The Battle of the Ashes

Image by 6tee-zeven via Flickr

England's victory in the last Ashes series in 2009
means they are defending the Ashes in Australia
this summer.

I find myself in the rare position of reading Australian newspaper commentators praying for rain ahead of day 5 of the second Ashes Test in Adelaide tomorrow. This has been a tough year for Australian sport.


Notwithstanding Ian Botham’s supreme confidence that this English side will be the first since 1986/87 to retain the Ashes on Australian soil, my own expectations were for another Australian victory. Australia got off to a good start too, with Peter Siddle’s Hat-trick and Brad Haddin and Mike Hussey’s three-ton partnership in Brisbane, I was able to rattle off a gloating email to some colleagues in the UK.

“Doesn’t this seem familiar?”

But I spoke too soon! England fought back with a determination I don’t remember seeing in an England squad in Australia. After England finally managed to dispatch first Haddin and then Hussey they pulled themselves together and dismissed the rest of the team for 481 - this was after having reached 5/450 at the height of the Haddin/Hussey partnership. Even as my emails were traversing cyber-space I was blithely ignoring the ample evidence of English resolve.

The next day proved un-ignorable. England’s opening batsmen Alistair Cook and Andrew Strauss together produced a century each. The day after, another two centuries, and only 1 wicket. Alistair Cook himself proved invincible to all the attacks of Australia’s bowlers. By the final day of the first test, far from thinking that this test was following a rather familiar pattern of the last two decades, I thought that England were being overly cautious in not putting Ponting’s men in to bat earlier and having a crack at winning the test.

Image via Wikipedia

Australian Captain Ricky Ponting has been feeling
the pressure in this Ashes series

So how did we get to this role-reversal? How did we get so far from the familiar the situation that I can recall from childhood, where if I went home to my older brother after losing a game in any sporting competition, my “did my best” defence was only met with jeers and comparisons with Mike Atherton, whereas now it seems like it’s the Australians who are full of excuses for their poor performance (some commentators, oblivious to what blind freddy could see, are claiming that the pitch has been the cause of these indomitable English batsmen).

Now this morning Australia are 4 for 238 and looking to the skies for rain to interrupt the game and save them from a defeat at the hands of the English.

So... did you hear about the Rugby on the weekend?

Some Rugby news: In Perth over the weekend, despite having a half-strength team through injuries, having the side reduced to 14 men and England being awarded two penalty-tries the Wallabies still managed to beat England 27-17.

Over the same weekend, an England squad sans Ferdinand and Beckham managed to throw away a victory over the United States thanks to a costly Robert Green fumble.

But of course, entering the classroom how am I greeted this Monday?

"Four nil!" was the students' reception when I entered my classroom today.
"Sir, when you watch the world cup do you prefer to sit further from the telly or Klose?"
"What's the date today sir? It isn't the FOUR-teenth is it?"
"Sir, how old are you? Not twenty-FOUR?" (actually twenty-six but what the hey?)
etc., etc., etc.

Every conceivable question whose answer might contain a four was asked of me today - just to rub some salt into the wound left by Germany's drilling of Australia on Sunday. Even the other teachers were none too sympathetic when I told them how I was greeted in the classroom.

"Well, one should hope so. The Australians were terrible."

The closest I got to sympathy was one teacher who reminded me of the above-mentioned Rugby result.

Losing to England in the Twenty20 last month didn't help either. And of course, England are currently holding the Ashes and not likely to lose it till Christmas (C'mon you can't expect England to beat Australia in Australia in a game of cricket!). It seems that I've come to England at the perfect time for a great big serving of humble pie and the English aren't losing any opportunities to watch me eat after all the years of being a bigger and richer country than Australia but always losing in sporting competitions.

The last Olympics in Beijing was the firstOlympics since 1988 where Great Britain got higher in the medal tally than Australia. In that same time period Australia won 9 out of the 11 Ashes series played. Over the same period Australia has likewise dominated England in the Rugby - although it has been a lot closer competition Australia beating England 23 times from the two sides' last 38 encounters. So when we finally come to the original football - the World Game - the English are only too happy to gloat whilst watching Australia flounder amongst the big names of Football.

However, if either Germany or England come second in their group (but not both) then we will get an oppurtunity to see how the English fair against this German World Cup squad. So if Australia don't get a chance to play England maybe Germany will - we'll see who gets the last laugh then in this long rivalry between nations.

(C'mon it's football not cricket - it'll probably be England).