The issue in this toxic Lord’s Test lies with the ever-nebulous notion of the spirit of the gameFrankly, it’s just not Bazball, old boy. On a febrile, toxic, at times mildly hallucinogenic day at Lord’s the cricketers of England and Australia produced one of the most obscurely rancorous days of high summer sport seen in this country.Australia’s players were barracked by MCC members as they walked into the pavilion at the lunch break, with reports of “physical contact” initiated by the red-trousered ultras. The Lord’s crowd booed and jeered across four gruelling hours from midday to the close of play, a level of hostility that has surely never been witnessed inside this most mannered of environments, a place where a...
In this series everyone’s a winner, until pesky facts get in the way – Ashes defeats on home soil are not forgottenThe bars are empty. The food village is deserted. Fish goujons and hog roast slowly drying out on industrial hotplates. Stewards perched on the edge of their boundary chairs, no longer looking out for potential oil protesters. Long faces in the Long Room, the members in mutiny. They haven’t been this angry since the Icec report came out. Out in the middle, Ben Stokes playing cricket from the gods. The target is thinning. The Ashes are alive.What larks we had! They talk in the England camp about making memories, and as the noise swelled, as the afternoon throbbed with...
Tourists steered clear of a repeat of 2019’s miracle defeat by finally ending England’s resistance after Bairstow drama“The dream is always the same,” says Joel Goodsen at the start of Risky Business. And it is, even if everyone’s version is different. He dreams of missing an exam that will ruin his future. Others can’t find their batting kit when they’re due in the middle, or have to flee an enemy who is always right behind them. They wake, they stumble through their day, then back into the halls of sleep.Australia’s class of Headingley 2019 would have had some dreams after Ben Stokes pulled off his last-day miracle. After one night’s sleep their head coach Justin Langer made them watch the...
The raging atmosphere has never sounded like it did in 140 years of Test cricket at the ground after all hell broke looseAt 2pm the Harris Garden was empty, and the Nursery deserted. Apart from the idle bar and catering staff, the cleaners sweeping up the tumbling plastic cups, the outer grounds were uninhabited. Everyone was inside, in utter tumult. In the Edrich Stand they were chanting “Aussie! Aussie! Aussie! Cheat! Cheat! Cheat!” and over in the Compton it was “Same old Aussies! Always cheating!”They have been playing Test cricket here for 140 years, the atmosphere at the ground has been loud enough before now, excitable, tense, and on edge, too, but it’s never felt, or sounded, quite like it...
A long, bruising day trying to take wickets seemed to take its toll on the hosts, before Australia showed them how it’s done Ahh, Bazballs. The old salts around the ground have been complaining for days that England need to learn there’s more than one way to play this game. Saturday turned out to be an object lesson in exactly that. England slogged up the long, hard road to taking the wickets they needed and once they finally had them watched Australia canter down the straight, short one.They still need six more to win, but then three of those bat below Stuart Broad. England, on the other hand, probably need Ben Stokes to work the same sort of miracle he...