What's This?

Why, what is this? What could it be? What could it mean? All will be revealed... or will it?

(Yes. Yes it will. Pretty soon, hopefully). 

Number One

England won the Ashes in Australia on the 28th December 1986 in Melbourne. I was 1 year and five days old at the time. Naturally, this means that I don’t have particularly well-formed memories of this series, which in turn means that for the first two decades of my existence I didn’t really know what it was to see a great England cricket team. They were often good, but they’d quickly retreat back into the shadows of mediocrity. Within this context, it's been somewhat of a pleasant surprised to see England crowned this week as the best Test team in the world with their series-clinching 3rd Test victory against India. In the words of Tinchy and Dappy, they're Number One.

The late 90s were a not a fun time to follow English Test Cricket. My first memories of English cricket are of hearing about Brian Lara score 375 against England in a fairly poor test series for England, at what we can now see was the Windies’ last hurrah. The first test series I remember watching was the 1995 home series against the same opposition. England somehow managed to draw the series 2-2, but there was always the feeling that the West Indies were the superior team. They had Lara, and they had Courtney Walsh and Curtly Ambrose, perhaps the most feared opening bowling partnership of my time. England managed to scrape the odd result at home, but there was never any sustained success. The team seemed to have potential, but would always give it away and collapse. They’d beat India, but immediately lose to Pakistan. An English Cricket fan suffered from the disheartening combination that is most sports fandom of hopeful pessimism - hope that they could win, pessimism that it would all come tumbling down eventually.

Worst of all, however, were the Ashes, a biennial humiliation at the hands of our feistiest colonial offspring. I vaguely remember the trip to Australia in 1994-5, in which Shane Warne got a hat-trick. I vaguely remember Australia piling on the runs during the day of my Uncle’s wedding in the ‘97 series. I vaguely remember Australia running over England in 1998-9. If this all seems rather unspecific, it’s because it all merges into one prolonged ball of misery. England never had a chance against Australia, and what was worse it that they knew it. They were beaten before they even started the series. Between 1989 and 2003, Australia won eight Ashes series in a row, winning 28 Tests in the process. England won 7 tests, and only three of those were without the series already decided, and even for two of those the only other option was being able to draw the series. England lacked enough talented players, and they lacked the mental fortitude. Considering the luck of my birth, I only ever knew of Australia crushing England. Talk of glories past seemed like fanciful legend, names like Botham and Gower belonging to the myths of epochs past that parents past down to their children.

Things started changing with Nasser Hussain’s rise to captaincy. Clearly a stubborn, bloody minded type of fellow, he also refused to let England give in. Under his captaincy, England managed their first series win over the West Indies in . Even more impressive was the following winter, where England won not one but two series in the subcontinent, both in difficult circumstances. The Pakistan series is most remembered for England chasing down their total in the near dark, refusing to cede the draw. It was the best example of Hussain’s bloody mindedness working. The series against Sri Lanka was also impressive, where England came back from a shellacking in the 1st Test against a Murali in his prime to somehow win the next two tests and the series. Suddenly, it looked like England were on the verge of something. Then Australia turned up, destroyed England, and set everything back again. I remember being taken to the 2nd Test at Lords by my Dad. England were 163/4 in their second innings, still 51 runs behind Australia but poised to make a challenge. England collapsed in an epic manner, and we were home by lunch. What was most galling was how unsurprised we were.

If Hussain couldn’t continue the upwards trend, then the captaincy of Michael Vaughan that followed was probably the most enjoyable period of following English cricket up until this point. He took over during a rocky series against South Africa at home and managed to escape out of that with a draw. Then he won an extraordinary series in the Caribbean where England dominated in a manner hitherto not really seen from an England team. It proved to be just the start, as England managed to sweep all seven tests of the summer of 2004 against New Zealand and the West Indies, before somehow winning their winter series against South Africa. England were humming thanks to a newly found vigor in their pace attack, and with the arrival of a competent spinner in Ashley Giles. The batting, with Strauss and Trescothick at the top of the order with Vaughan and Thorpe to follow. The pieces were in place for a great team, and luckily all the players (and the fans) knew it. For perhaps the first time in my lifetime, English Cricket’s hope was turning into expectation.

2005 was the greatest summer English Cricket has ever had. England won perhaps the greatest Test series ever played, with at least four of the most stomach-churning games I’ve ever watched. It became obvious from the first over that this Ashes wasn’t going to be a rollover, when Steve Harmison hit Justin Langer on the elbow with the second ball of the series. A little while later, he hit Ricky Ponting on the helmet and drew blood. England managed to bowl Australia out for 190, and yet still lost heavily. Nonetheless, it felt different, like they weren’t going to capitulate. This proved useful during the next test, probably the most horrified I have ever been during a sporting event. I couldn’t even watch what turned out to be the final morning, where England came within two runs of letting Australia chase down what would’ve been the largest successful chase with two wickets remaining. Luckily, Michael Kasprowicz gloved Harmison’s bouncer (even if his hand wasn’t on the bat, technically meaning it wasn’t out), and a nation’s arseholes collectively unclenched. I was too scared of losing, which seemed more likely as that final morning spread out, because I could see that it would be too catastrophic a blow to come back from.

Instead, it turned out to be the catalyst for something great as it became obvious that this was no ordinary series. It somehow gripped the entire nation, something I had never seen cricket do, and something I had only really seen England’s abortive attempts in major football tournaments achieve. I specifically remember meeting up with a friend of mine who had just got back from his gap year in Central America and commenting how he had returned to a cricket-mad country. He couldn’t believe it either, and not being a big Cricket fan didn’t understand the appeal. The next time I saw him was after the Old Trafford test, which had apparently gripped his shit. I consider that Test the turning point of that series. Australia managed to escape with a draw but celebrated like they had won. It became clear that the tide had turned, and England took the decisive lead in the next test which featured two of the most remarkable bits of cricket I have ever seen: Andrew Stauss’s frankly insane catch of Adam Gilchrist, and Shane Warne’s dismissal of Strauss with perhaps the best delivery I have ever seen. 

  

When England survived the final test with a draw, we all thought it was the dawning of a new era of English cricket. We threw a celebration in Trafalgar Square, we considered this the best England side we had ever seen. We spoke too soon. Indeed, we had seen the peak of the Vaughan era. Injuries and motivation took their toll on England. They flirted with being great over this period, and proved more than able at home, but their away form was dubious. Losing away in the West Indies in 2009 was particularly poor, but the absolute nadir was the whitewashing in the 2006-7 Ashes, an ignominy even the mediocre sides of the 90s had avoided. Many of the players who had succeeded in 2005 had to leave, either due to mental issues (Trescothick), motivational issues (Harmison), injuries (Simon Jones) or loss of form (Geraint Jones). Of the side that won the Fourth Test in 2005, only three players remain: Strauss, Ian Bell and Kevin Pietersen. For someone used to the nineties, this just seemed like a previous boom-bust cycle played out over a more prolonged period.

It took another five years or so, but England have finally fulfilled the promise of 2005, even if so few of the players are the same. Since Andy Flower took over as coach, England have yet to lose a Test series. Indeed, they’ve only drawn one in South Africa, which was quite an achievement in itself. Instead of collapsing, England are dominating proceedings. Sure, there’s been the odd blip (I still don’t understand what happened in the Perth Test last winter) but instead of moping about it, England now rebound in spectacular fashion. They have swagger and they have steel. They have ability and they have expectation.

So why are England so good all of a sudden? Well, to be trite about it, they bat and bowl and field well. England now post big scores. They have batsmen able to adjust their game depending on the pitch and the opposition. They have batsmen capable of scoring not only centuries, but double centuries (and had Alistair Cook not had a brain fart last Friday, triple centuries). They have a top line-up that can pile the pressure on the opposition and keep their lower order safe. Jonathan Trott currently has the second highest average of all time, and yet even he's been overshadowed in the last year. Alistair Cook has been ridiculous over the last year. I remember Michael Vaughan's ridiculous 2002, but even that paled in comparison with the accumulation of runs that Cook has undertaken in the last 12 months.

Most interestingly though, and especially hard to grasp for someone brought up understanding that few things were as predictable as an English batting collapse, they’re often okay if the top order fails as they have perhaps the shortest tail in Test Cricket. They were able to field a side in the last Test against India where the no.10 batsmen had multiple test fifties. They no longer have a true all-rounder like Flintoff, but they have a lot of bowlers capable of doing passing impressions of batsmen, which is the next best thing. 

As good as the batting has become though, I feel the improvement in the bowling has been exceptional. All of the great sides of the past tended to be defined by their bowling line-up, and England might just currently have the best in the world. Jimmy Anderson has over the past few years become the player we all hope he would become when he burst onto the scene, having finally discovered the art of control and ways of taking wickets on non-swinging surfaces. Stuart Broad adds some height and bounce to proceedings, and has bounced back from suggestions before the India series that he should be dropped with renewed vigor. IN Graham Swann, they have a spinner who can go on the offensive. The fact that England lost Chris Tremlett and dropped in Tim Bresnan without skipping a beat is the most telling thing about this all - England now have strength in depth. There’s that very happy balance between team stability and competition for places, and so whilst players don’t need to fear being rashly dropped and recalled at the whims of the selectors, they can’t coast either.

This England side are now officially the best side in Test Cricket. They don’t really have many strong contenders. Indeed, they’re in the process of absolutely pasting of one of the few potential challengers - it’s actually disappointing how India appear to have completely given up. Sri Lanka were also dealt with fairly comfortably as well. Australia, long the invincible destroyer, are now staving off a drop towards being also-rans, as England completely destroyed them last winter. That’s the most interesting thing about this England side - they only really play at their best when presented with a worthy challenge. They beat Sri Lanka, but they’ve crushed a superior India side. The only real challengers left are South Africa, who come over for what I imagine will be another tilt between the no.1 and no.2 sides in the world for the second summer running. It should be awesome.

And yet, the scars remain… even though all objective evidence points to the greatness of this England side, I can’t escape the fear that it’ll come crumbling down at some point. It’s the constant fear that I’ve been brought up with, the climate of imminent catastrophe. England look like world beaters now, so the slide back into mediocrity would be from a far greater height than before (and losing to South Africa is a very real possibility). There’s also the matter of limited-overs Cricket, where despite improvements England are still in that second tier. Nonetheless, I’m starting to accept that things are different now. For much of my life, the England Cricket team were something of a joke, a frustrating entity capable of extreme mood swings and plummeting new depths. Today, they’re something to be proud of. I’m going to enjoy it while I can.