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Here’s a thing – why are you reading this tale of Ashes-losing woe at a sodden Old Trafford and not feasting on the exhilarating details of a rain-deferred Monday’s play?
It rains. In England. In the summer. For most of Saturday. And all of Sunday. Who’d have thunk it? Who could have forecast that in benighted Blighty? So not only did a rip-roaring Test match (ok, that’s from an England perspective) become a literal damp squib but so did the entire raison d-etre of the series get settled on a weather-related technicality. To the victor the spoils. Bye ‘bye little urn.
But it could have been different. What about having a reserve day as a matter of course built into what is admittedly a ludicrously cramped schedule? It happens in other tournaments. It used to happen at Wimbledon until someone had the clever idea of putting a roof over the showpiece courts.
Meanwhile, as the increasingly gloomy weather bulletins came from Old Trafford during the day, so did shots of the world’s best golfers, admittedly swaddled to the gills, playing to the top of their game at Hoylake (under an hour’s drive away from Manchester) fill TV screens. It’s not easy hitting golf balls in the wet either. ( All right. All right. No one is hurling a golf ball at your head at 90mph).
The point stands, though. Cricket doesn’t help itself with its tortoise-like over rates, its slavish devotion to start and finish times, particularly in an English summer when it is light until 9.30-10pm, its faffing about with light meters including the ludicrous sight of umpire Joel Wilson telling England it was too dark to operate their fast bowlers on Saturday, an instruction handed out by a man wearing sunglasses.
Why not start early, cancel lunch or tea or just do something, anything to make sure a contest is settled out there is should be settled and not from under an umbrella?
This is not meant to be a typical whingeing Pom piece (Irish passport holder since you ask), a straw-clutching bleat about how England deserved better from the series, that they had played the more forceful, match-shaping cricket, that they ought to have had at least a share of the spoils as they headed to the Oval for the fifth and final Test.
No, they didn’t. They lost fair and square at Edgbaston and at Lord’s. The scoreboard tells you that. Loud and clear. Bazball is not some sort of Hollywood gimmick. Yes, there may be a secondary purpose to the whizz-bang style in getting bums on seats for Test cricket as shown by the fact that there has scarcely been a seat to be had no matter how well-resourced a bum you might be, but it’s essential objective was to get the best from this generation of England cricketer, to bring them out of their shells in order to WIN. Yes, to win. And it has worked. From one victory in 17 matches to ten wins in the preceding 11 Tests at the start of the summer. But not this time.
England captain Ben Stokes after day five of the Test at Old Trafford. (Photo by Stu Forster/Getty Images)
Ben Stokes of England looks on during the end of match presentations. (Photo by Clive Mason/Getty Images)
The style of play in this Ashes has been a delight, a buccaneering, odds-defying, adrenalin-fuelled joy ride. But Australia came to Old Trafford with a 2-1 advantage. They also came with the Ashes. They are the holders. They get the benefit on both counts of any weather-related hocus-pocus.
Cricket is about many things, from warm beer on village greens to fast-track mayhem in the Caribbean to dusty turners in Delhi, and chief among its wonderful traits is luck. The toss. The edge over the slip cordon. The cloud cover. It is about dealing with random fate at times and getting on with it.
It’s about recognising the sport for what it is – flawed in many ways but cricket nonetheless. We love it for what it is and what it produces as those lovely scenes of Zak Crawley being congratulated by a cavalcade of Aussies when his barnstorming knock of 189 in 182 balls finally came to an end on Thursday afternoon. That was a proper bit of sport.
Zak Crawley celebrates reaching his century. (Photo by Martin Rickett/PA Images via Getty Images)
The Great Old Trafford Anti-Climax should not dampen our spirits for too long. There is a final Test to round off a series that was much-anticipated yet which has managed to exceed even those fingers-crossed expectations. There has barely been a dull session let alone a below-par match. England have set the tone but Australia has played its part. They might well have lost their way in this Test match, going all England of old, cautious and conservative, lily-livered time-wasters, reactive rather than proactive, reducing Pat Cummins to a boggle-eyed, what the f— is going on at one point, but they found a way to endure. And anyone who thinks that they will settle for merely retaining the urn as mission accomplished knows nothing of the Aussie psyche. Australia have not won a series here since 2001.
They know that will be a galvanising force at the Oval. As do England. It doesn’t matter that England had by far the better of this match, in fact, of this series. History books, though, don’t contain asterisks against an outcome. Nor should they. England will be mega-desperate to end the summer at 2-2. To lose 3-1 would give them no get-out clauses. It would be a stuffing.
They will head south to London with good reason for optimism. Crawley is in fabulous nick (I know that has been said before) while Joe Root also looked set fair only to get daisy-cutting snorter. Bazball has many strands but if it can be reduced to one element it is a trust in people. It’s a sporting tree-hugger. It is life-affirming in its way. Crawley has benefited and finally, finally, so too has Bairstow, taking a ripper behind the stumps before thrashing the spinner-less Aussie bowlers to kingdom come.
The urn may be heading back to Oz but at least cricket has done its bit to cement its place in the British sporting consciousness which can be a fickle habitat. English cricket has led the way. Even a snarky Eddie Jones should acknowledge that. The feats of Stokes and his merry men – chapeau to Mark Wood and Chris Woakes in particular as well as Stuart Broad, Aussie-like in his spikey-competitiveness – have been the talk of the land over this past five to six weeks. If only it hadn’t rained in Manchester. Could be a mournful Smiths’ song that one.
Mick Cleary, who was Daily Telegraph rugby correspondent ( 1997-2021), was also a sports feature writer for The Observer ( 1988-1997). Cleary has covered eight Rugby World Cups as well as seven Lions tours. He was written several books on those tournaments and tours as well as worked with Jeremy Guscott on his autobiography. Cleary has also had extensive experience of other sports including tennis at Wimbledon, cycling at the Tour de France and golf at The Open. Cricket, athletics , horse racing and F1 also feature on his CV.