The sun has been out twice this week in England. Once for three days, the other for four.
My local pub has a sign that reads ‘Free Beach Sand’.
Clothes are being shed in favour of flesh that quickly turns lobster red after what seems like an endless winter. Summer has finally arrived.
A summer that promises much for the cricket lover is about to begin. The anticipation is tangible.
The Kiwis lost 2-0 in what many looked at as a five-Test series spread over two hemispheres. To their credit they had their moments.
Boult and Southee look set for long and fruitful careers, Kane Williamson can now be classed as a batsman who can bowl, Rutherford is a fine fielder as well as a heart-warming scorer of a ‘daddy hundred’ – first coined by Graham Gooch who uses the phrase to describe big scores over a ton – on his debut back in the land of the long cloud.
We also learnt that Ross Taylor is a class act and Brendan McCullum is a fine imaginative captain who unfortunately had four poor Test innings in Blighty.
Thanks guys, and congrats on your ODI series win. Great visitors on and off the pitch, with the Beige Brigade establishing the template in loyally supporting your side, for the Fanatics to follow later in the summer – and a team that has the makings of, if not an immediate force, then a slow burner with a promising future.
But now, for the first time since the 4-0 series win against the Aussies last summer thoughts are finally turning to England playing the Australian cricket team.
And if you don’t get a thrill at the prospect then perhaps cricket isn’t your game.
I for one cannot wait at the resumption of this age old rivalry.
On Saturday morning both teams are opening their ICC tournament fixtures at the mighty Edgbaston ground in Birmingham, England’s Wanderers and MCG thrown into one.
My young son and I will be attending the game. Train tickets are booked, match tickets safely squirrelled away and my Middlesex hat is waiting to be worn.
And well done to whoever set the pricing at sensible levels. 20 quid for adults and a fiver for u16s is a job well done. No wonder Edgbaston is reported to have sold over 20,000 tickets already with further sales expected.
Yes our forthcoming match is ‘only’ the first group stage game of the ICC Trophy, instead of the fight for the terracotta urn, but it is fascinating for so many reasons.
Forget Australia’s capitulation for 65 in their 243 run defeat versus India. It doesn’t mean a thing.
Australian cricketers do not normally make the same mistake twice. They certainly won’t against the old enemy.
Even if David Warner’s worrying lack of form continues, George Bailey looks less than fluent and slightly lacking in confidence, while Johnson’s and James Faulkner’s radars still need tweaking with Starc leaking runs too.
But the tournament starts on Saturday in Birmingham, not the previous Wednesday in Cardiff or last Saturday against the Windies.
As an indication the matches aren’t even given full status by the ICC, which must be a relief to the batsmen who are conscious of their stats.
So at least Warner’s duck won’t count in his figures even if Bailey’s unwitting quote revealed more than he thought when he told Cricinfo: “These warm-up games are down to your attitude individually and a team.”
What is of far more concern for Australia is Michael Clarke sitting out the India game. Perhaps team physio Alex Kountouris will be your most important man in the opening stages of the summer.
Clarke’s back injury is giving cause for concern. Kountouris told the Guardian that Clarke “is still experiencing some lower back pain [needs] specialist treatment and a decision on his fitness for the England game will be taken in due course.”
Whichever way you look at it, the situation is not promising.
Even David Gower’s assertion that Pup is a ‘super player’ was somewhat lost in his ‘feral’ and ‘animal mentality’ comments that were either a poor sledge or a poor joke from someone who is intelligent to have known better – or at least expand and articulate his views on Australian cricketers far more eloquently than he did.
It could be argued that a motivated Australian team used their first ICC Trophy win in November 2006 as a prologue to the 5-0 Ashes thrashing handed out to a disappointing England in 2006/07.
Not to mention the six-wicket victory in Jaipur over England during the tournament.
Just as England beating you guys in the ICC semi in 2004, even if it was only as a prelude to crushing disappointment in losing to an improbable eighth-wicket partnership of 73 in the final at the Oval in Sept 2004, was arguably a first shot across the bows in lead up to the never-to-be-forgotten Ashes series the next year.
Similar to junk food, there aren’t too many T20 servings you remember in detail.
But the short form thrashing of Australia at Southampton nearly eight years to the day from June 2005 boldly informed the Aussies that for the first time in a generation England weren’t going to be bullied by them, in winning by a staggering margin of 100 runs.
Will a marker like the ones mentioned be laid this weekend? Don’t bet against it. Certainly not when you factor in the intensity that both sides will bring to the occasion, in what will be their first meeting for almost a year.
Or in their desire to win the opening shots of a long and gruelling dispute that will consume many in two hemispheres over the course of 2013.
At least the phoney war is over. Graeme Swann asked a journalist after his ten-wicket haul at Headingley, to the mortification of the England press officer stood in earshot, “Are we allowed to talk about Australia now?” – even if the spinner’s tongue was firmly in his cheek.
Yes, the teams will be different to those that stride out into this West Midlands cricketing cauldron.
Wade certainly won’t be opening the Ashes batting for a start. Nor will Johnson, McKay or Vogues feature for sure.
With England, Jos Buttler may have a great future as a ODI batsman/wicketkeeper – witness his blistering 47 from only 16 balls faced in the third and final game against the Kiwi’s at Trent Bridge on Wednesday – but he won’t be anywhere near the batting line-up come July.
Nor will his partner Eoin Morgan or Ravi Bopara. James Tredwell will only play if Swann’s elbow prevents him from taking part as there is still sufficient mistrust of Monty Panesar bowling anywhere but The Oval.
But there is a precedent for the weekend’s game to set the tone for the far bigger prize starting in less than five weeks, which is why my boy and I intend to be there from the first ball.
Yet for me it’s not really about lifting the ICC Trophy. It would be nice of course, especially given England’s incredibly poor record in ODI tournaments.
I still have memories of Punter’s and Shane Watson’s evisceration of England in the ICC tournament in 2009 (136* and 111* at Centurion respectively) even if Trescothick’s 81 and Michael Vaughan’s 86* at Edgbaston contributed to a memorable English victory in the 2004 version.
South Africa and New Zealand won their first one day tournaments in 1998 and 2000 respectively, yet it would be a further nine years until England finally won one in the form of the T20 in 2009.
And you don’t even have to remind me that we still haven’t triumphed in a meaningful global ODI tournament. (Incidentally Mike Gatting has yet to adequately explain why he tried that reverse sweep v Pakistan in the World Cup Final at the MCG in 92 when England were well set for victory).
Speaking of Gatting, trending on Twitter all week was mention of the 20th anniversary of the ‘Ball of the Century’. Not least on Shane Warne’s account.
So, yes an ICC Trophy triumph in the month of June – traditionally a high water mark in the English sporting summer – would be welcomed.
But I am looking at it as a marker for the Ashes pure and simple, in terms of team psychology at least if not in specific personnel.
And if you were to ask me if I would prefer to win the ICC Trophy or the Ashes – as opposed to being greedy and wanting both – well, I think you know the answer.
The summer is here. Let the rivalry begin … in the run up to the Ashes.
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