You’d think I’d learn. That I would learn that England’s test team would always have done this. It’s not unprecedented. Put themselves in a decent spot, and then go down in flames. I kept harking back to Brisbane 1990 – where we got skittled, we skittled them for an unexpected lead, but instead of consolidating, we flumped again, and Aussie won by 10 wickets.
Truth is, it feels as the quality of the oppo goes up, the more we need the experienced pros to step up with the bat. Stokes and Root mainly, but the rest have been in the side for a while now. We had the best all round opener in the world in the summer (Ben Duckett, and he never was that), we have the prodigal plonker in next captain Harry Brook (I mean, seriously, how could you follow a bloke that bats the way he does) and by far the best player in county cricket in Ollie Pope, except he isn’t even that any more. And seriously, if Jacob Bethell is the answer, it’s a pretty daft question. I am just going to ignore Zak Crawley at this point, because the Aussie scoreboard did.
Not watched a ball today, and as soon as we didn’t get Travis Head early, England were done for. We all, in our heart of hearts, knew this was going to happen. Hope is not a strategy. Getting lucky twice is not a game plan. It might come off once on this tour, this might even have been it “coming off” for at least one madcap day, and lord did it get the Aussies worried (they are all being ever so cocksure today, but they were worried) but in the end, cricketing gravity worked itself out. This does feel like two bald fellas arguing over a comb, except they are high on meth, roided up and drinking Red Bull by the gallon.
I think there is some sort of madness at play here. All last night there was the sort of fevered excitement that recalled my time as a child on Christmas Eve, except I was the grumpy parent who had to pay for all the effing presents this time. Outside looking in. People who had their TNT contracts in place, not really caring that the company has just lost its crown jewel and will probably go the way of test match batting, but moaning at the commentators, when Sky hasn’t shown an Ashes tour since KP was in the England team. Or if you hate him, Graham Swann. There’s a choice of two shrinking violets for you. I think cricket lends itself to professional broadcasters, not cricketers who can talk. There’s a huge difference. I have no idea how good the comms were, so I’ll leave it to anyone who cares.
So I first woke up at around 4am. I am a dodgy sleeper, as my wristband tells me most nights, but I had gone a full 4 hours asleep so that is quite rare. I flick on the phone and I see England are 74 for 3. No idea if we won the toss – I don’t miss the stream of Tweets to tell me that from everyone and their mutt – but my first reaction was “not awful”. A quick bleary eyed look to see Crawley was out in the first over. Hey, the last time we won the Ashes overseas we lost a wicket in the first over, (let’s not mention the last time it happened though, Rory). Also noted that Pope had 36 not out and had held the top order together. Hmmm. And Hmmmmmmmmmmm. Joe Root got a duck. Even more hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.
So I tried to go back to sleep and then started wondering if I’d imagined anything, and the sleep was restless, but I had to get into a rhythm of not staying awake all night. My job is so much harder than the earlier days of the blogging (one of the deals I am working on at the moment made BBC News World page lead – a bit tense – this week) so I need the rest and had another call this morning. But in between dreams of buying bags of crisps at a mythical supermarket at the end of Grove Street, Deptford (analyse that!) where they were giving away free Honey Nut Cornflakes (who is the nut here) I give in and at 7 I pick up the phone.
England (32.5) 172
Australia (4.1) 0/1
WHAT!
172 in 32 overs. Is Smith batting three, Labuschagne opening, where’s Khawaja (answer appeared to be “on the toilet”) and why haven’t they got any runs? Who is Weatherald? How many did Pope get?
I have a call at 9 am, at home, the only thing vital today until my client loses his shit, so stay in bed as it is too cold to get up, and go back into another doze, where I find out that my desire for crisps and honey nut cornflakes meant I forgot the beer, and then wake up to see it is Aussie at 61/4. Hmmm. IS SMITH OUT?????
The live comms says the batsmen are Head and Green. Good. No Smith. Try to doze a bit more. Not getting anywhere, and they are in the 70s now. Doze again, alarm is at 8:30 – the joy of home working – but sleep is difficult. Wake up, and it is 100/6. Er. Game on. Then each time I look another wicket. “ALEXA, what’s the England cricket score. 117/7. It’s 8 by the time the coffee is made. 9 by the time I have finished the call, I switch on BBC Sounds for the last over at 10 to 10.
This made Day 1 at Lord’s 2005 look like the Vicarage Fete. But not by much. That day it was 282 for 17 wickets in 77.2 overs – today it is 295 runs for 19 wickets in 71.5 overs. “C’est l’Ashes, c’est la folie” as might have been said.
I am not going to analyse something I haven’t watched, but will try to catch BBC IPlayer later. From the outside the twitterverse went loony at half-time, and punch drunk and staggering around at close. Probably like my mate who got this as his first day’s test cricket overseas. (Mine? 364 for 2, Nasser’s toss, the Aussie screaming “Wanker” at Matthew Hoggard all day, Simon Jones). If he’s not off his head by the end of the day, he’s not doing it properly.
The tale of the tape is that Mitchell Starc took 7 for 58. Always thought he was a really decent strike bowler, and that others got the plaudits, and he’s been around a while. This is his 101st test? 400+ wickets. Fair player in this era. England contributions was from “Daft As A Brush” Harry Brook with 52, Ollie “Bad Body Language” Pope with 46 and a bang crash 33 from Jamie Smith.
England got a wicket with the second ball of the innings, to dismiss debutant Weatherald, and Ben Stokes came on later on to brush up the middle and lower order, no doubt to be ribbed by Josh Tongue at the end of the day. Our FIVE seamers, almost heresy to the Twitterati, seemed to be the plan here. In the limited comms I heard, Tuffers was going on about how this was perfect for Stokes, a true piece of “after the fact” punditry that I had to admire the brazen cheek of. Next, I am going to tell you that it was a brilliant idea that with four rocket paced seamers, and Greenidge, Richards and Haynes in my line-up, I wouldn’t be preparing dust bowls in the Caribbean.
So basically, glass half empty, rather than my usual “what glass” attitude, the game is still very finely balanced. It is giving me flashbacks of another Ashes opener – Brisbane 1990. Not in pace. England were bowled out for 194 in a snail-paced 78 overs (imagine that!!!!) and England fought back to bowl the hosts out for 152 in a barely quicker – actually less RPO – 63 overs. Let’s not talk about the rest of it, or how Australia ended up winning by 10 wickets now.
So the day is over, and all that remains is to see how the Doorman is taking it. He’s had a pop at Stuart Broad for being his favourite word “sanctimonious”. I don’t think he knows what the word means, but he does love using it. He thinks Mitchell Starc will be filthy for having to bat 2 hours after he’d bowled England out, but I am sure he must have had a shower, or does Doorman know too much about their ablution habits (the Aussies think Poms avoid the soap dish, just ask them). He was a little cocky at the start of the subsidence
Nicely tagging in the ECB, who probably wonder who this frightful fellow is.
He retweeted this bloody con… you get lunch, see one ball, listen to a one eyed commentator who seems one of the few jobless at this point, and then you are turfed out.
UPDATE…. WE HAVE A DOORMAN SIGHTING! It is as insightful as it is churlish. Did England bowl well, Malcolm. Come on now, you can say it, it won’t hurt. I promise…
Just as well Cummins and Hazlewood were missing or the Test may have been over today… #Ashes#Ashes2025
I mentioned in my last post that I don’t have the TV subscription for TNT Sports to watch the Ashes. I don’t want to look for dodgy streams or such like, and given my sleep patterns are all over the shop, more disruption to them is the last thing I need. But I will still want to know what is going on and how, so the aim, and that’s ambitious in itself when my long-term planning is about a week in advance, is to jot down some thoughts as this series rattles by in the 45 days or so they plan to play it in. Not so much match reports, because of course I won’t be watching, but thoughts. Hopefully short. But I doubt it….
My first one, and this comes as little to no surprise is why is Malcolm Conn still gainfully employed. I see he has an article in The Cricketer this month where he has a go, hold on to your hats here, at England. Pick yourself up off the floor. Right now, well actually he’s been for a while, the equivalent of the Arthur Bostrom character in Allo Allo as the gendarmerie that went “Good Moaning”. Marginally funny the first time, but ten series later, absolutely ball achingly tedious. Today he has risen to the challenge of Steve Smith’s honour as Monty Panesar takes the role of “sanctimonious” Pom for daring to mention that Smith’s team got caught banged to rights with cheating and squealed about it.
The press conference bouncer for those lachrymose mea culpae was Conn. He thought us laughing at them tearing apart was us being sanctimonious, whereas we were just wetting ourselves. Our Conn has a bit of a thing about urination – his jibe back was Monty’s “let it rain” moment on a night club attendant, which of course was preceded by Conn losing his bladder control over England celebrating the Ashes at OUR Oval. He’s a strange one. He genuinely thinks he winds us up. There’s a difference, doorman, between winding us up and pitying you.
I remember my first Ashes tour of 2002, when Vaughan got a century pre-Brisbane, and the doorman called it the luckiest century he’d ever seen. He berated Caddick for taking a wicket at The Gabba on England’s comeback (temporary) 2nd day in whatever pamphlet paid his wages, to which in a holiday tour video my quote was “If Conn says one positive thing about England while I am out here, I’ll eat this hat I’m wearing.” If you want a laugh about this guy’s cricket knowledge, catch him on the Cricket Writers On TV he appeared on – I could not stop laughing! Out of his depth.
When we got hammered in Brisbane in 2006, and started at Adelaide with a promising Day 1 score of around 275 for 3, the whingeing conn accused England of killing cricket. A clown. Why did The Cricketer think giving him a space when more talented writers like Derek Pringle or Paul Newman are about. By the way, on my hiatus from blogging, and at the suggestion a number of years ago from Nick Hoult, I read Pringle’s book. It’s good. Yes, you read that, it’s good. Not great. Good.
The sandpaper thingamy is hilarious. We don’t necessarily think that we are angels, but when the Aussies sanctified their own conduct about the line while talking about breaking fucking arms, to be so gloriously hoisted on their own petard was quite enthralling. Keep it going. They clearly don’t like that up ’em.
As for the first test, a great friend is out there, flaunting Little Creatures, stadium tour of the WACA and lovely weather while I freeze in my Hampshire bolt-hole. Jealous, but not. My days of this have passed due to the anxiety and mental health stuff. But there have been frequent pauses to think of those tours, especially the first one. There is nothing like an Ashes overseas. Although Adelaide in 2006 was traumatic for many reasons, including having my wallet stolen in Glenelg, it is still a memorable match. I was there. Oh God, I was there.
England might name a spinner, but probably won’t. Ollie Pope is in the hot seat for his batting place, and while I can see why, I think Crawley should be too. I was tickled by the reaction to Harry Brook’s madcap dismissal in the knockabout game as being “daft as a brush” “not enough brains” etc., but if a certain batsman from over a decade ago did that his loyalty to the team was questioned. Still the stinking hypocrisy grates.
As for Australia, the bowling looks a bit thin on paper, but it won’t be. Unless Dougie Bollinger has been revived, or Michael Beer/Ashton Agar/Xavier Doherty is in the wings. As for the batting, they will score runs, enough runs, to beat us. Smith will be Smith, Head will make two tons, Khawaja will have the test where you never look like getting him out, Labuschagne will come to some sort of form, Cam Green will become Mitchell Marsh, and Alex Carey will get one ton. England have had two, I think, century makers in the last two tours and neither are playing – Jonny Bairstow and Dawid Malan. Don’t think there is anyone else. I’m trusting my failing memory now.
Look, as the Aussies might say, I don’t expect a welter of hits. Not going to happen. But I do still love the writing of stuff, and this is me trying to work back some enthusiasm for a sport that has treated me, and many others, like total shit. The sport does not deserve us, but we are where we are because cricket is great, especially the longer forms. The Ashes is overhyped, but over there this time. The journos out there, all nicely expensed up, are showing us just how nice it is, and us poor hardworking souls are left in the bitter cold to wonder just what is happening and how the hell does BBC Sounds work? I feel so old. I got my hopes up when it said it was on Discovery + but then discovered (geddit) that my subscription for that channel, that I’ve never watched, doesn’t extend to this. So are there highlights somewhere? Or am I relying on Twitter Clips?
Whatever. Let’s see how this goes. If you have read this, thanks. Judging by the hits, you won’t. C’est La Vie. Got to take the rough side with the smooth. I’m not here to con you.
Not really an Ashes preview, but I thought it was as good a time as any to pick up the keyboard.
It’s the Ashes Down Under. The pinnacle of the game in my eyes. The ultimate location for the oldest test contest. The one that brought the mysticism of Radio 3 coverage, the “how did they get the highlights from Australia to England in that short a time” wonderment (I was a kid, I didn’t know about satellites) and being concerned that neither Hobart or Darwin got a test match when all the other state capitals did, and Melbourne twice in 1978/9. The memories of watching the first live coverage – no, not Sky in 1990, but BBC in 1983 – from the warmth of home and that decision against England when Mel Johnson blatantly cheated in not giving John Dyson out.
Sadly not where it will start – I was there in 2006
These memories are lost in time, like tears in rain. To quote Rutger Hauer. What do we have now? A farce within a charade within a comedy. An England team turning up, playing one practice match against themselves, and then straight into the first test. I seriously do not care if they somehow get it right on the night. This is bizarre stuff. You can give me all the assurances under the sun that you are taking this seriously, but that doesn’t exactly ring true. Hope is not a strategy.
For the first time since the Ashes were fully televised live I will not be able to watch. I don’t have TNT or Discovery + or whatever, and have no intention of getting it. Sky Sports is so infrequently switched on in my house it actually makes no sense keeping that. It’s not that I’m not interested in cricket, far from it, it is just that I am not THAT interested. I have had practice of following other series on text or maybe the radio, so not that arsed to see it. This isn’t just for cricket, but pretty much all sport these days. I was a total sports nut, now, although still of interest, I just can’t raise the enthusiasm any more.
A dozen years ago we were setting out on the test series that changed my life, and I never left my home to watch it. In fact, I really couldn’t watch us get annihilated. I think the most I got out of that actual series was liking one of the songs used in a montage. What happened after, well, the impacts are still being felt by me on a personal level even now. Even after a long time out of the cricket blogging game.
There is a lot about How Did We Lose In Adelaide and Being Outside Cricket of which I am immensely proud. I stood up for a lot of people, and realised I wasn’t alone in the way I felt about how cricket was run and the scapegoating of Pietersen after a diabolical tour. I don’t regret feeling the way I did, even though KP has been a less than sympathetic “hero” since that day. Indeed, another crass tweet which had the unfortunate problem of being true confirmed this. The establishment pulled in favour of the nice boy, and not the temperamental one. It promoted the posh figure and demonised the ostracised. It turned cricket supporters against each other. It put me on the path to mental gymnastics that I could not fathom. I’m paying for it now. One of the contributors if not the cause.
When I think of what went on, it seems mad. Like being woken up at 8am on a Sunday morning by a DM from Jonathan Agnew saying “Ha! You missed that didn’t you…”. Like one prominent journalist asking for a meet up, and for me to name the location, and I couldn’t be 100% sure if it wouldn’t involve violence. Like another meeting me for a drink and saying “I don’t know why you let Pam Nash bother you. No-one who matters reads her. They read you.” The interactions with clowns like Andy Bull, Russell Jackson, the chap from Liverpool Echo, Harry Gurney (now that was a man with an outsized opinion of his own genius), Derek Pringle and more besides. The mystery blocking by Simon Wilde. The friends on the up and then turned on you when you weren’t looking which included a lot of those who took the instruction to “move on” when told, lest it disrupt their ability to make money out of the game. Revolutions that lasted as long as their attention spans, and who were about a quarter as funny or perceptive as they thought they were. Their little clique, where we weren’t so much a noisy neighbour, as the nuisances to tell them they were who we knew they were.
I am ashamed of a lot I did. People who know me will tell you I am an introvert, someone who doesn’t like people feeling bad vibes towards me. For me to invite the attacks was massively out of character and the attention I got was as powerful a narcotic as any cigarette or alcohol. I wanted the anger to fire my anger, because my writing was better as a result. But did I need to be so bloody arrogant? So off with people? So trenchant. Nice pieces, things I genuinely loved about the game, never resonated. My rage machine did. I was, even I confess, a really good angry writer. I am a pretty decent emotional writer. When neither matter, I am ordinary. The fact is, I’m bluffing now. Although I love to write, I don’t and never have, thought I am any good. Other people tell me I am.
What I suspected at the time, and which has been confirmed, certainly post-pandemic, is I have mental health issues. I suffered a breakdown during covid, and since then I have had bouts of chronic and serious anxiety. It is a terrible feeling knowing that unless a miracle occurs I will never be able to go to a test match in England again – it was hard enough going to a county game last summer. I am terrified of crowds. Of Waterloo Station. Of people bumping in to me. Of queues. Of people. That means I just can’t face a test match, nor the airport for a tour if I could afford it. It’s absolutely crippling, and I hope solvable, but the issues have been with me for a long time now.
What I recognise now from the post Ashes in 2014 was a mania borne out of anger, and I was out of control. I knew that this wasn’t me, but the focus I put on it turned me into a character that I wasn’t. The amount of people who looked at the actions through their prism telling me I wanted attention, I wanted to be a journalist, I wanted fame, were so wrong. I wanted attention from my crowd, no-one else. I never wanted a job in cricket, and as most of the snipers appeared to want to be in the game they couldn’t understand why I was doing what I was doing. As for fame, Lawrence Booth will tell you how I had to be convinced to meet him, and he wasn’t what he expected. That first meeting with him terrified me. I’d been horrible to him, and he was kind to me. I felt worse than I expected. The same with Nick Hoult and Chris Stocks. Both really good company, both I had been rude to as a keyboard warrior.
I changed my writing as my interest in test cricket waned, and the Tom Harrison, Andrew Strauss and all the others revolution has put in place the utter fustercluck we have now. Test cricket is still the best form of the game, and it’s not even close, but T20 and its bastard offspring the Hundred have led pretty much where we thought they would. 50 over cricket is arguably in worse shape than tests. In ten years, tops, we’ll probably see next to no test cricket, and we’ve been so conditioned to the arguments that we probably won’t be bothered when it happens.
I went to non-league football. I persuaded myself I really cared about it, but then the club that I fell for stabbed me in the back. I deserved it, for being a sucker enough to believe them. With it friendships were shattered, the seven or eight of us who went with the club through a couple of turbulent seasons were cast aside. The board has since been replaced with a soulless entity that has no clue what that club meant. While I had moved away, I still went up to see them, but when I was told to leave in October 2024 (or get a thump, if I didn’t), I saw two things. My angry writing (and believe me, it was toned down compared to before) still strikes nerves in a way I never understood, and that I can’t do that any more. I like my team down my way, but in the words of a song “I’ll never fall in love again” with something that can stab you in the back and the heart.
Which brings me back to the Ashes. A friend of mine is on the aeroplane out as I write to get his first taste of the Ashes in Australia. There are pangs of jealousy. I did that 20 years ago, and while the first trip was great, the second one was after both my parents passed away and I was a human wreckage. Then there is huge huge embarrassment. Even if I wanted to, even if I had the money, I could not do it. I could not get on the aeroplane, not because I am scared of flying, I am scared of the crowds at the gate. I would breathe faster. I would shake. I would shiver. I would get emotional. I would feel pain in the chest, nausea, stomach pain, ankle pain. Pure panic. It hinders my work, it hinders my recreation. If I don’t know where to park for a football match, I don’t go. I have become someone who can’t take advantage of what life has to bring.
Do England have a chance? Probably not. There is a lot of hopium about, but I don’t see it. Maybe the first test is a good opportunity, but there will still be four more. The bowling looks weak. Both in terms of recent performance (Gus Atkinson has to revert to mean) and in durability. Sure, Australia are down Cummins and Hazlewood, but they still have home advantage. The batting will do well for Australia, but there are too many question marks on this England team. I think it is more likely to be 5-0 than it is a 3-2 win to England, for example. We don’t play for draws, the weather probably won’t save us anywhere, and when the wheels fall off this England team, away from home, it becomes a procession. Especially in Australia. I hope I’m wrong, but hope is not a strategy.
The other stuff that surrounds it is dull to me. Malcolm Conn is still an irredeemable arse, and how British journos don’t just ostracise him, I will never know. It’s not an act. It’s the show. TNT’s coverage will probably be as awful as everybody else’s. The tests will probably last 4 days apiece, unless we make Australia bat again. We’ll see, as always, that we might be the whingeing Poms, but christ, it takes one to know one. They are still moaning about murray mints and ball changes. No, we aren’t moaning about a run-out. Without fail, Aussies seem to mention it first. No Australia, facts are facts. We may have been humped on out last three visits, but we have won an Ashes series overseas more recently than you have, But yes, you are a better cricket nation than us, which will always make us underdogs.
A mixture of me and cricket. Always what blogging was about. Deeply personal, life impacts, the pleasure, and there was some, and the pain. The pleasures have been working with Sean, Danny and Chris to make BOC required reading for a while, knowing it had a limited shelf life. The pleasures were the commenters, who saw what we were doing, who were fiercely protective of the “brand” and would provided a ferocious response to anyone brave enough to challenge us. You had to have your A game. Of course, this became “why would I bother with those idiots” in some quarters. We know. We saw you. We got to know what type of people you were. The pleasures were the camaraderie with certain bloggers and social media types. The pleasures were in watching test matches and knowing that this blog brought daily reports to you of them. Of our attempts to cover the women’s game. Of live blogging opening days of series. Of being a source of our views, that we knew resonated.
I am ashamed and proud at the same time. I know I did things I should not have, I know I was playing a role. I was scared and excited. I feared reaction, and yet needed it. All contradictions. If you asked me now would I have done it if I’d known what would happen? I honestly can’t answer that, but probably yes. Knowing that what praise we got was through gritted teeth, like getting pages in the Almanac. That was decent. I remember I pulled HDWLIA and was on the bus home when Lawrence DM’s me to ask me what the hell I was doing, as he’d just sent the Almanac to print, and we had a large part of the blog report. No word of a lie, I told him to delete it. He ignored me, but he did edit it! Because it mentioned that HDWLIA had gone. Crazy times. The shy attention seeker.
So it is time to sit back and watch the cricinfo score updates and see stupid stuff on Twitter. That’s the Ashes now. For me a sideshow. An outlier. A game that matters to someone who doesn’t. As the title of the song from the lyrics of this article bame goes, I am just spinning around. My head is all over the shop. Life is really nice outside of London, but the hubbub is not when I am in it. That’s where we are right now. If you are still excited I am truly envious of you. I wish I could care as much as that again. Maybe I will if it is close. But life is so different now, sport is so commercial and so not for me any more, that it just doesn’t seem likely.
Thanks for reading my self-indulgent claptrap. Be well everyone. I can be found on my various non-league blogs, a load of nonsense called Stuff, and on Twitter. Thanks to all. Not goodbye, but maybe more of see you if it gets better. The prospect of that is slimmer than my chances of getting back down to under 92kg (which I did 18 months ago).
Being Outside Cricket 