(Image courtesy: New Indian Express)Cricket scribes across two countries are having an exclusive binge where the password is 'Slam Oz'. L Suresh gatecrashes into the party.
The sparks are still flying. The embers are glowering like an angry pair of eyes. The burning cinders are simmering at the surface, as if some unfinished business awaits beneath. The charred remains of hopes, ambitions, dreams and vanquished spirits of a visiting team remain as a motley crowd stares in disbelief, expecting an Aussie hero to rise from the ashes and change all that had transpired in the last couple of months. Sorry folks, the script’s changed.
As the grounds get cleared of the tension and the trash left behind by exhilarated crowds at the end of a fiery series of heart-stopping cricket, an Australian team makes its way back home. For most of the team, this is a plane ride into the sunset. Some of them will land in the wilderness and some others, in the ex-players lounge.
But it shall be a mournful journey back for the Aussies as they have just lost their most precious piece of baggage – a tiny urn filled with some ashes of dubious origin. But one man will be wearing his cloak of silence in the singular hope that it would make him invisible back home. Glenn McGrath had a higher batting average than Hayden, Katich, Gilchrist and Martyn. He had two five-wicket hauls to his credit. The pigeon had just delivered a new word to the dictionary of clichés, with the word metronome celebrating its two billionth appearance in the sports columns, thanks to him. And yet, his name will be found in the opening pages of this Ashes series for an entirely different reason. Before the series began, he had done a Shoaib ‘Motor Mouth’ Akthar by claiming that Australia would win the series 5-0. He then went on to add injury to insult by stepping on a cricket ball before the second test and then injuring his right elbow before the fourth test. (Had he been a player from our subcontinent, he would have most certainly been accused of match-fixing because England went on to win those two matches and hence the series.)
Rewind to a not-too-distant past. John Buchanan had been entrusted with the job of producing another utterly predictable blockbuster. He decided on a rather simple script, as is the norm with every hit. It was about a bunch of cowboys from the outback who would talk fast, talk dirty and shoot from the hip. The plot was like this. Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne would pick up around 40 wickets each and leave the rest for Lee and Gillespie. The batsmen would then come in and take turns scoring centuries. At the end of 25 days, the Aussies would yawn and walk back with the Ashes, a routine that was no different from a swaggering stroll to the nearest bar.
The opening sequence dutifully featured a bar – and that’s when things began to change, as a little boy crashed into the scene and whispered to his weathered grand-pappy that there was a stranger on horseback in the neighbourhood. As if on cue, the old man proclaimed, “Folks, a man just rode into town!” Freddie ‘I am not Botham’ Flintoff had decided to step in and make the Aussies an offer they would find hard to refuse – a 2-1 verdict and a safe journey back home. (If the weather Gods hadn’t interfered, it could have been worse – perhaps even 4-1.)
Looking back, limiting the series to five tests was the best thing the ECB could have done - a sixth one and two countries would be outsourcing their medical requirements for coronary care from Bangalore with renewed vigour. Beauty salons would have closed down their manicure sections for lack of customers. And most importantly, the English Premier League would have had to release full page ads announcing that their ‘schedule remains postponed until the Ashes get over’.
To the discerning cricket fan, the first Test should have hinted a thing or two about what was going to happen through the rest of this series. Australia were sent packing for 190 in less than 41 overs. Seventeen wickets fell on the first day. Three of the Aussie top order had to receive medical treatment on the field thanks to Harmison’s killer spell. The whole of England must have resounded with a collective ripping noise as the Barclays Premiership itinerary came off many a wall and the first day’s score card of the first test got taped on instead. This was just the beginning. In the course of the series, as English batsmen began to see the ball like a football, the football fans trooped into cricket grounds to witness this curious phenomenon called reverse swing.
And if Day 1 began with the Aussies getting rattled by a four-pronged pace attack, Day 25 ended with Kevin Pietersen playing the innings of his life, scoring 158 with seven 6s and England putting on a century partnership for the eighth wicket. If the series started with Pietersen dropping Michael Clarke, which possibly cost England the match, it ended with Warne dropping Pietersen on the last day of the last Test when he was on 60. By the time the second Test had started, Lady Luck, Dame Fortune and every other metaphor for providence broke away from the Australian camp and moved in with the Poms.
Finally, Australia found out what it felt like to be human, to have fate conspire against them, with key players losing form, star bowlers getting injured, age catching up with the side, important catches being dropped and strategic errors being committed. As eleven men trudged in and out of the grounds day after day, only to be completely dominated, they would have given anything in the world to exchange their kits for a park bench where they would rest their weary limbs and wonder what had gone wrong in the last few months. They had lost the Ashes after 16 years. They had been made to follow on after 17 years. They were hit for 36 sixes in the series – a new record against them.
But one amongst them was the odd man in the gathering – he was the only one who had not failed. Just add a beard and a horned helmet to the portly figure and permit yourself a tiny gasp as you realize the striking resemblance with Hagar the Horrible – the Viking who always came into form when it came to doing what he loved best – looting England. He was as incorrigible in his behaviour, eating, drinking and making merry with the women around, as a Viking would. He was as ruthless on the field, his rippers and flippers creating carnage at the other end. And regardless of whether he was batting or bowling, Shane Warne took the field with a sack – and refused to leave until he had plundered at will and had got his share of scalps and runs. 40 wickets in the series, two 10-wicket hauls and 249 runs to his name. If one thought controversies and a messy personal life would whittle him down from his superstar status, one thought wrong.
And as for the rest, they would be wondering where they went wrong. Gillespie must be invoking the spirits of his warrior ancestors from the Kamilaroi tribe, trying to gaze into the crystal ball to figure out if he has a future with the cricket ball. Kasprowicz must be hoping that his nickname Kasper doesn’t come true and that he doesn’t become invisible to his selectors. Gilchrist must be getting online frequently with Parthiv Patel, the two sharing notes of woe on what it feels like to slip up both behind and in front of the wicket. While Damien Martyn would be hoping for another quick trip to India, Michael Clarke and Katich would be wondering how they grew up without ever hearing about reverse swing.
But the biggest telltale sign of the downslide of the team from Down Under came from the Australians themselves. As performance levels went down, decibel levels went up as the Men from Oz chose to vent their ire on everything from crowd behaviour to substitutes taking the field. Talking of substitutes, the day Jonty Rhodes decides to publish his ‘in-flight’ manual on how to effect a run out, Gary Pratt will be called in to add a few chapters to it. Never in the history of Test cricket has a direct throw at the stumps mattered so much as it did when he knocked down Ricky Ponting's stumps in the second innings of the 4th Test at Trent Bridge.
Meanwhile, news from the Indian camp has it that the Indian team, when not scoring hundreds against a bunch of hapless schoolboys posing as a Board XI team, was taking time off to watch the Ashes. If only Greg Chappell had put on his thinking hat, he would have let them do more of it – even if it meant not playing an inconsequential triangular series. It would have been a fitting reminder of the opportunities squandered in the recent past.
And for those of you who, like me, always felt that England would win this series, just reach out for a chilled can and begin the celebrations. (Who cares if it’s a Sunday morning? It’s always sundown in some part of the world.) And those of you who cheered for Australia, you are hereby sentenced to some rigourous watching of the complete India-Zimbabwe or the Sri Lanka-Bangladesh series – take your pick.
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