- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
As first day of this Ashes series came to close, it had all been about surprises. Even arriving in Nottingham for the first time, it’s safe to say cameraman Cam and I had no idea what to expect.
Along roads that travelled through pleasant countryside, passing laneways roofed in deep green foliage as summer lavished its attention on England with all the intensity born of brevity, our first big surprise was our lodgings for the first Test.
Far from a couch in a drab shared terrace, our new temporary residence was in a sprawling former manor house, enormous in scope, filled with paintings and musical instruments. Our host was planning a string quartet recital for the weekend.
On arriving at Trent Bridge, we found the ground immaculate and charmingly miniature, so unlike the coliseum construction that our cricket fields have uniformly assumed like teenagers conforming to the group’s haircut.
The nearest pub served a pint of small-brew ale and about a three person steak ration at less cost than one Australian stubby in a wanky bar.
Lining up at the ground the next morning, the many Australians were surprisingly optimistic. The Brits were surprisingly modest. The ticket touts were surprisingly stereotypical, and the blokes with the trombones and the giant bearskin hats were… well, God knows what the hell those guys are on about.
Later, after some of the fuzzy-hat dudes somehow snuck onto the field and played several entire songs before being removed by lax stewards, we were hugely surprised to learn that Ashton Agar was in the Australian team.
Updates are harder to follow at the ground than watching on TV, but this was such a surprise it even got past the official scorecard distributed to the press boxes, which still listed Nathan Lyon at No. 11. Your be-speckled eagle-eyed correspondent didn’t notice Agar on the field until the fourth over.
At that point, it was a surprise to realise it was the first time [ok, third, I got carried away] since a chap named Doug Walters came along in 1965 that Australia had debuted a player still in his teens. The Twitter response was solid.
Is someone taping Home and Away for Agar? #ashes
— Paul Hogan (@realpaulhogan) July 10, 2013
It was a surprise that Steve Smith made the team instead of Dave Warner or Usman Khawaja. It was a surprise to roll the English all-out for 215. It was a surprise to see a batting order listing Cowan at No. 3, Hughes at 5, Smith at 6.
It was a surprise to see Warner packed off to Africa via Australia A to hunt some big games. And it was the biggest surprise of all to realise that Steve Smith is fast becoming our most reliable batsman.
It was no surprise, however, to see Australia’s batting order collapse.
There’s a kind of inexorable quality to England’s. As you read over Cook, Trott, Pietersen, Bell, Prior, you feel that surely a couple of them are going to make serious runs.
Every dismissal feels like a let-off, but also a doomed one step closer to the eventual centurion. I used to have the same reaction in sympathy with opponents scanning Hayden, Langer, Ponting, Martyn, Waugh, Lehmann, Gilchrist.
Australia’s current line-up has the opposite problem: there’s no clear indicator of where the runs are going to come from.
Shane Watson pushed his pad forward and nicked a booming drive, as ever. Ed Cowan was only among the runs every time a stomach bug forced him to the toilet. Whether the bacteria affected his brain or not, he was out to the most un-Cowan-like shot he has ever played.
Chris Rogers and Michael Clarke got good balls and poor support. Now, 140 runs behind England, I am not considering with confidence the idea that Smith and Hughes will take Australia to a lead this match.
In the circumstances, there’s nothing to do but wait and see what tomorrow brings. Come on fellers. Surprise me.