High Drama at Trent Bridge

Wow! I've been a cricket fan for less than four years, but I'm pretty confident that this year's Ashes series is the greatest contest in the history of cricket. I was not alive for the bodyline tour, and I did not follow the '81 Ashes, or the various tied test matches, and my mind was far from India when Laxman's double-century allowed a following-on India to topple Steve Waugh's magnificent Australian squad, but this series is the real deal.

This series has all the hallmarks of a great sporting contest. There's an intense rivalry, which goes back farther than any other sports rivalry I can think of. Not only is it David vs. Goliath, with Australia in the role of Goliath, but there are decades of one-sided humiliation, since England hasn't won the ashes since 1987 - and there were many individual monkeys-on-backs for various England players. There's also youth vs. experience, as the Australians brought a few players whose individual experience outstrips that of the entire England team. There was renewal of hope, as everyone agreed England's squad was on the rise, but only a few dared to predict that they might beat the mighty Australians. And I haven't even begun to talk about the actual matches yet, where an irresistible force seems to be meeting an immovable object.

After some preliminary one-day matches which themselves were entertaining and foreshadowed an excellent contest, the real deal began at Lords, the gently-sloped spiritual home of cricket, with England first showing that their young bowling attack could compete and even intimidate, but then falling to pieces against the experience and brilliance of Australia's Glenn McGrath, who looked to be a thorn in England's side.

Then there was Edgbaston, where the man of the match could have been a cricket ball which Glenn McGrath tripped over before the start. Part of a great sports story is "what if", and we'll never know whether McGrath's presence would have swung things Australia's way, but the all-round brilliance of the then sore-shouldered Flintoff was just enough to overcome the all-round brilliance of Shane Warne and the heroic defiance of Brett Lee. A two-run win to level the series showed that the immovable object could indeed be moved, though not without some damage to frayed nerves. This was a candidate for greatest cricket match ever. I didn't even mention yet that this match featured a near-exact replica of Warne's "ball of the century", this time taking Strauss's off stump after pitching far on the leg side.

Test #3 was at Old Trafford. There, we saw the return of McGrath, but the heroes were mainly people who had previously fallen short of their expectations in this series. There were centuries by Vaughan, Strauss, and Ponting, as well as a half-century by Bell. And then there were the final 3 hours of constant, prolonged tension as England's bowling attack struggled mightily to produce a result. When they fell short by the smallest possible margin, it seemed the immovable object had wobbled but stayed in place this time.

And that set the stage for this week's showdown at Trent Bridge, which promised to be climactic. A win would secure the Ashes for Australia, an England win would put England in control, and a draw would postpone the climax until the final test at the Oval. England got off to a slightly shakey start, but Flintoff came in and, with Geraint Jones, put England in control. Another hallmark of a great sports story is a "secret weapon". In this case, the weapon of choice was swing (especially the mysterious phonomenon of reverse-swing), and England's bowlers used it with great effect in the first Australian innings at Trent Bridge. They made Australia follow on, which is something Australia had not been made to do since the late 1980's. Then the story turned a bit. Australia crawled back into the match, and the tension level rose for England. There wasn't a dominant batting performance, but a strong partnership by Clarke and Katich, and defiance from Warne and the other tail-enders were enough to set England a target of 129, which would turn out to be more of a challenge than it sounded. Ponting pretty much put Australia's thin hopes in the hands of Warne and Lee, who almost delivered a miracle. In the end, it came down to England needing 13 runs with 3 wickets in hand and only specialist bowlers left to bat, including one who was seriously injured. Mercifully for England fans, it did not come down to the injured Simon Jones, as Ashley Giles and Matthew Hoggard earned glory as batsmen.

As with any great sports story, there are lots of interesting side stories. Warne and Simon Jones have had some personal-life issues in the news this summer, and there's the story of McGrath's string of injuries. There's Langer, Lee and Ponting suffering serious blows at the hands of bowlers (for Langer, even his teammate Shaun Tait roughed him up in practice). There's Ponting's fury at England's substitution policy. There's the story of the once-great Gillespie being dropped from his side (and the never-before-seen sight of Gillespie and McGrath bringing in drinks to the Aussie fielders). There's Australia's no-ball problem, England's wicket-keeping concerns, and Kevin Pieterson's run of 6 dropped catches. And there's a sense that Hayden and Gilchrist are not delivering as expected with the bat.

So now all of this story comes down to Seotember 8-12 at the Oval. Will England hang on to what they've fought so hard to win? Will they play for a draw and a historic 2-1 series win, or will they be forced to put everything on the line and go for a 3-1 win? How will Australia's players, who are accustomed to winning and who obviously hate to lose, respond to being behind for the first time in the series?
What dramatic twists and turns lie ahead? Only international cricket could create this sort of prolonged dramatic tension, and I don't think I'm the only one with a significant other who is waiting for all this to end so that her man can focus on other things once again. :-)

Shades of Headingley

I've tried my best from here near Paris to follow the Ashes - catching a session or two on tv in an English pub and listening to TMS on internet radio. This morning, day 4, I did not miss a delivery on TMS. It was mesmerizing. What a day for both England and Australia.

Here's the scorecard: http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/shared/fds/hi/statistics/cricket/scorecards/2005/8/11829/html/scorecard.stm

The whole Australian summer cricket tour has been full of dramatic twists and turns, and that goes double for the second test at Edgbaston. This was a case of a team that had to win facing a team that refused to lose. And it was a bruiser, too. Man of the Match Flintoff batted and bowled with an injured left shoulder, and Brett Lee's defiant 43 not out was made even more dramatic by the damage an adrenaline-pumped Flintoff inflicted on his left hand. Not sure if a bone actually broke, but Lee got a taste of the bruising he's accustomed to dishing out.

I can't envision a more dramatic test match, and I'm sure this one will be remembered for a long time. Besides this dramatic day 4 finale, there was the McGrath injury and boundaries galore on day 1, Langer's innings on day 2, and day 3 included another Shane Warne ball-of-the-century candidate (when he took Strauss's off stump with a ball that pitched far on the leg side at a good length) and heroics with ball and bat by the injured Flintoff. For two decades England's hero of the Ashes was Ian Botham, for his performance at Headingley in 1981, but now a new chapter has been written.

Sometimes one might get the impression that people go to cricket matches in England just to drink beer, dress up in costumes, get a tan, etc. But I think the main reason is that people hope they might witness something like what the lucky spectators at Edgbaston witnessed this week.