Ashes Poetry

“Set up nicely for Edgbaston. English and Australian fanatics calculate chances.”

At least half-a-million people were at Edgbaston to see the three run nail-biter of an English win in 2005. And at least half those half-a-million watched the 1966 World Cup victory, not to mention Roger Bannister’s four minute mile, Sir Len regain the Ashes in 53, Matthew’s Cup Final, Alfred burn the cakes and Beowulf beat Grendel against the odds, but not necessarily all at the same time. Good if there were a similar contest this time round.

Forget groundsman Steve Rouse’s prediction of jelly. A trifling matter: all groundsmen or curators as they’re called in Australia are lugubrious blokes who make Eeyore seem like Ken Dodd. Their wont is to complain of the task they have undertaken together with conditions of works, which clearly has little necessarily in common with the outcome of their labours. (The single exception is in the Windies this century, where groundstaff cheerily predict a great batting wicket, where inside three overs it’s so clearly explosive that a UN mine-clearing squad would evacuate the entire island, and quite possibly the Carribean.) Steve Rouse, (apart from a notorious strip at the end of the last century where Ambrose cleaned out Blighty inside three days) pretty well always produces a decent cricket wicket with a bit for both bat and ball, first pace and then spin. And it is always preceded by the most gloomy of prognostications. The time to really start really worrying would be were Mr Rouse to address the world with a Cheshire cat grin and the words ‘No ifs, no buts, the best wicket I’ve ever produced.’ The ball would swing both ways at once, to cut batsmen in two, literally.

Edgbaston is a cricket-watchers’ ground. No great shakes in terms of looks, (the elegant Victorian pavilion’s always seems half-wrecked within seaweed flotsam of scaffolding,) the wicket  good, the field flat (Lord’s, the home of cricket, has a slope Cardiff wouldn’t and didn’t get away with as a test match venue) with boundaries shaped not to favour one shot or another. Every seat is pretty decent and plenty of room to stretch and amble. Like Cardiff and Lord’s it’s a true cricket ground in that you can walk right around it too.  I like Edgbaston, a lot, but I might be biased since I’m a Warwickshire man.

As such I’d like to see a repeat of Bob Barber’s 185 on Day One of the Third Test at Sydney in 1966. http://www.cricinfo.com/ci/engine/match/62985.html I wasn’t there. I was twelve. I listened to it on the wireless (1500m long wave home service, valves taking time to warm up and smelling of burnt dust) Barber was a stodgy all-rounder for Lancashire till he reinvented himself as winner-takes-all opener for Warwickshire backed up with fairly useful leg-spin. My boyhood hero was going like a train having lapped Boycott about twice before I fell asleep and he was still thundering up Lickey Bank, (Boycs long gone down the sidings back in the shed) when I woke up again….

‘He reached his hundred with a push into the covers, made one wave of the bat, took his cap off briefly and settled back to his innings. His father had arrived in Sydney that day and he reported back the words of a man on the Hill: “Why can’t we have a batsman like this Barber?” Until Virender Sehwag hit 195 on Boxing Day 2003 it stood as the highest score by a batsman on the first day of a Test against Australia. “Bob hit everything in the middle of the bat,” Dennis Silk said. “That innings was sublime. It had the hallmark of real talent.”‘ http://www.cricinfo.com/wisdencricketer/content/story/224857.html

‘Watching Bob’ http://www.ashespoetry.net/2009/07/28/watching-bob/  is a poem written from the other end. Barber’s innings won England the game by an innings, and put them one-up in the series they were to draw. Now as then, England’s win at Lord’s alters the strategy as well as the balance of the series. They can inherit Australia’s “bat longer than they do” dictate, while Australia must win at least one – which they have done at Northampton, and not to be underestimated as well as under-reported: winning warm-up games is always good. Now they have to win, the Green Baggies require more penetration, which is why they might pick Shane Watson, to add to the bowling and the batting. I’m not sure if this’ll work, because it may add to the quantity but not the quality. Who do you leave out? Phillip Hughes? Tough on the guy after three innings, and if he fires he could turn a game inside a session. North? Century at Cardiff, proven in English conditions. … Do you switch any of  the other bowlers, Stuart Clark for Pie-thrower Johnson, or maybe Siddle. Or drop Horitz, leading wicket-taker, and play without a dedicated spinner? The agressive approach is to switch a bowler for a batsman, say Clark for Hughes or North, but then who does the opening, which is where coming on tour with just two openers looks fool-hardy. Justin Langer is making runs down in the cider country and statements about missing the wearing of the Green Baggy one more time….

How about the poms? A positive spin on Mr Achilles’ achilles is that a fit in-form Bell strengthens the side rather than an unfit out-of-form Pietersen. (See poem KP NHS http://www.ashespoetry.net/2009/07/27/kp-nhs/) However even as a Warwickshire man, I’d be loath to suggest ‘Belly’ even if he isn’t a ‘Belly-flop,’ is a potential game-changer like Pietersen. For this reason I’d pick Harmison, to balance the side. It’s clear the Australians don’t like facing Flintoff – who would in his present mood and form? – and Harmison would be more of the same. Like Pietersen in a session he could win you the match. Who to drop? Maybe Onions, or Broad, but I think England will stick with the same attack. Onions gives a bit more control than Harmison, especially on jelly, and Broad’s batting (defensively iffy) becomes more important in the eyes of the cautious who believe Bell is an axomatic weakness. Go for it, put the Aussies through the Harmoniser.

All this being the case, winning the toss becomes ever more important, possibly match-deciding. Strauss has been fortunate twice. At Cardiff by determined batting, Australia reversed England’s fortune. At Lord’s first knock they batted like dorks. One thing for sure, unlike 2005 Ponting won’t bowl if he wins the toss this Thursday. I reckon whoever wins the toss will win the match. Unless weather intervenes, which it might, neither side looks good enough to battle out a draw – oh yes, Cardiff.