidence, however, suggests that he was su� ering from syphilis. Even if he was truly bitten in the groin while staying in British Guiana, the culprit is unlikely to have been a mosquito.

Simon Briggs writes for the Telegraph and is the author of Sti� Upper Lips And Baggy Green Caps: A Sledger’s History Of The Ashes, out now.

ii

WORDS JACK TEAGUE

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ENGLANDV

NO ONE WHO EVER FELL FOR CRICKET CAN HAVE FAILED TO BE SEIZED,

THRILLED, MOVED AND OVERPOWERED BY THE PULL OF ENGLAND VERSUS

AUSTRALIA. HERE AOC PRESENTS OUR SERIES OF PERSONAL ASHES MEMORIES

FROM THE GREAT AND THE GOOD.

AUSTRALIANO ONE WHO EVER FELL FOR CRICKET

AUSTRALIANO ONE WHO EVER FELL FOR CRICKET NO ONE WHO EVER FELL FOR CRICKET

CAN HAVE FAILED TO BE SEIZED, CAN HAVE FAILED TO BE SEIZED,

NOW TAKE ME DISAPPEARING THROUGH THE SMOKE RINGS OF MY MIND

memories are made of thismemories are made of thismemories are made of thismemories are made of thismemories are made of thismemories are made of thismemories are made of thismemories are made of this

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NightwatchmanTHE WISDEN CRICKET QUARTERLY

THE

The Nightwatchman, the Wisden Cricket Quarterly, is a new publication showcasing the very best writing about cricket from around the world. It gathers together leading cricket journalists and well-known writers from other disciplines – mathematics, poetry, history and literature to name but a few – to offer long-form, original pieces about all aspects of cricket.

The Nightwatchman will providewriters with the rare opportunity of choosing their subject and their style, and writing to a length they feel appropriate, away from the usual constraints of other formats. Produced in association with Wisden as the Almanack celebrates its 150th edition, The Nightwatchman is aiming to ensure that the great tradition of quality cricket writing will be continued. Go to www.thenightwatchman.net to find out how to get The Nightwatchman in print and e-book formats.

THENIGHTWATCHMAN.NET

54

THE NIGHTWATCHMANJAMES HOLLAND

The Plain of Catania in Sicily, and a pilgrimage of sorts. It is one of the most fertile parts of the island, largely fl at and low-lying, bisected by rivers and dominated by the towering presence of Mount Etna. Hedley Verity would have seen Etna from the moment he landed at fi rst light on Saturday, 10 July 1943, as part of the biggest seaborne invasion the world has ever known. There’s always a halo of cloud surrounding the summit; there would have been when Verity was here and there is when I visit the place nearly 70 years on. Cloud, or is it smoke? I am not sure but it hangs there, a contrast to the deep and cloudless blue of the sky.

Working out precisely where the 1st Battalion, the Green Howards made their attack on the night of 21 July, 11 days after landing, takes a while. I am armed with a copy of an original hand-drawn map, found in the battalion war diary, but one that is remarkably accurate. At any rate, I have managed to marry it up easily enough with an image from Google

Maps: the tracks running down from the railway line, the curving dykes that were such a feature of this part of the plain, and even the buildings that had once been battalion headquarters.

Getting there, however, is another matter. New roads run to the south and north of the site, there is now a large factory to the east of the map, roughly where D Company began their attack. It is di� cult getting o� the main road and down to the rough lane that leads under the railway embankment, but eventually we manage it, and suddenly we are driving down the very same track marked on the hand-drawn map back in July 1943.

And there are the remains of an old barn or farmhouse, also shown on the map. The roof has gone and inside it is wild and overgrown, but we are now at the point where Captain Verity led his B Company into battle. The start line, to use the parlance of the day. We park up and walk along another rough track, also marked on the map, climb a dyke

James Holland sets o� for Sicily, where he pieces together the last days of one of Yorkshire and England’s greatest spin bowlers

VERITY’S WAR

THENIGHTWATCHMAN.NET

54

JAMES HOLLAND

www.thenightwatchman.net

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FRED’S LAST STAND

When Thomas [Walsh] and I were doing the fi rst Duckworth Lewis album in 2009, we were kindly invited to the last match of the series at The Oval. It was on the day that Freddie Flinto  , in his last Ashes match, ran Ricky Ponting out; the moment that stands out is the star shape Flinto  pulled in celebration as the team mobbed him. It was so exciting to be in the crowd for that. Neil Hannon, The Duckworth Lewis Method

KP TEARS IT UP

I was in Australia during the 2010/11 Ashes when Kevin Pietersen got a double hundred at Adelaide. I was at the Darren Lehmann Cricket Academy for six months that winter and had a chance to bowl at the England players as well. I sat and watched all day as Pietersen smacked the Aussies all over. It was an unbelievable innings – the best innings I’ve ever seen. Scott Borthwick, Durham and England ODI leg spinner

CARRY ON CAMPING

Camping with my cousins in Seaton. Or was it Ilfracombe? I really should remember. The trip had started in disaster when one of my auntie’s o  spring (to this day, neither have accepted responsibility) forgot to pack our week’s worth of food, leaving a dubious opening night dinner of boil in the bag rice, curry sauce, grated cheese and ribs so underdone that they had more chance of making Eve than a suitable supper. A bracing coastal walk the next day provided a brief interlude from the misery before we returned to camp to watch Australia cruise to a 3-0 lead at Trent Bridge, and another Ashes victory. It was 2001 and the start of another millennium of misery... or so we thought. Sitting in the campsite ‘games room’, a broken table-tennis bat in hand and another night of under-powered barbecuing ahead of me, 2005 seemed a long way o  . Now, of course, those days of disillusion only make the events of the last eight years all the sweeter. Sam Stow, AOC’s commercial director and sometime wordsmith

DEADLY MOPS UPSummer, the fi rst time. The Oval, 1968: fi fth Test. It’s been raining moggies and mutts. The only reason England are able to resume their quest for a series-squaring victory is the staunchly patriotic crowd: skipper Colin Cowdrey had requisitioned the 200-odd spectators to help mop up.

Having retained the Ashes, Australia, with fi ve wickets down, have about an hour-and-a-quarter to survive. John Inverarity and Barry Jarman refuse to budge, keeping Derek Underwood at bay and hanging tight before Cowdrey turns to the gentle swingers of Basil D’Oliveira.

With the last ball of his second over Dolly persuades Jarman to leave one that clips the o  -bail. It’s the second time in the match

BOWLED OVER BY A MAIDEN

When they were known as the Cornhill Insurance Test matches, I was one of those kids that sat in front of the TV scoring in my scorebook. When someone bowled a maiden, you’d put an ‘M’ in the book in a di  erent colour and I remember I once had to put down seven in a row while Bob Willis was bowling. I loved the consistency and control needed to be able to bowl seven maidens in a row!Ed Giddins, former England and Sussex seamer

BUSTLING BOB

I was a huge Bob Willis fan. He used to run in and his curly hair was going everywhere, which I loved. I watched that ’81 series live; there were only four channels on TV back then and, if the summer wasn’t great, then I’d just sit indoors and watch it, because it was sport.  In ’81, people would knock the bails o  , but when Bob came running in the stumps would explode. It was brilliant.Thomas Walsh, The Duckworth Lewis Method 

BOWLED OVER BY A MAIDEN

memories are made of this

the Australian keeper has come o  second-best in their duel: on the fi rst day he’d dropped a dolly o  Dolly, then on 31, an error EW Swanton will rightly salute as the most important dropped catch in cricket history. Dolly marched on to 158, sealing his place in the tour party bound for apartheid South Africa that winter. Or so we thought.

Breach made, Underwood pours through, wrecking the rest of the order. Six minutes remain when Inverarity is adjudged lbw. Spoils shared, justice done, a 10-year-old glued to a Ferguson 20-inch portable TV in north London slumps back on the sofa, Ashes virginity well and truly broken.     Rob Steen, sportswriter

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HONOURING HAROLD

I caught the train up to Nottingham last year to buy a bat, and my dad was waiting at the station. The fi rst thing he said to me was, “Twenty thousand people met Larwood o� the Flying Scotsman.” The express had pulled in after midnight, on a workday in a coal mining city, yet the crowds hung from lamp posts and climbed on taxi roofs to get a view of their champion son. Bodyline, the electric pace and a famous series victory, along with a fi erce, local pride in their very own pitman bowler, had compelled men into a dark and cold February evening to share in an Ashes moment that still resonates. Nicholas Hogg, author of Show Me The Sky

AN ARMY IS FORMED

Harking back to the Barmy Army roots back in Australia in ‘94, one of my favourite memories has to be that Adelaide Test. The Aussie media coined the phrase ‘the Barmy Army’ because they couldn’t believe that we could keep having fun despite Australia being the dominant side. It was in Adelaide that the Army really started with our fi rst ever tour shirts being produced and England claiming a much celebrated win. Tu� ers took an outstanding catch by the Barmy Army section which has stuck in my mind ever since. The pleasure and pain of supporting England started then and has continued ever since.Paul Burnham, Barmy Army co-founder

I got a hundred against the Aussies at Northampton, this was before I played in that summer’s Ashes, and there was a chap there who was a butcher and he said he’d give me a lamb chop for each run I got up to 50 and after 50 “you’re on steaks”. I said, “That’ll do for me”. In the Headingley Ashes Test I got 73 in the fi rst innings and the morning after this telegraph landed and it said, “Well played, I owe you 50 lamb chops and 23 steaks. Take your time on the second innings, I’m running out of lamb!” At the end of the series this chap came round with the lamb chops; the TV cameras were there because they’d heard all about it. I’d won 270 lamb chops and 70-odd steaks – lasted me three years! David Steele, England and Northants batsman and hero of the 1975 Ashes

THE BANK CLERK THAT WENT TO WAR

When I was a schoolboy Australia had far too much fi repower for England, largely thanks to a ferocious bowler called ‘Lillian Thomson’. None of England’s batsmen could handle him, and the call was going round the shires for a dragon-slayer, a shy David to take on this Goliath. It was 1975. I had a holiday job clearing out a neighbour’s garden and took a transistor radio with me to follow the news from Lord’s. I don’t think I had seen David Steele in my life (I might not even have heard of him) so I didn’t know that his appearance – part suburban dentist, part chipolata salesman – made his entrance even more ideal. All I knew was that he shu� ed out in a crisis, bravely put himself behind the line, and nudged his way to a patient 50. A perfect riposte. Tony Greig, England’s captain, had wanted to fi ght fi re with fi re, but Steele showed him that the best defence against fi re was a damp cloth. I was so happy I swept up a patch of weeds in what I took to be a cavalier gesture, only to cover my arm with nettle stings. The nettles were a distinctive baggy green colour, I think. I ripped them up with glee.Robert Winder, author of The Little Wonder: The Remarkable History of Wisden

WARNE’S ARRIVALA chubby blond kid, his nose and bottom lip nerdishly sun-screened, his spiky fringe straight out of an awful 80s non-music video, stood at a slight angle to the stumps chewing gum and tossing the ball gently into the air and catching it. Once, twice… At the other end of the pitch as grizzled a geezer as cricket has yet produced laboured into his crouch. He thumped the pitch with his bat as he had done a zillion times before, and waited. The day was grey. Staring at the televised scene from thousands of kilometres away in South Africa, I had no idea that what would happen next would change my relationship with cricket forever. Shane Warne bowled the ball of the century, Mike Gatting played it as if he was about to get bitten in the arse, and the next day I was bowling leg breaks down the passage. Still at it. Telford Vice, South African cricket writer

LANGER STRIKES BACK

Justin Langer, at a Brisbane net before the 5-0 humbling in 06/07, rebuking a Barmy Army sniper, standing behind him whistling the Seven Dwarfs’ theme tune. Ed Hawkins, author of Bookie Gambler Fixer Spy

SCHADENFREUDE AT SYDNEY

It would have to be the Barmy Army crowd at Sydney in 2011, when Mitchell Johnson came walking out to bat and got bowled fi rst ball! Now that was an unbelievable atmosphere.Paul Collingwood, played in three Ashes-winning teams

BALLS OF STEELE

“You are just one grain of sand on my beach of hate.”

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THOMMO UNLEASHES HELLIt’s Sydney, 1975, and it’s Keith Fletcher’s turn to come out to bat. I’m bowling a million miles an hour and I’ve already put somebody in hospital, there might have even been blood on the pitch. So Fletcher comes out and the crowd are yelling ‘Kill, kill, kill’, you couldn’t hear yourself think. Dennis Lillee is down at third man and he runs up from bloody fine leg to Fletcher, who was at mid wicket walking in, to abuse the shit out of him. Finally Dennis lets him go, this poor bloke, after telling him he’s going to kill him if I don’t. So I come into bowl – there were two gullys, four slips, a leg slip, a leg gully, there’s nobody in front of the wicket except myself, the umpire and the other batsman – and I missed him with the first ball. It really shits me missing with the first ball because I’m a lazy fast bowler and I don’t like wasting my energy, so I dropped the sights a little lower and I just hit him right between the eyes. I thought it hit the bat handle because it’s gone to the bloke behind point on the 30-metre circle. I’ve appealed and the umpire’s gone, “What are you appealing for?” I said, “He’s out caught d******d, can’t you see?” “He didn’t hit it, “ says the umpire. “It’s hit his head, go and have a look.” So I walked down to Fletcher and he’s got the best six stiches you’ve ever seen in your life on his forehead – he doesn’t know what’s going on. Bernard Thomas the physio comes out to the middle with an ice pack and spray. Bernard says, “He can’t go back in, there’s already two of them in hospital!” So he actually stood Fletcher in front of the stumps – he doesn’t know what is going on – and made him take block. Next ball the stumps go everywhere, Greg Chappell runs up, spins him round and pushes him back to the changing room. Jeff Thomson, professional Australian

Note: We hate to stand in the way of a good story but Fletcher was out caught for 11. But there is some truth in it. The Wisden Almanack reported that Fletcher was “shaken by a deflection on to his forehead two balls before his dismissal.”

UNFORGETTABLE DEFEAT

Adelaide ‘06. It might be a variation on Stockholm Syndrome; it might that experiences in the mezzanine hours are somehow more vivid; it might be that everyone else was in bed, assuming a draw, so it became a very personal memory. Whatever: it will always be the most magical day’s play of my life, a night of desolation, exhilaration and strangely moreish trauma.Rob Smyth, sportswriter

PUNTER’S FIRST

My first ever Test hundred was made in an Ashes match at Headingley. When you talk about best innings, or best memories, most people will go back to their first ever Test century so, for me, for that to happen in an Ashes match was very special. The team were in a bit of trouble when I went to the wicket, too. Ricky Ponting, former Aussie skipper and veteran of 35 Ashes Tests

ADELAIDE SMASH-AND-GRAB

So, you’ve declared at 551-6 in the first innings, KP imperious and run out on 158, Collingwood a dedicated 206 and then you’ve let the Aussies get to 513. But as you start the last day on 59-1 you can’t possibly lose. Can you? No, this match is yours or nobody’s. Well, yours, nobody’s or Shane Warne’s. Strauss was unfairly shot by the umpire, but the leggies’ four wickets revived the corpse of this match and breathed belief into his side in a similar manner to the way he did against South Africa in an earlier World Cup. And then there were Brett Lee’s five consecutive reversing outswingers to Flintoff. All of them let go. Of course he was going to slash at the last, predictable inswinger. But it too went away, away, away... like the game. That night, at the five-star hotel, the bacon-and-egg tie boys were dumbstruck. So quiet you could hear a chin drop. Three Tests to go, two-nil down.Peter Lalor, cricket writer for The Australian

memories are made of this

AUSSIES DEFY THE ODDS

The memory that defines Ashes cricket for me – from an Australian perspective – and something that’s stuck in my head as much as anything was when Australia won the Ashes in 1989. I was aged 14, in high school, and I remember staying up all night to watch Australia win the Ashes. We won 4-0 in England and it was something special, especially given that the squad was dubbed the worst to arrive on English shores. For them to go out there and play such wonderful cricket is a pretty special memory. I really enjoyed the way the Aussies played: it was uncompromising, aggressive cricket, it was ruthless. Steve Waugh came of age that tour, Mark Taylor played wonderful cricket and Terry Alderman got 41 wickets. Jason Gillespie, Australian seamer with 65 Ashes wickets

ON THE ROAD

Edgbaston ’85. My mum was driving through West Byfleet with us four kids squeezed in the back of her Renault 4 under a single lap belt, TMS was on the radio. The perriwigged Richard Ellison bounced in and took three late wickets in the evening sunshine, including our arch-enemy Allan Border. It was unbelievably exciting. I think there were doughnuts involved too.Tanya Aldred, co-editor of Wisden Cricket Quarterly: The Nightwatchman

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BOXING DAY PACKS A PUNCHThe 2010/11 Ashes series was the most beautiful, delicious thing that has ever occurred in English cricket and I was lucky enough to be commentating on the entire series. However, my defi nitive memory would be the one day I failed to commentate – the Boxing Day of the Melbourne Test. The Australians were bowled out for 98, which England passed comfortably without losing a wicket. That day I had dreadful food poisoning and I had to position the TV so I could see it in both my bedroom and – through the use of mirrors – in the bathroom! Everything was the wrong way round, so Strauss was batting right-handed and Anderson bowled left-handed. The greatest day of English cricket and my opportunity to commentate on it disappeared as I spent about fi ve hours on the loo.Daniel Norcross, voice of Test Match Sofa

CATCHING KATMy fi rst Ashes wicket was a big moment for me, at Brisbane, when I caught and bowled Simon Katich. It was a good catch, low down, and in celebration I just threw the ball up in the air. A photographer caught a still of me as I let go of the ball and it looks like I’ve jumped about 10 feet o� the ground. It was a brilliant photo.Steve Finn, 14 wickets in three Ashes Tests

ATHERS BROUGHT TO HIS KNEESAn early life lesson in just how cruel this game can be. Lord’s ’93, I’m aged eight, and my dad’s taken me to my second day of live Test cricket. England, predictably, are in all kinds of bother and following on. Mike Atherton is doing what he does best; keeping his wicket in tact as all about him are losing theirs. Having made 80 out of 205 in the fi rst innings, he’s playing another lone hand in the second dig. I fi nd myself completely sucked in as my newfound hero crawls his way to 97, but with a ton tantalisingly close, disaster strikes. As Atherton comes back for a third run that would complete his ton, Mike Gatting screams no. Atherton turns, slips and then desperately tries to crawl to safe ground on his knees. It’s a humiliating end to a heroic innings.

I was a fairly mild-mannered kid but at that moment I was full of hate: full of hate for the stu� -of-nightmares mustachioed oaf who’d lumbered round the mid wicket boundary and sent in a tracer bullet; full of hate for the chirpy bugger behind the stumps who’d whipped o� the bails with such glee; and, most of all, full of hate for that tubby old bloke who’d refused to sacrifi ce himself to save Atherton. I had no delusions of an England fi ghtback. I wasn’t fussed about the Ashes, I’m not sure I even knew what it was. I just wanted Atherton to have the one extra run that he deserved. What did one run matter anyway? Australia had scored 632 of them! Athers never did get a ton at Lord’s. Cruel, cruel game…Jo Harman, AOC’s deputy editor

MEMORIES THAT MIGHT HAVE BEENI have no fi rst hand memory of the more specifi c or even relevant Ashes moments of the early 90s. I can’t remember the Gatting ball, or Atherton retiring Hick on the cusp of a career-defi ning century, or Graham Gooch getting out handled ball. Searching back for memories just feels like a collaged and rose-tinted vision of comforting bi-annual disappointment. The earliest is a young opener called Mark Lathwell walking out to bat and then walking back to the pavilion fi ve minutes later as Geo� rey Boycott concluded that he would never play for England again. That and Ian Ward being trapped lbw years later – which is a weird one – this time marked by Boycott saying “You can’t have those kind of technical defi ciencies at this level.” The Hollioakes receiving their caps together; Mark Ealham batting at No.6; John Crawley wicketkeeping; Andrew Strauss being bowled after leaving Shane Warne and the slow motion stump mic recollecting it over and over again in the guise of Homer Simpson: “Doooooohhhhh”. Darren Gough. Phil DeFreitas. Phil Tufnell winning a consolation Test at the Oval. Being sad and asking an adult in a newsagent why Mark Ilott got dropped (apparently he didn’t take any wickets). Some of those things may not have even happened in the Ashes, but that’s how I remember it.Felix White, axeman for The Maccabees

WAUGH SETS THE BLUEPRINTThat moment Steve Waugh came out at Sydney in the 2002/03 series to receive that ovation. Everyone thought it was going to be his last game and he came out and scored a hundred. He smashed us everywhere and hit the last ball of the day for four on that second evening. Again, that reception was incredible. I learnt a lot from Steve Waugh.  That 2002/03 series basically set the foundation for how I wanted to captain. Both by watching Waugh and also playing against him, I knew that if I became captain I was going to play an aggressive game and almost play Australia the way they play against us. I liked the way he captained. He always made it di ̈ cult for you as a batsman, even when you’d played yourself in. He’d put himself in your shoes – and I say that to any young captain now, when you’re captaining try and put the bowlers on that you wouldn’t want to be facing at that time. Put the fi elders in the place that you wouldn’t want to have fi elders if you were batting. Steve Waugh was a great captain because he used to outdo the opposition with his psychology. He knew he had a strong team and he used it to his advantage – you’ve got to put your belief in the bowler to deliver the skills that you expect of him by being aggressive with your fi eld settings. Michael Vaughan, Ashes-winning captain in 2005

MAN OF WAUGH

Steve Waugh’s hundred at Sydney against England in ‘03. He’s my hero – he was someone I always looked up to when I was growing up. I remember on that second evening Richard Dawson was bowling, they brought the fi eld up and I was thinking, ‘Is he going to go for it? Is he going to go for it?’ And he went for it, through cover, and I just thought ‘Good on him’. That was quite a moment.Charlotte Edwards, England Women captain and two-time Ashes winner

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MULLALLY MEETS FIRE WITH FIRE

Alan Mullally’s showdown with Glenn McGrath at the MCG Boxing Day Test in ’98. To me it summed up all that is great about the Ashes in a 10-minute window. Alan was one of the worst batsmen ever in international cricket and he was up against the great Aussie side and ultimately Glen McGrath, the greatest fast bowler Australia has produced (in terms of wickets at least). Australia were dominating the series and England were on the back foot again. Enter Mullally and a counter-attack of about 16 runs. But it wasn’t about the runs – it was about the intent. Al Malal stood up to the bully (metaphorically speaking) despite being totally outgunned. It was the ultimate show of defi ance and fi lled the changing room with the fi ght to go out there and bowl England to a famous victory, with the other fi ghter in our side Darren Gough taking that famous hat-trick. Adam Hollioake, former Surrey and England ODI skipper who played in two Ashes Tests

BEEFY’S BARNSTORMERUnlike most 1981 Ashes memories, day four of the fourth Test at Edgbaston stood out for me. Not only was it a memorable victory, but it helped England take a 2-1 lead in the series. It was the Test that followed the famous Headingly match and I remember being there, sitting in the noisy Raglan Stand at Edgbaston, on a scorching hot day. I think Australia were left around 150 to chase by the fourth day. As the game was moving towards an Aussie win, the ball was thrown to Botham and during a crazy 30 minutes or so, he ended up taking fi ve wickets for one run in around fi ve overs. All I remember was the air of anticipation and expectancy when he was thrown the ball. Following Headingley anything was possible, right? With the crowd behind him he roared in and destroyed Australia!Wasim Khan, chief executive of the Cricket Foundation

2-3

ENGLAND WOMEN MAKE HISTORY

A maiden Test century from Arran Brindle had secured the draw in the fi rst Test of the ‘05 series at Hove, so it was a case of having to win at Worcester if we were to regain the Ashes for the fi rst time in 42 years. Katherine Brunt’s brilliant 9-111 and 52 runs batting at No.10 in the fi rst innings made sure of the win. I’ll never forget the sight of Arran clipping a single o� her legs mid-afternoon on the fi nal day to take us over the line. Every player leapt in unison before scrambling on to the pitch to share the winning feeling. It was an historic Ashes win in the context of the most magical summer for English cricket. What made it so indescribably overwhelming was the fact that not one member of our Ashes squad had ever experienced the feeling of beating Australia in any format. The curse had fi nally been lifted!Clare Connor, former England Women captain

RAMPS TAKES A SCREAMER

Mark Ramprakash’s diving one-handed catch at square leg o� Alan Mullally to dismiss Justin Langer for 30 at the MCG in ’98. It started o� the Australian collapse to give England a remarkable 12-run win.Alec Stewart, played in 33 Ashes Tests between 1990-2003

STEWIE SLAYS MERV

It’s The Oval in 1993. It wasn’t an especially poignant match as such, although we did win. Angus Fraser was Man of the Match and bowled really well. I was batting at the other end from Alec Stewart and Merv Hughes was bowling, I thought, seriously quick. He’s bounced Alec and Alec just nailed this pull shot for four. It was an incredible shot. Mark Ramprakash, averaged 42.40 in 10 Ashes Tests

MORNING GLORYTension, excitement and anticipation are omnipresent at the Adelaide Oval on December 3, 2010, although with Australia having won the toss and chosen to bat on what everyone expects to be a batsman-friendly road, we are not expecting fi reworks fi rst up. Pre-match anticipation usually subsides as a Test meanders into its opening stanza… but not today. Watson plays the fourth ball of the morning to the leg side, Katich is slow to back up and Trott’s throw is accurate. A diamond duck for Katich and Australia are 0-1. It is Ponting’s 150th Test and he ‘celebrates’ by edging Jimmy Anderson’s next ball to Swann at slip for a golden duck and Australia are 0-2. A Stuart Broad over passes without incident and Jimmy returns. His fi rst ball takes the edge of Michael Clarke’s bat and carries safely into Swanny’s mitts and it’s 2-3. This was dreamland, utopia… a cricketing Elysium. But this is very real and morning has broken in spectacular style.Paul Winslow, Barmy Army stalwart and author of Going Barmy: Despatches from a Cricketing Foot Soldier

Alan Mullally’s showdown with Glenn McGrath at the MCG Boxing Day Test in ’98. To me it summed up all that is great about the Ashes in a 10-minute window. Alan was one of the worst batsmen ever in international cricket and he was up against the great Aussie side and ultimately Glen McGrath, the greatest fast bowler Australia has produced (in terms of wickets at least). Australia were dominating the series and England were on the back foot again. Enter Mullally and a counter-attack of about 16 runs. But it wasn’t about the runs – it was about the intent. Al Malal stood up to the bully (metaphorically speaking) despite being totally outgunned. It was the ultimate show of defi ance and fi lled the changing room with the fi ght to go out there and bowl England to a famous victory, with the other fi ghter in our side

Adam Hollioake, former Surrey and England ODI skipper who played in two

memories are made of thismemories are made of this

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1. Keith MillerHe was an all-action character. He was a typical Aussie: play hard, work hard. He was a rumbustious character too, who liked to drink and enjoy himself – he probably didn’t go to bed too much.

2. Ken BarringtonI knew Ken well. I took a tour to South Africa when he was manager – an absolutely brilliant bloke. I’ll give my age away here but I played against him when he was at Surrey. You had to prise him out – a real tough competitor on the pitch but a delight o� it. If you’re talking hard nuts, he was a tough nut to crack.

3. Trevor BaileyTrevor would say that a beamer should be part of every fast bowler’s armoury! This was a seriously hard bloke and he was from an era where they’d give you nothing. He was called Barnacle Bailey because you couldn’t get him out – he’d bat for hours! He was just motionless at the stumps and might not play a shot for hours.

4. Steve WaughYou could tell he was tough just by the look in his eyes. He’d toss up in his old, battered baggy green and just give you the signal that he’d been around for a long time and he was going to take a long time to shift. He got a century at The Oval almost on one leg, which was a brilliant innings. He was in agony but he still ran.

5. Merv HughesHe was a brilliant bowler and a brilliant character, very mischievous. He was hard on the fi eld and would always be e� n’ and blindin’. He gave Atherton an almighty mouthful once because of his Cambridge education and all that. Atherton just replied, “When in Rome, dear boy.” Merv

didn’t have a clue what he was on about and went back scratching his head! He was always coming at you but he was brilliant o� the pitch – a real social animal.

6. Geoffrey BoycottThe Yorkshireman who worked his way to be England’s No.1 and he’d let you know it! The self-belief and bloody mindedness of ‘These stumps are mine, and you ain’t havin’ them’ meant he’d bat for days, just to grind you into the dust. He loved every second of it. As long as it was daylight he’d be at practice and he’d be unbelievably satisfi ed with the results!

7 & 8. Rod Marsh and Ian Healy I’m putting these two together. Marsh looked like he hated you and Healy was a real battler. They were both great blokes but when they were behind the stumps they had some really sharp, horrible words! They’d march out to bat as though you weren’t good enough to be on the same pitch as them. They were ready for a scrap!

9. Ian ChappellWhat you see is what you get. His greatest line came last year. There was an article saying Australia were looking to England’s blueprint for success and Chappell was apoplectic! He said, “Whatever they do, we do the f*****g opposite!” He was the godfather of the Aussie cricketing mentality. He’s very much his own man who fi ghts his own corner. Look at him and Beefy…

10. Graham ThorpeThe Paul Scholes of cricket. He was a tough cricketer who did all his talking with the bat. It was what happened on the pitch that mattered to him. He wouldn’t engage with the opposition, he was in a total bubble. He was brave and would take a hit, then come back for the next one.

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This is Sky’s biggest year of sport across all six channels on Sky Sports and their year round schedule of live cricket includes back to back Ashes, Women’s international cricket and the best of the English domestic season.

HARMY HITS SECOND SLIP

After not being able to blink during the unbelievable series in ‘05, I was all set up on the couch at home for the fi rst ball of the 06/07 series in Australia. I’d just made my fi rst-class debut and was imagining playing in a Test match and wondering whether I had it in me. Harmison’s infamous fi rst ball made me realise that ‘Yes’, whilst being good, these guys are human after all, and I could most certainly play international cricket. If an international Test bowler can bowl the fi rst ball of a series to second slip, then my dream is alive and well!Dirk Nannes, globetrotting Aussie quick and AOC columnist

DEV SETS THE TONEFinal day at The Oval, 1993.  Devon Malcolm, with the fi rst ball of a new spell, fl ings down a rapid, full-length sizzler, and traps Steve Waugh lbw (or ‘probably lbw’).  I jump out of my seat at the Vauxhall End and spill beer on my own head and the man sitting in front of me.  The crucial breach has been made, and, despite tail-end resistance, new captain Mike Atherton leads England to our fi rst win in an Ashes Test since what seemed like another age – but was in fact the 1986/87 series. After three consecutive series drubbings, England were back. With an exciting new team having broken the mystique of the baggy green machine, regaining the urn would surely be just a matter of time. And indeed, it was.  It was a matter of 12 years, admittedly, featuring fi ve more series drubbings.  But at that moment, such future quibbles weren’t important to me, the man in front of me, or our beer-soaked heads.Andy Zaltzman, stand-up comedian and writer

THIS IS A LOWWaking up to the Today programme on Friday November 8, 2002, and lingering in a dark kitchen to hear Jonathan Agnew’s summary of the fi rst day of the fi rst Test at the Gabba. “We feared it might be bad,” he started. “We never imagined it would be as bad as this.” Nasser Hussain had asked the Australians to bat, and they had batted: 364 for 2, Hayden 186 not out. Australia went on to retain the Ashes at the earliest feasible opportunity, before the end of the third day of the third Test at Perth. That December morning, in the depths of the English winter, I distinctly remember Agnew’s despairing breakfast bulletin. He said it was hard to believe that England could regain the Ashes within his lifetime. Maybe he did say that, maybe he didn’t, but the sentiment is true to the memory. Sunday December 1, 2002, the lowest point. Remember? Etched.Richard Beard, novelist

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2005WORDS: PHIL WALKER

THE SUMMER WHEN EVERYTHING CHANGED

Eighteen years. Eighteen years we’d waited. An inferiority complex wrapped up in a late-order collapse. Rain, warm beer, crap cricket teams. All our national jokes. But it’s the way you tell ‘em, and these gags had long run out of gas.

But hold on. Things had been changing. Under Michael Vaughan’s suave captaincy, England had just turned up a series victory in South Africa. It was early 2005, and the win had to date been their grandest achievement, eclipsing even their exploits in winning all seven home Tests in 2004.

It was June 2005. Australia’s cricket team were here again. Perhaps this time they wouldn’t use the place as their personal playground.

“We were in a great place at the time; we’d gone through the previous summer unbeaten. We’d only lost one in our last 15. When you’re on a roll, it’s very di� cult to get knocked out of that, even if you’re up against a great Australian side.” Steve Harmison, England fast bowler

To vanquish the Australia of Warne, Ponting and McGrath, England would need their stars to shine. But they would need something else, something other. Implausibly, they were about to fi nd it: readymade, skunk-haired, utterly at odds, at fi rst glance more inmate than teammate. He’d just hit three ODI hundreds in South Africa against the land of his birth. It was fi gured he could play. We hadn’t seen the like. Then at Bristol, in the fi rst pre-Ashes ODI, Kevin Pietersen absolutely nailed it.

“Like so many others, I was converted by Botham in 1981. It left me with a taste for hero-worship, and a capacity for believing that an unexpected England victory might always be round the corner. On June 19, 2005, my brother and I were walking O� a’s Dyke. As we came into Hay, we said to

each other, ‘Wouldn’t it be brilliant if we turned the corner, there was a pub showing the match at Bristol, and England somehow won?’ We turned a corner, there was indeed a pub showing the cricket, and England, thanks to an awesome 91 o� 65 balls by Kevin Pietersen, posted an odds-upsetting victory. We both felt as deliriously happy that afternoon as we have ever felt watching cricket, sharing in the other’s joy, and in our sudden hope for the forthcoming Ashes series – which we could sense emerging like a crumpled-winged butterfl y from an 18-year cocoon. After years of vainly trying to fi ll a Botham-shaped hole, we fi nally – thanks to KP – had our new Ashes hero.” Tom Holland, historian

That ODI series would be drawn, a leg bye o� Ashley Giles’ left pad tying the fi nale at Lord’s. Three weeks later they would meet there again.

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2005FIRST TESTLord’s, July 21-24

“It was an unbelievable atmosphere walking through the Long Room that fi rst morning. Normally you’d have a couple of people sitting in the corner thinking, ‘Oh no, they’ve picked him again!’ This time it was standing room only. We knew then that this was di  erent. We set the marker down that morning and bowled them out cheaply. Then Glenn McGrath brought us down to earth! But at the end of that fi rst day you just knew – this was going to be an absolute humdinger.” Harmison

A marker indeed. That morning Harmison was unmanageable. He hit Langer on the elbow, Hayden on the helmet and Ponting so hard in the face that his helmet grille ricocheted into his cheekbone and sent him to hospital for corrective work (though naturally only after play had fi nished).

Australia were all out for 190 and England were padding up before tea. McGrath’s turn now. When he was fi nally hauled o� England were 48-5 and GD McGrath’s fi gures read 13-5-21-5.

Despite the sapping disappointment, England’s supporters had seen something. Twenty wickets for a start. And something else,

glistening among the debris: a rough, diamante-encrusted natural on debut. As McGrath cut through the top order, Kevin Pietersen had gotten massively forward, found ages for his shots, and looked immediately England’s best equipped batsman. On the second morning he’d also launched McGrath into the Lord’s Pavilion. Normal people just didn’t do that kind of thing.

Australia 190 (Harmison 5-43) & 384 (Clarke 91, Harmison 3-54); England 155 (Pietersen 57, McGrath 5-53) & 180 (Pietersen 64*, McGrath 4-29).AUSTRALIA WON BY 239 RUNS

SECOND TESTEdgbaston, August 4-7What happened next will never be forgotten. After a match like this the clichés would arrive faster than a gloved 90mph bumper. It had more untouchable moments – 400 in a day, the great Harmison slower ball, Warne to Strauss, Vaughan’s run out of Martyn, the whole last morning – than any other Test in history. Not forgetting a touch of high farce, when McGrath stood on a ball in the pre-match warm-up and was ruled out with a twisted ankle.

After scores of 0 and 3 at Lord’s, Andrew Flinto� had taken himself away for a few days with the family. He’d been tense at Lord’s, overwrought. Thereon he’d resolved to play naturally. His captain, Michael Vaughan, saw a di� erent man turn up at Birmingham.

“Captaining Fred, I wanted him to be right for that moment on the pitch. I wanted him to arrive on the Thursday feeling good. I wanted him feeling like he had someone who was supporting him, someone who was going to allow him to play with freedom, attack the opposition and just enjoy his cricket. You didn’t need him to be thinking too much, you just needed him to deliver, so lob him the ball get a wicket or two. Tell him which length, he’d do it. Bowl to the fi eld, he’d do it. Go out to bat and whack it, he’d do it. He got the crowd going. There’s not many players who could get the crowd going like he could and that’s what happened at Edgbaston.” Vaughan

Flinto� began by playing with dash and daring as England smashed 407 on the fi rst day. Other runs were plundered by Trescothick, Strauss and Pietersen, but Fred’s audacity stole it.

“It was a nice pitch to play on. I hit fi ve sixes that day. Lee bowled a couple short and I pulled him twice for six – blind at one of them, didn’t even know where it was. I used to have a technique of getting deep in my crease and to someone like Lee it works well because it puts you directly into his trajectory. Sometimes, the biggest sixes, you’re not really trying.” Flintoff

On day two, the summer’s other poster boy, The Blond, watched his side’s top order bat complacently, and caught the mood with a shocking heave himself. Australia fi nished 100 behind.

England were 25-0 when Warne took the ball. Going round the wicket to Strauss, he rags a looping, revolving bomb so far outside Strauss’ o� stump that he goes to leave it, but it grips and rips past his leg on the outer side, going behind his body and crashing into his leg stump. The Ball Of This Century.

“The way we attacked them on that fi rst day was brilliant, and we’d had to because of that man Warne. The more press coverage, the more electric the atmosphere, and the increasing profi le of the series all meant that one man was going to get better. That was Warne. He ended up getting 40 wickets, but he got them at over three an over. We didn’t nullify him, but we did compete.” Harmison

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Warne galvanised the baggies, and as day three took its absurd shape – let’s call it Mad Saturday – Edgbaston loyalists were coming to terms with an England collapse of vintage proportions. At least Fred was still there.

His second knock showed his class. England were 131-9 with a shaky lead of 230 when he was joined by Simon Jones. The width of Flinto� ’s bat stood between Aussie victory, and the sad tragi-comic capitulation of English cricket. No pressure then.

When Warne fi nally got him for 73, Flinto� had hit four more sixes, making it an Ashes record nine in the match. His breathtaking straight six o� Lee went fi zzing over the BBC’s commentary box. The next highest score in the innings was 21. Fred was starting to dictate the course of the match, to bend it to his will, as only the greats can.

To the evening session. Chasing 282, Australia had cruised to 47-0 o� 12 overs when Flinto� was summoned. “I’d just got 70-odd and I was asking Vaughany every minute to get me on to bowl. I was fl ying and I just kept saying, ‘Get me involved, get me involved…’ I just felt I could get them out.”

England went to work. As the close approached Australia were seven down, 107 shy. Only Clarke remained, magnifi cent in the murk.

“I’d thrown everything at him. Every question I had asked of Michael Clarke, he had answered them. I thought I should try something di� erent.” Harmison

“It turned the game. Harmy, he’s got this slower ball and he keeps wheeling it out, you can see it from slip when he’s going to bowl it. And I thought, ‘Here we go’. Because he comes up and his fi ngers are split on the ball. ‘Slower ball!’ It’s the best one he’s ever bowled, it was perfect, it’s even faded in to bowl him. It was amazing, amazing.” Flintoff

Sunday, August 7, 2005. The packed house settled back to watch the procession. How quickly the mood would change. Through Warne and Lee, warriors both, pilfered runs were nabbed – stolen singles, spliced boundaries, thick edges – until, with 62 needed and the crowd hushed, Warne bizarrely back-heeled his stumps. Last man Kasprowicz joined Lee, who wasn’t going anywhere.

“Everything seemed to be going against us, especially when Simon Jones dropped Kasprowicz. And Lee was unbelievable that day – every part of his body got hit but he still had the courage to stay there and try and see them home.” Harmison

Suddenly, imperceptibly, when Lee edged one past leg stump Australia were one hit away. Harmison ran in again. Short one. Kasprowicz, who’s looked immovable, ducks underneath it but can’t drop his hand in time, the ball kisses the glove (detached from the bat handle!) like a slobbering drunk and loops to Geraint Jones, who pouches it inches from the turf. Cue pandemonium.

“The old press box at Edgbaston was a tin-pot a� air, small and sweaty. It could mean a good atmosphere, though. In many instances, the old canard about journalistic impartiality was cast aside when Harmison won that lucky caught-behind shout against Kasprowicz. And the Aussies working to impossibly tight deadlines for the other side of the world could fi nally press send on one of the three versions they’d been preparing. The whole thing was pure electricity.” Lawrence Booth, Wisden Almanack editor

Amid the chaos Flinto� (seven wickets; 139 runs; immortality) locates Lee, on his haunches away from the hub, and o� ers him a word. It would remain between the two of them, and yet heard around the world. A thick edge from oblivion, but now England were fl ying.

England 407 (Trecsothick 90, Pietersen 71, Flintoff 68, Warne 4-116) & 182 (Flintoff 73, Warne 6-46); Australia 308 (Langer 82, Ponting 61, Flintoff 3-52) & 279 (Lee 43*, Flintoff 4-79).ENGLAND WON BY TWO RUNS

THE OVER…BALL 1: FLINTOFF TO LANGER NO RUNMy fi rst ball was so important. The crowd were up, and the fi rst ball had to be on the money. I knew it was gonna be half-quick – I don’t do warm-ups. I’m picturing the ball I’m gonna bowl. In my head he’s nicking it to slip. I came in round the wicket and it just o� ered to go away on the reverse. It was pretty much where I wanted to bowl it; I just thought he’d nick it!

BALL 2: FLINTOFF TO LANGER OUT! JL LANGER B FLINTOFF 28This one was meant to be the same as the fi rst, to nip away and take the edge. It held its line and smashed o� his elbow onto the stumps. I had a bad shoulder, but I was feeling nothing at this point. Just adrenaline.

BALL 3: FLINTOFF TO PONTING NO RUNIt had just started reversing. I wanted him lbw fi rst ball. The thing with Ponting early doors was he’d get across his stumps and his head would go across, but it was also a strength of his. This one was just a touch too high, but it was coming in beautifully now.

BALL 4: FLINTOFF TO PONTING NO RUNSame again, nipping back into him, it’s really reversing now. It’s the 13th over and it’s going already.

BALL 5: FLINTOFF TO PONTINGNO RUNNow I’m thinking I’m gonna get him. He’s looking to hit it and you can see from the previous two that his feet are nowhere. It hits him on the pad and it’s not out because he’s got outside the line, but he’s feeling for it, he’s feeling.

BALL 6: FLINTOFF TO PONTING NO RUN (NO BALL)This is the fi rst one where I turn the ball around in my hand to get it going away from him. It goes a little bit, but from wide and he’s able to leave it alone.

BALL 7: FLINTOFF TO PONTING OUT! RT PONTING C †GO JONES B FLINTOFF 0As I run up, all I’ve got in my head is a picture of what that ball is gonna look like, all the way – I reckon when I was bowling well I could just about do it with my eyes closed. It was reversing both ways by now and I was looking to take it away from him. It pitched and left him and that was that. I was fl ying…

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THIRD TESTOld Trafford, August 11-15

Michael Vaughan had told us he was in good form with the bat. His critics pointed to the three times in four knocks that he’d lost his o� stump as evidence that he wasn’t. Glenn McGrath had already trimmed him up at Lord’s, and now Pidge was back, hobbling through a match that had clearly come too early for his busted ankle. On the fi rst day the two would square up again. After a nip-and-tuck start and with Vaughan on 41, McGrath got one to nip back and clatter into his poles for the fourth time in the series. But wait…

“What a moment. McGrath bowled Vaughany, and then for it to be given a no ball, that was brilliant, wasn’t it? McGrath came back for that Test match – he shouldn’t have played. It was more through desperation. And Vaughany went on to get a great hundred and set it up for the rest of us…” Flintoff

Vaughan’s 166 laid the foundation for his bowlers to extract su� cient reverse swing from a scu� ed surface, as Simon Jones left Australia scrabbling to avoid the follow-on. Only Warne’s eye for a ball prevented his team being asked to have another go for the fi rst time in two decades.

With a chunky lead already, England took the game away from Australia chiefl y through Strauss’ fi rst Ashes hundred (there would be more). It left Australia 10 overs and a full day to bat out the draw.

On that fi nal Monday the gates at Old Tra� ord had to be closed at 8:30am. Queues snaked around the ground, thousands deep. Those turned away trudged back home to join the 7.7 million people watching on TV.

“Look, it’s one of the all-time great series that’s ever been played. I remember being here and seeing what sort of impact it had on the whole country. I remember driving to the ground at Manchester for the last day of that game, when

we had to bat out the day to save the Test match, and the streets were lined for kilometres with people around the ground who weren’t able to get in. They’re memories of things you don’t see every day.” Ricky Ponting, Australia captain

“My greatest Ashes memory is seeing 20,000 people locked out of Old Tra� ord. I thought there was a bomb scare when I arrived at Old Tra� ord on that day. I arrived at 9.30, went on the balcony and the ground was full. As I said to the boys, ‘This is special’. We went out of the dressing room just to warm up and the whole ground lifted and stood to their feet to cheer us.” Vaughan

It was a day of tough cricket, and England were relentless. When in late afternoon Clarke fell to a booming inswinger from Jones and Gillespie went for a duck, Australia were seven down. Warne joined Ponting and was able to hang around for an hour, while Ponting, with his Ashes scars and his raging spirit, would not budge. His 156 – the only chanceless hundred of the series – was a masterclass of its kind, and when he was fi nally strangled down the leg side, he could barely summon the strength to drag himself o� . McGrath and Lee were left with four overs to survive.

But England were spent. Back-to-back Tests had exhausted them. Those fi nal six balls from Harmison were easily negotiated, and for Lee, indomitable at Edgbaston, this was sweet redemption.

In the chaotic mix of emotions that met the fi nale, Michael Vaughan gathered up his players. Amongst them was Stephen Peters, a sub fi elder for most of that last afternoon.

“Vaughan called everyone in to a huddle on the pitch and he said to everyone – I’ll never forget it – he said, ‘Look at that balcony over there celebrating a draw. They’d never have done that in the past. We go to Trent Bridge and we’ll turn them over there.’ From that moment on I knew we were winning that series. You could see the belief in the team. It was great to be part of it, if only very briefl y.” Peters 

England 444 (Vaughan 166) & 280-6dec (Strauss 106, McGrath 5-115); Australia 302 (Warne 90, Jones 6-53) & 371-9 (Ponting 156, Flintoff 4-71).MATCH DRAWN

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FOURTH TESTTrent Bridge, August 25-28Vaughan was right. England would dominate Nottingham, right up until the death, when Warne – who’d asked for 170 to defend and got 128 – nearly ripped up the formbook.

Andrew Flinto� made his fi rst Ashes hundred here, and when he quietly raised his bat to the terraces – who needs fanfares when you can hit balls into the road – it seemed to announce the arrival of a great cricketer. The inning was relatively un-Fred-like, his 132-baller containing just the one six. His time at the crease with Geraint Jones, who arrived at 241-5 and saw Fred depart 177 runs later, was perhaps the pivotal partnership of the series.

“Freddie and I had an incredible connection when we were batting. We were good mates and I think the way we played connected well. Freddie was very strong driving down the ground. You knew about it when he hit it back at you! Whereas I was more square of the wicket, cuts and pulls. We complemented each other and that probably allowed us to get a few more balls in areas we liked. When we got into it we were pretty fl uent.” Geraint Jones

Australia may have got away with it at Manchester but Nottingham was not so forgiving. Jones claimed another fi ve-fer, and this time the follow-on was enforced.

Second time around Australia were going well at 155-2 when Martyn dropped one into the covers and called Ponting through for the single. It was a tight one, the cover fi eldsman swooped and Ponting was caught short.

Emerging from the mob of Englishmen and hoisted skywards was a Durham reserve called Gary Pratt, sub fi elder extraordinaire and the unlikeliest hero of the summer, not that Punter thought so, labelling England’s regular use of a sub an “absolute disgrace” and shouting his mouth o� at the England dressing room as he stomped back to the pavilion. Duncan Fletcher, England’s inscrutable coach, was moved to remark: “You want to take a run to a cover fi elder and get run out, whose fault is that?”

England required just 129 to win. No gimme.

“I was batting with Kevin, under control and Lee came on and just did us for pace. My bat was here and o� stump was cartwheeling back. In hindsight and through the clarity of not being in the position I was in then, we were going to win but we just got a bit carried away. We were seven down. We only needed 10 runs, and then Hoggy went out there and played a blinder. He hit that cover drive o� a full toss! And then Giles just turned one to win. I couldn’t watch, I think I was punching Straussy, just to vent something...” Flintoff

“I’ve worked professionally as a sports journalist for 14 years. Only once have I been unable to read my notes afterwards because my hand had been shaking so much: the Trent Bridge Test. It was the only Test I covered that summer and even then on the Saturday I had to report on West Brom v Birmingham. On that sunny Sunday evening, it seemed I was witnessing yet another England capitulation as Warne transformed the unspoken niggle of ‘They could mess it up, I suppose’ into the full-blown panic of ‘Not a-f***ing-gain’. But then came the proof that this was a di� erent England, a side with backbone and spirit, that did have the guts to edge over the line. When Giles squeezed that two I was almost weeping with relief. I’ve never dared look up the copy I fi led.” Jonathan Wilson, Blizzard editor

England 477 (Flintoff 102) & 129-7 (Warne 4-31); Australia 218 (Jones 5-44) & following on 387 (Langer 61, Katich 59, Harmison 3-93).ENGLAND WON BY THREE WICKETS

FRED ON THE NIGHT TO END ALL NIGHTS…“Look at that! It’s like a beer garden at Wetherspoons! I’m fl agging there. Unbelievable night-day. Bizarrely I remember most of it. We stayed at the ground until about 11, just drinking in the dressing room with the Aussies. It was one of those nights where you didn’t want it to end. I remember eight o’clock in the morning there was people signing o� one-by-one and I was having a gin and tonic with Mike Gatting. Talking to Gatt over breakfast, a beautiful sight. And then Phil Neale came down in his fi nery and said ‘Go on, go get ready, we’re going on this bus’. So I went to my room and knocked on the door and my missus said ‘Where’ve you been?’ ‘Just been downstairs all night’. So she said, ‘Right come on’ and got me in the bath, bathed me and dressed me and put me on a bus. It was like school! So we got on the bus and we did the parade and they gave us champagne on the

memories are made of this

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FIFTH TESTThe Oval, September 8-12And so, after 24 days of the greatest battle in sport, it all came down to the last afternoon of the last day of the last Test. Four acts of riotous drama fell to this. England needed to bat out the fi nal day and the Ashes would be theirs. Australia had to take 10 wickets by late afternoon and knock o� the defi cit. It was that simple.

Such a day deserved something special. Australians casting glances at Warne’s slashed spinning fi nger saw him stroll out on that fi nal day, custom-made fl ares billowing over his red-striped tenpin-bowling boots, with 35 wickets already in the series.

“Make no mistake, 2005 was great for Australian cricket as well; everything about it. It was the kick in the backside Australian cricket needed. The whole series did a lot to take Ashes cricket to another level.” Ponting

The day begins edgily. Strauss had already been Warned the day before, and after a skittish start Vaughan nicks o� . With Ian Bell following next ball, Kevin Pietersen rocks up with the score 67-3.

The hat-trick ball from McGrath is a brute that KP’s gloves dodge by the width of a diamond bracelet. Not out. Three overs later, Lee bowls Pietersen a full one that he edges to fi rst slip where Warne, who hasn’t dropped a catch all summer, grasses a simple chance.

At the Vauxhall End Warne has hunkered down for the day. To his fi rst ball after the drop, Pietersen hits Warne for six. Four balls later, same over, he does it again, same place over mid wicket. This is outrageous behaviour.

But for all his audacity England are in strife at lunch. KP is still there on 35, somehow surviving a fearful pre-lunch assault from Lee, but England are fi ve down and only 133 ahead.

The game is so fi nely balanced that one false move tips it inexorably the other way. So this is what happens: Lee bowls three overs in his post-lunch spell, of which Pietersen faces 13 balls. Those balls are dealt with thus: 2, 2, 0, 6, 1, 0, 2, 6, 4, 4, 0, 4, 4.

In six overs since lunch KP moves from 35 to 76. One of those fours is executed by fl at-batting a rising thunderbolt from outside o� stump straight past the scarpering umpire at waist height. It should be defended. It really should be blocked. Yet it’s returned faster than it had arrived, which was, incidentally, 96.7mph.

“It was the perfect, bizarre, unconventional innings for that stage of the game. Watching it, I felt entertained, but I was also thinking, ‘What you doing?’ Going for a draw, pulling them past the umpire! Sometimes when the ball gets faster your bat gets faster and everything gets faster. You start hitting, you just go for everything, out of fear, out of adrenaline. I think that’s what was happening with Kevin that day. He was unbelievable. He started to get going and once he’d started he couldn’t reel it in. I was counting it down, but you just didn’t know what was happening…” Flinto�

It’s an unhinged masterpiece. His hundred comes up in 124 balls, and at tea England are almost there, seven down and 227 ahead.

It’s almost party time. When Pietersen launches his fi fth and sixth maximums, the ground takes on a carnival feel. The players relax, Pietersen hits another – make that seven – and gets out, Giles plods a happy fi fty and the crowd chant “We wish you were English” to Warne, who do� s his fl oppy white to the four corners of London town. It’s all rather surreal.

Australia face four balls, take the light, the umpires dither and the crowd sings on oblivious – after two months of heart-wrenching drama the bathos works just fi ne.

Finally. At around 6:30pm on September 12, 2005, Michael Vaughan walks gingerly over to that funny little urn, smiles, and screams.

Fred, meanwhile, went o� to fi nd a beer and cigar…

England 373 (Strauss 129, Warne 6-122) & 335 (Pietersen 156, Warne 6-124); Australia 367 (Hayden 138, Langer 105, Flintoff 5-78, Hoggard 4-97) & 0-0.MATCH DRAWNENGLAND WIN THE SERIES 2-1

bus which was a nice touch. We went to 10 Downing Street, and the Trafalgar Square thing was amazing. People were hanging out of windows and even now people say ‘I was there for that’. Then at Lord’s we started to get a bit tired. Sat down, and then I started nodding o� . Fell asleep on the bus on the way back to the hotel. That’s when Harmy wrote on me – permanent marker. We got o� the bus and Harmy was really concerned about me and I said ‘What’s wrong?’ He put his jacket over my head like I was Michael Jackson and he shepherded me in and I got back to my hotel room. He’s come up with me and he’s going, ‘I’m sorry Rachael, I’m sorry’. I’ve looked in the bathroom and gone, ‘What’s that? There’s something on the mirror!’ Looked across my head and it said, Cant – except without the ‘A’. It was in The Sun the next day. My mum was so proud.”

p42-75_Ashes-AOC106.indd 75 25/06/2013 23:18

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GAYLE ACADEMY • TOP CLUBBING • UPCOMING • LMS • UGANDA • UNKNOWNS

THECLUBBERTHE HEART OF THE GAME

On the eve of last month’s Champions Trophy, the world’s most charismatic cricketer rocked up in multi-cultural south London to open his very own academy for young cricketers. David Byrom was there to see one man’s impact on a local cricket community.

A GREY, LATE-MAY MORNING IN WALLINGTON, south London and a train idly passes by an unassuming cricket centre. None of the passengers really seem to notice it. And why would they? At fi rst glance, it is thoroughly unremarkable. Certainly not the sort of place you would expect one of the world’s leading cricketers to launch an academy. But this part of London now has a Caribbean feel to it, after it was announced as the location of the UK’s fi rst ever Chris Gayle Academy.

With funding support from Comic Relief, its aim is to work in partnership with the charity Cricket for Change, who own and run the centre, and support up to 18 disadvantaged young people aged 16-24, developing both their cricketing skills and their life skills.

“Sport has the power to change the world,” says Gayle. “I know from my experiences in India how important cricket can be in developing young people’s lives. Cricket’s a powerful tool; it’s

changed my life and I hope that my involvement will help to change the lives of others as well.

“I know what it’s like for some of the people entering the academy; I was born and raised in a small community in Jamaica and I grew up next to a cricket fi eld. There was a lot of struggle, and we sometimes couldn’t fi nd money to go to school. Most guys look back and remember they didn’t have the proper kit to play cricket; no bat or pads.

“Eventually, I made it to the top, but I want to play a part and give back.”

A GAYLE FORCE ROLLS INTO LONDON

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94 | AOC | AUGUST 2013

The presence of the man who holds the record for the fastest ever century in Twenty20 cricket already seems to be inspiring the assembled youngsters, with one telling AOC: “Donovan contacted me after hearing about what I went through in the last year or two – I’m coming out of a really tough time in the last year – and told me the foundation was having trials.

“It’s not just about the cricket for me, though. I’m excited for the future and having opportunities to work. Especially with Chris here; the experience he’s got can help us. They’ve given me an opportunity, and hopefully I can repay it.”

With another academy planned for Jamaica in 2014, Gayle is keen for this project to be successful. “Once this academy is established, I’m looking to expand it to Jamaica. I’ve done some charity work there, as there’s a heart foundation there. I plan to do something in India, too. I haven’t been approached for anything yet, but I’m sure it would be huge. In India, there’s no two ways about it.”

Whatever the future holds for other academies, this is the here and now. For a handful of London’s disadvantaged youth – from gang members and young refugees to those excluded from school or not in education, employment or training – Gayle’s new academy can o� er a chink of light to pierce through the slate-grey skies.

“They’re only going to get out what they put in; it’s all about management,

you should never take anything for granted.”

Sellins expands: “Something we do with all the players is to create a personal

development programme. We sit down with the guys and find out what they want to achieve in both sport and other areas of their life. We then set targets and timescales to achieve them, as you would in a job; we’ll monitor things going on, feedback on achievements and tackle problems together.

“Basically, it’s being disciplined about what’s going on in your life. These guys are young men and have the world in front of them.”

Donovan Miller, programme manager for Cricket for Change and the Chris Gayle Academy, argues that the academy “will not just provide a cricketing opportunity, but will also equip a group of young people, through building up their confidence, giving them the right life skills and training to go back into their communities and inspire other young people to move in the same direction as them.”

Miller also has connections with some county sides, meaning if any talent comes to the academy, there is a real chance they could progress to playing cricket full-time.

I was born and raised in a small community in Jamaica and I grew up next to a cricket � eld. There was a lot of struggle, and sometimes we couldn’t � nd money to go to school

AOC’S CLUB MATCHBringing clubs and cricketers together in perfect harmony! Think of us as matchmakers, cricketing cupids, just without the ads or the small talk.

If you’re looking for a club for the new season, or you’re a club looking for new recruits, visit www.alloutcricket.com/clubber/club-news/clubmatch and let us give you a helping hand.

Cricket for Change was established in 1981, and has since gone on to employ around 40 members of sta� , most of whom were helped by the charity at one point.

“We believe every young person has got all manner of potential that we can unlock,” says CEO Andy Sellins. “In the case of the cricket academy, we are using our academy players’ love of cricket to both help them develop their game and unlock their potential in terms of employability and their future aspirations. We run all sorts of partnership programmes specifi cally for young people, such as the largest disability cricket programme in the world. We also run programmes for ex-youth o� enders to try and keep them out of trouble.”

Academy members will stay at Cricket for Change for a year, before hopefully moving into education or a job.

Gayle says: “I intend for this to go from strength to strength. I’m sure these guys will love to hear what I’ve been through at di� erent stages in my life, and I’m willing to share it with them. It’s a privilege to do this, and I’ll be here whenever I get a chance.

“Guys who have a sporting dream and are from a hard background need to co-ordinate what they do.

p97-114_TheBackflap_AOC106_.indd 94 25/06/2013 23:39

www.alloutcricket.com | AOC | 93

AD

GAYLE ACADEMY • TOP CLUBBING • UPCOMING • LMS • UGANDA • UNKNOWNS

THECLUBBERTHE HEART OF THE GAME

On the eve of last month’s Champions Trophy, the world’s most charismatic cricketer rocked up in multi-cultural south London to open his very own academy for young cricketers. David Byrom was there to see one man’s impact on a local cricket community.

A GREY, LATE-MAY MORNING IN WALLINGTON, south London and a train idly passes by an unassuming cricket centre. None of the passengers really seem to notice it. And why would they? At fi rst glance, it is thoroughly unremarkable. Certainly not the sort of place you would expect one of the world’s leading cricketers to launch an academy. But this part of London now has a Caribbean feel to it, after it was announced as the location of the UK’s fi rst ever Chris Gayle Academy.

With funding support from Comic Relief, its aim is to work in partnership with the charity Cricket for Change, who own and run the centre, and support up to 18 disadvantaged young people aged 16-24, developing both their cricketing skills and their life skills.

“Sport has the power to change the world,” says Gayle. “I know from my experiences in India how important cricket can be in developing young people’s lives. Cricket’s a powerful tool; it’s

changed my life and I hope that my involvement will help to change the lives of others as well.

“I know what it’s like for some of the people entering the academy; I was born and raised in a small community in Jamaica and I grew up next to a cricket fi eld. There was a lot of struggle, and we sometimes couldn’t fi nd money to go to school. Most guys look back and remember they didn’t have the proper kit to play cricket; no bat or pads.

“Eventually, I made it to the top, but I want to play a part and give back.”

A GAYLE FORCE ROLLS INTO LONDON

p97-114_TheBackflap_AOC106_.indd 93 25/06/2013 23:39