The Trojan URN

(Image courtesy: New Indian Express)

It’s going to take something special for England to retain the Ashes. L Suresh reports.

(Image courtesy: New Indian Express)

It’s going to take something special for England to retain the Ashes. L Suresh reports.

The last time a man named Joyce stepped out of Dublin, he created history with Ulysses, a take on the hero of the epics Iliad and Odyssey who was known for his ingenuity and strategies at battle. Decades later, another Joyce – born in Dublin – has embarked on a journey to the land down under, to fight the oldest cricketing war between two countries. One does not know if there is a Trojan horse strategy that Ed Joyce will unleash, but one fact that will be etched in his mind is that there is an urn to defend.

In the days of yore, the vanquished general had to part with his steed to the victorious general as a token of surrender. The Greeks used this ploy to their advantage when they entered the stronghold of the Trojans and massacred them. Could we be in for something similar? Suddenly mental disintegration seems to be a thing of the past. Both teams have become members of a mutual admiration society, with the English side suddenly getting a lot of respect from the most unexpected quarters – from old warriors like Shane Warne (despite McGrath predicting yet another 5-0). Both line-ups have been loudly advertising the injury list to their sides, hoping to lull their opponents into a sense of complacency by displaying obvious chinks in their armour. Could there be a hidden agenda somewhere in this passing-the-urn game?

There's something about English cricketers that makes them look like they were made on a late Saturday evening, just as God was ready to down the shutters and take his Sunday off. Bend and they pull a muscle, run and they damage a tissue, dive and they break a bone – the latest is that in the English camp, ‘catch’ is no longer a form of getting the batman out, but a symptom for getting a fielder into the hospital bed. Hamstrings, ligaments, backs, shoulders, elbows, fingers, knees - the surgeon's scalpel has judiciously followed the Heineken principle, reaching parts that other instruments could never reach. With Trescothick gone 10 days before the first test and Harmison nursing a side strain, one wonders how long the queue outside the sick bay will turn out to be.

Until the series blazes to its fiery end, it will not be known whether Trescothick's exit will make a difference to England’s fortunes, but as an opener with loads of attitude who could take on the Aussie quicks, his shoes will be hard to fill. Cook will be fondly recalling his blazing 214 against the pace quartet of Lee, Gillespie, Kasprowicz and Tait in Australia’s warm up game against Essex in 2005. At least two of the four are still in the test circuit and Cook will be hoping that his form stays as good as it has been in the warm-up matches. His is a strange tale of being the world's most sought-after replacement batsman - he spent a good half-year last season flying in and out of Pakistan and India as a replacement for Trescothick, Strauss and Vaughan. So it doesn’t come as a surprise that the only way he could have earned his spurs as an opener in the Ashes was as a replacement. Three hundreds and three fifties in nine matches are great stats - for a replacement player, they are amazing.

But in Tresothick's absence, the treadmill starts as the rest of the slots open out and the arduous task of filling them will be a worry to Fletcher and Flintoff, right through this series. While middle order trios like Dravid, Sachin and Laxman, Inzy, Younis Khan and Mohammad Yousuf, and Sangakkara, Jayawardene and Attapattu represent the best blend of solidity, class and style in the Asian countries, Pietersen, Flintoff and Collingwood represent firepower and scrapping prowess - the kind that Miandad would watch from his living room with moist eyes.

But it's the English four-wheel drive pace machine that has become the think-tank’s biggest headache. Ever since Simon Jones suffered an injury in the fourth Ashes test in 2005, things have never been the same again. Half a dozen pace bowlers have been tried out and to say that none have impressed would be euphemistic. Harmison's wides and injuries, and Flintoff's comeback after a lengthy layoff are too serious to be ignored and without any backup bowling, this English team can get stranded at flag-off point should a wheel come off again.

That's where Australia is the strongest, with enough bench strength to provide pace power to every cricket-playing country in the world. McGrath, Lee, Clark, Tait and Johnson have already lined up and the likes of Bracken, Gillespie and Kasprowicz await their turn with little hope of making it to the squad. They can however look to Stuart MacGill for solace and a helpful shoulder to cry on, for he has been the boy wonder who turned 35 waiting in the wings for his turn, which came once a year when Warne was busy sms-ing insults or nursing injuries.

Surprisingly, England has a happy dilemma on the spin front, with Giles and Panesar vying for what could be the sole spot in the team. One, a veteran with a taste of what it takes to be inside a pressure cooker and the other seeking psychological help even before the series began. One, a useful bat at No. 8 and the other a 'can't bat, can't field' bloke who leaves the spectators rolling in the aisles with his unintended antics – while Fletcher has made his choice pretty clear, it will be interesting to see who becomes England’s No. 1 spinner.

All eyes would also be on Flintoff to see how he handles his various responsibilities - that of a bowler, batsman, captain and part of the team's think-tank. His own batting form must be a concern to him as a weakness against hostile short-pitched bowling has been sighted in recent times. The bowling is still being cranked up and nowhere near the magical form that he was in during the last Ashes. There's far too much at stake for him to fail on any of his capacities – more so because in his case, an individual failure could mean the collapse of the whole team.

There is always the promise of Vaughan joining the team before the third test, but for a man who hasn't played any form of competitive cricket in almost a year, the Ashes could be a searing experience. A class act like Attapattu - the man with six double hundreds - showed what being out of touch can do, as he fumbled his way through the Champion's Trophy, being a pale shadow of himself.

Despite all this talk about self-belief, it's actually tough to imagine that this Australian team can be beaten. Botham's advice to his team can possibly come as the only glimmer of hope as he pointed out that the Australian team was now a year older and hence that much easier to beat. Age is probably the only thing that the Aussies do not have on their side, with Langer, Gilchrist, Hayden, McGrath and Warne crossing the 35-mark and Ponting, Stuart Clark, Hussey and Lee going past their 30s. That's nine out of 13 who are past 30, though the Aussies have never let minor things like age affect their performance. Compare this to the English side that has just three players who have touched 30, with Giles being the grand old man at 33.

If you are a hardnosed cricket follower, chances are, this Ashes may not hold anything spectacular for you. The Aussies are back on their pedestal, surrounded by seven other mediocre teams that make them look even better than they actually are. Without a weak link in the team, with in-form players and with their stars fully fit, they look all set to walk all over a debilitated English team that finds itself desperately reaching out for a lifeboat that it can use to get back to the safety of the shores that, not too long ago, were alive with celebrations when a little urn came back home after 16 years.

However, if you are an incurable romantic, you will probably look for those little things that made the Ashes 2005 series so dramatic. Who ever would have thought that England would use only 12 men for the five-test series, as compared to 17 in 2002-03 (with Gough and Flintoff ruled out of the whole series) and 19 in 2001? Who would have thought that the great metronome McGrath would step on a cricket ball and miss two matches - THE two matches that Australia would go on to lose? Or that an inconsequential fringe player like Gary Pratt would usher in the beginning of the end, as he ran out Ponting whose outburst signified that for the Aussies, this series was a lost cause?

These are reasons enough to hope (against hope) for something drastic to happen this series – something like a minor miracle that will hold England in good stead as it battles the world’s best team in its backyard. Perhaps the urn that they have carried with them into their enemy camp has a little Trojan strategy that will change the fate of this war.

(Appeared in the New Indian Express Sunday Supplement on 26 November, 2006)