Preamble
So here it is … Merry Christmas! Everybody’s having fun (except perhaps Ben Duckett). Look to the future now, it’s only just begun.
Does Sir Geoffrey always tell you that the old ways are the best? Then he’s up and rock’n’ – hang on, there’s no way of making that work. Much like being in charge of an England Test team in Australia if your name is not Andrew.
Anyway, here’s a quiz question. Of all the losing squads England have sent on an Ashes tour this century, which one has done least badly? Using a simple yardstick: the gap between their average score and Australia’s.
Look away now if you want a minute to think about this. But you’ve probably guessed where I’m going with it. Yes, the answer is … Ben Stokes’ brave boys from 2025-26.
They’re averaging 258 per completed innings (actually, all their innings have been completed – for some reason, not even Stokes has been inclined to declare). The Aussies have made 372 per completed innings – only four of those so far, but the two romps to victory still feed into the average. So the difference between the two sides has been 114.
That may sound embarrassing, but, by England’s Ashes-tour standards, it’s highly respectable. Last time round, under Joe Root, they averaged a feeble 202. Their bowlers kept the Aussies down to 350, which still left them, on average, 148 behind.
The time before, also on Root’s watch? England batted better, averaging 292. But we may have to give most of the credit to the pitches, as the Aussies averaged 514. No, that is not a misprint: the gulf was 222, almost twice as bad as in the present series.
How about 2013-14, under Alastair Cook? England averaged 216, Australia 414, so the gulf was 198. Or 2006-07, under Fred Flintoff? England 264, Australia 528, the gulf 264. Should have stuck to calling himself Andrew.
Which just leaves Nasser Hussain’s tour in 2002-03 – surely that wasn’t too bad? Well, the batting wasn’t. England 293, Australia 468, the gulf 175.
With the ball, Stokes’s team have been better than any other bunch of England losers, bar the lockdown gang of 2020-21. With the bat, they are fourth out of six, and as they’ve done better in each Test of this series than the one before (yes, really), they could end up second. In terms of the gulf, they’re the bees’ knees. It hasn’t been worse than usual: it’s just been more galling for the fans because their hopes were higher.
Some are calling these last two Tests a dead rubber, but that’s a term that just doesn’t belong in Test cricket. Every match is an occasion, never mind Melbourne on Boxing Day. Every match counts – for the World Championship, for the mood in the camp, for the individual’s self-respect, for the reckoning afterwards, and for the career average that a Test cricketer has to carry around on his back like a snail.
The first game I went to in Australia was the fifth Test of 1986-87 in Sydney. It was billed as a dead rubber because England, of all people, had just gone 2-0 up to seal the series. The Aussies, captained by Allan Border and buoyed by a dream debut from Peter Who?, took the game seriously and won it. The great John Woodcock reckoned it was that game that sowed the seeds of the 1989 series, when Border’s team beat England 4-0. Far from dying, that rubber had helped the Aussies to bounce back.
Recent history tells England supporters that the wheels may well be about to come off, but there’s still plenty to play for. And neither Pat Cummins nor Nathan Lyon is playing, so Root and Stokes, England’s two old stagers, won’t have to face their nemeses.
The other England batters need to treat Mitchell Starc the way they treated Jasprit Bumrah in the summer: don’t take him on, do see him off. Then they just have to figure out how to play the demon Neser. Oh, and Jhye Richardson, who, the last time he bowled in a Test, four years ago in Adelaide, helped himself to five England wickets.
A consolation victory is still a victory. And it would bring some consolation.
