The Ashes - continuing the '100 years war'

It may be a touch ironic that England’s new coach in this year’s series for The Ashes, Andrew Flower, has a similar pedigree to that of Duncan Fletcher. Ironic in that they suffer neither fools nor excuses.

England wiped the floor with a po-faced West Indies in a two-Test series in the icy month of May while half the squad, including the captain, Chris Gayle, were largely distracted by the Indian Premier League run by the odious Lalit Modi and his sycophant henchmen. You cannot play any serious form of the game with fractured identity as did the Caribbean troupe that treat the game as if they are turning up to a karaoke bar with a bling-bling image.

As is the case with Fletcher, Flower is a stoic realist. Four years ago, Fletcher predicted an Ashes success based on the bowing tactics around a largely settled seam and swing bowling attack of the temperamental Steve Harmison, Matthew Hoggard, the reverse-swing specialist Simon Jones, and Freddie Flintoff.

It is bowling which wins Tests, and the batsmen need to support their mates if the side is going to be competitive. Between them, the four collected 75 wickets while the Australians managed 79 among three with Shane Warne taking 40 wickets in the series.

A lot has happened since those heady days when The Ashes grabbed the headlines and for a changed pushed maniac sports to the inside pages. Who will front up as England’s bowlers this time is debateable.

Injuries have plagued the fitness plans, and restructuring a competitive attack out of what they have depends on form, fitness and the willingness to try two spinners instead of one. Leg-spinner Adil Rashid, not even a blip on the Yorkshire radar four years ago is now in line to compete with Graham Swann and Monty Panesar as part of the team along with front-line seamers Stuart Broad, Graham Onions and James Anderson.

Andrew Strauss is a competent enough captain and has developed with Flower a warm rapport and with it understanding of what is needed to regain The Ashes. To them the ICC World T20 was not a priority. But winning the urn back after that humiliating 5-0 thrashing Down Under in 2006/07 and where Flintoff was exposed as a poor tactician has become one.

Ricky Ponting always gave the impression during the T20 circus that his mind was elsewhere; his bowling attack was under pressure and the batting eager for a new direction. Tests are always a different game: it’s the red ball and the lateral movement you can get from it which can upset the best of game plans. Australia have some anxious players: Brett Lee, Brad Haddin, Simon Katich and the new hope, Philip Hughes feel they have a major role to play in this series.

One problem the Wizards of Oz have is that there is no identifiable replacement for magician Warne. Those they tried against South Africa last southern summer were largely abject failures and part-timers are not the answer. With schisms in their seam and swing bowling and worries in the top order it is going to be tough. There is no Justin Langer, no Matthew Hayden, no Adam Gilchrist and no Glen McGrath which was the perfect foil so long for Warne. It leaves Australia looking vulnerable.

As an event, the history of The Ashes is a remarkable one as it has since given birth to the many that have followed between other countries. On occasions, British or Australian media refer to it as the“100 years war”. This is more a humorous term as what later became recognised as the first Test was played at the Melbourne Cricket Ground 132 years ago.

In those days, the venue in what is now Jollimont, Melbourne, was a park where sports events were held, attracting horse drawn carriages as well as those who had to walk to watch games. The term The Ashes is 127 years old and a certain mystique surrounds that small, fragile terracotta vase that once held a type of woman’s perfume popular in its day, and said to hold the mythical ashes.

Given as a keepsake it became part of the fun emerging from what can be best described as the largesse from a fertile journalistic mind. This is the mock obituary notice that appeared in a quirky newspaper item in the Sporting Times of September 1882, and which poked fun at England losing to the colonialists Australians at The Oval in London a couple of days earlier on August 29, 1882.

To add to the social enjoyment the tour created at the time, a young Melbourne woman, Florence Morphy and her friends are said to have presented Ivo Bligh, captain of the England team with the vase after winning the return 1882/83 series 2-1 with a victory by 69 runs in Sydney. Ms Morphy handed over the urn to her future husband (later Lord Darnley) as a parting gift, which even for stoic Victorian times brought smiles and tears.

What the urn holds is a mystery: claims vary from a burnt ball to a stump or a bail. However, according to a pamphlet on the history of origins of The Ashes, in her later years, the future countess told a daughter-in-law they burnt her veil and placed those ashes in the urn. While the urn belongs to the Darnley family, she presented it to the Marylebone Cricket Club for safekeeping and in memory of her husband a former MCC president.

It has been described as Test cricket’s first commercial brand event before the corporate industry became involved in sport to push their own image (and ego), and scratch below the surface there is also touches of India as well.

Historically, whatever the view of many, The Ashes is the sport’s first high profile genuine international event and is still the most celebrated of rivalries, attracting a multitude of denizens from all walks of life.

At the time first Test for the Ashes was played in 1882-83 in Australia, countries such as India and Sri Lanka were governed by the Raj; neither Pakistan nor Bangladesh existed, and Australia, New Zealand and South Africa were also colonies and there was no international cricketing body. In those days, colonial administrators controlled the nations then playing cricket at any level.

Amid this is forgotten the impact of the mercurial batting talents of KS Ranjitsinhji on the early Ashes series. The Cambridge University and Sussex batsman also graced the fields in England and Australia and created his own legacy in what were the pioneering days of Test cricket.

What we now have is great rivalry between India and Pakistan, which has always been a passionate affair with it high profile image from the early 1970s; New Zealand’s own series with Australia developed fierce trans-Tasman competition.

Since their return South Africa in 1992, they have found Australia as creating the sort of challenges that spark intense enmity across the Indian Ocean as well as England. Not to be forgotten, however, is the impact that the West Indies have also had on the game.