Enough with the pettiness, let’s move on from the dampness
“Aussie…Aussie…Aussie… Ben, you should have announced earlier…” The Australian fan in the Australian jersey had waited nearly 8 hours to chant for his team and poke fun at England’s captain. He’d endured the relentless Manchester rain and the brisk Manchester breeze during that period. He’d also undoubtedly fought the urge to abandon the sodden ambiance of a thoroughly soaked Old Trafford Cricket Ground. Not to mention he fought the logic quite a few times of sitting around aimlessly on one of the wettest days in Test cricket history.
He will, however, come around and declare it was all worth it. At around 5.24 p.m. local time, he stood screaming his lungs out as Pat Cummins and his side officially retained the Ashes. They did the same thing four years ago at Old Trafford, albeit under very different circumstances. The 2019 retention came on the heels of one of the best Test victories in Tim Paine’s tenure. It also came after the Headingley fiasco, in which Ben Stokes appeared to have crushed both Australia’s momentum and spirit. So it was understandable that the Australian squad was ecstatic to have grabbed an unassailable lead in the Ashes series. The last moment of that Test four years ago added to the drama, as skipper Paine ran towards the Spidercam to throw a fist in the air while his teammates jumped around wildly after the last wicket.
When the two umpires stepped up to the Australian dressing room and shook Cummins’ hand, notifying him that the fifth day’s play had been washed out, the urn was secured. The Australian captain responded with a polite smile and a nod of the head. He later described it as “not our best week as a team.” And it’s understandable. Rarely has a team with a 2-1 series lead been outplayed by such a large margin in a Test and not lost. Whatever way you look at it, the rain played a significant part. After all, Australia trailed by 162 runs at the end of Day 3 with only six wickets remaining.
The fact that they only had to face 30 overs over the next two days was undoubtedly the main reason they were able to maintain their series lead. On the fourth evening, though, they had to battle with those challenging 30 overs in highly swing-and-seam-friendly conditions against the likes of James Anderson, Chris Woakes, Stuart Broad, and Mark Wood. In the grand scheme of things, the 103-run partnership between century-maker Marnus Labuschagne and Mitchell Marsh will be remembered as a match-saving stand.
The weekend prediction was always bleak. While Sunday (Day 5) was meant to be the less disastrous of the two days, it struck the death knell for what had been promising to be an entertaining conclusion. Aside from the chance of this becoming the greatest Ashes series of the modern era, For a brief moment, as the umpires surveyed the pitch and outfield and determined that it was fit to be ready in 45 minutes for a 1 p.m. start, there was hope that the Test would end more naturally. The rain started around 12.40 p.m. and didn’t stop for at least another 10 hours. Around 3 p.m., large puddles began to form around the pitch, with the extra water oozing off the covers on the square, indicating that any play on the fifth day was doomed.
However, the vociferous Australian fan and his group of friends were not the only ones who stayed till the very end. There were at least a thousand more, largely English fans, who clung to what had to be a virtue greater than hope. It was as if they expected the rain to stop and the ground to miraculously clear up in time for England to not only get the remaining Australian wickets but also go and chase down a modest score in Bazball mode.
To their credit, the English players made sure that their adoring fans had something to look forward to in exchange for their efforts. They played a regular game of keepy-uppy with a football in the pouring rain, undaunted by the fact that they were completely saturated, with water dripping from their training gear and hair.
It was a bittersweet moment, however, because of the power of Bazball and what Stokes and his crew have done for England cricket fans around the country. That fans were willing to stay in a scenario as bleak as what we saw in Manchester yesterday for the tiny opportunity of seeing something extraordinary from their team was proof of that.
Around the same moment that the Aussie fan was expressing his love for his side, hundreds of voices in English cricket were expressing their disappointment with the outcome.
While it was natural that they felt betrayed by being denied the opportunity to level the series from their commanding position in the Test, the emotions in the aftermath rapidly became petty and, in some cases, personal. Not only are people from England arriving, but so are people from Australia. If some English analysts stood firm and claimed that the series’ best team had not retained the Ashes, Australia’s retorts were similarly trivial. To accuse the English of being whiners for being disgruntled about not getting a fair chance to seal a Test win that they earned was as ridiculous as accusing the Australians of not being entitled to be in a position of strength going into the final Test at The Oval.
The fact is that they did manage to win the first Test in Edgbaston despite never being permitted to lead until the very last session. They did control the Lord’s Test for long stretches before overcoming the possibility of a raging Ben Stokes replicating his Leeds 2019 heroics. As a result, they took a 2-0 lead in the series. The fact is that England has fought back brilliantly since those defeats. Despite the match getting closer than expected near the finish, they always appeared to be on pace to win in Headingley after recovering in the first inning thanks to Stokes and Mark Wood. They have, if anything, turned the momentum in their favor since Wood arrived for his first spell of the series.
And they did rattle the Aussies in Manchester with the best display of Bazball this summer. However, this was not the first Test in history to be severely disrupted by rain, and it will not be the last, particularly in England and especially at Old Trafford. And, once the initial disappointment wears off, Stokes and his squad will realize that their greatest chance of winning here is to finish the game in three days, since it became evident that the prediction for the next two days would be disastrous.
The fact is that this series is far from over. England may have lost the Ashes, as the popular narrative suggests, but there is still a proud home record versus Australia to be saved, even if the present captain may not believe in leveling the odds. And the media frenzy in Australia about them already packing up the urn is a touch out of hand.
Cummins has frequently stated that he doesn’t see much sense in urn retention if his team is unable to achieve their ultimate goal on this trip, which is to become the first Australian team to win a series in England since 2001. They will head to London today, determined to set the record straight and triumph outright. It’s safe to conclude that England will bring the same level of passion to the game in order to extend their practically unbeatable record against their arch-rivals in the twenty-first century.
All of the animosity generated by pointless finger-pointing and tit-for-tatting detracts from what has already been a fantastic Test series. Nobody benefits from the forced cultural conflict. And perhaps the key is to learn from the Australian and English fans who braved the elements to stay in their seats at Old Trafford for the sole purpose of seeing Australia’s world champions take on England’s Bazballing daredevils rather than worrying about the fairness and justice that appear to be involved with how the results have turned out.
Read updated cricket news here at 22bet VIP.
