So I sit here, observing the events of the first morning of the third Test, and my mind drifts back to the first Ashes series I saw.
It was 1989, and the paceman who couldn’t be resisted was on our side, and the opening batsman who couldn’t stop getting trapped in front was on theirs.
They said that team was the worst Australia had ever sent too, but it worked out rather differently.
I was lucky I didn’t start watching cricket until my country had started its resurgence.
I missed those desperately dark years of the mid-80s, when everyone was beating up on Allan Border’s side, even the Kiwis.
Whether the team was worse then than now is impossible to say, but things must have felt grim – not only was the team living in the shadow of the past greats recently gone, it was pining for the current stars who’d taken the cash and split to South Africa.
Things must have looked hopeless then, as they look hopeless now.
It’s worth remembering, of course, that back then, the way out of the doldrums was steered by picking and sticking to players who the selectors believed had the right stuff for Test cricket, and not obsessing too much about their stats.
The inglorious early careers of Steve Waugh, Ian Healy, David Boon and Kim Hughes should be kept in mind.
On the other hand, it’s now six years since Shane Warne, Glenn McGrath, Matt Hayden and Justin Langer retired, and six years after the Chappell-Lillee-Marsh departures, Border had already laid waste to the English battlements in ’89.
Time does seem to be getting on a little.
The real trouble right now is that for an Australian, it seems like all the forces of the universe are arrayed against us.
Every mistake is punished to the maximum effect; English edges fly wide while Australian ones are plucked from the air; every Aussie pad is somehow in front of the wicket; English batsmen play and miss while Australians nick; and even when none of this happens, the umpires fire them out anyway.
This Australian team might not be much chop, but when every card is falling the wrong way, one can end up wondering whether they’d ever have had a chance, no matter how good they are.
Indeed, perhaps this team is perfectly fine: perhaps the cricketing gods simply don’t like them.
The cricketing gods are like that: capricious and apt to hold a grudge.
Why else does Stuart Law’s career remain stuck on one Test?
Why else is Ashton Agar’s highest Test score still 98?
Why, indeed, is Don Bradman’s average 99.94?
Not that these wicked gods reserve their wrath only for Australians, of course.
Many others have suffered at their cruel hands, too. Mark Butcher once belted a ball full force into Michael Slater at short leg, only to have it lodge in his armpit.
The same Slater was ruled not out by the third umpire once when he’d been run out by two metres, because a fielder obscured the camera’s view of the stumps – he went on to hit a century.
Is there any point in raging against the fates? Should we just give up now?
Logically, yes. Whether it’s the gods of luck, the gods of talent, or the gods of slipping a brown paper bag under the umpire’s door, something is conspiring against us, and perhaps we should just take our medicine.
I’m not saying give up, I’m just saying, adopt a slightly more give-uppy approach than thus far.
If anything, it should make life more enjoyable for our boys.
Once freed from expectations of performance, and knowing that every misstep will be excused on the basis of divine intervention, they can really enjoy their time on the field, and enjoy even more their tours of the scenic English countryside on the unused fourth, fifth, and possibly third days of Tests.
We can relax too.
We will have to endure neither the agony of hope, nor the depression of realising our team’s not good enough.
Instead we will feel the joyous relief of knowing it’s a rigged game. And in a rigged game all is absolved.
I feel better now. We’ve had a good run. Since that first Ashes series of mine, I’ve had 24 years of watching Test matches where I felt a higher power was not decreeing an Australian loss in advance. Now it’s time for everyone to relax.
No more tears, guys. It’s out of all of our hands.
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