The suspense is terrible, I hope it’ll last – Willy Wonka.
How will we actually cope when this series finally starts? Since July 2023, two sets of cricket fans have set themselves for this instalment of the Ashes. The ensuing 16 months have involved a seemingly endless well of content focused on the previous series.
Forensic breakdowns of the Carey-Bairstow incident at Lord’s, every angle analysed with the intensity of Zapruder film. The social media banterverse has been awash with derisive posts about English ‘moral victories’. Both sides played in enthralling series against India, which served as intoxicating aperitifs.
All of it has added up to a giant form of cricket edging as fans of both persuasions barely contain their mixture of fear and excitement at the prospect of settling scores from less than two years ago.
There is a feeling that this iteration of the Ashes is too big to fail. You know a series is big when Cricket Australia is taking the opportunity to shop its T20 competitions to private investment in during this window. That’s a high level of conviction that you’re going to be able to show the best possible side of Aussie cricket.
A generational series. No Ashes has ever been bigger than the one we’re about to witness. These five Tests will frame the legacy of the chief protagonists. Have you read a version of these statements in the last couple of months? I’ll go you one better, I’ve said them on the ABC Sport Daily podcast.
They are indeed accurate statements, until the next series at least, but with less than a week to go, there is a sense of cricket pundits and fans running out of things to say. Into that vacuum, hyperbole can often fill the space.
For the last month, cricket fans have subsisted on a concoction of purple prose and injury updates. The health status of players pinging around WhatsApp chains like a fabricated footy scandal in winter.
You see Pat Cummins bowled in the nets?
Apparently, they want to see Cam Green bowl in the Shield
Sean Abbott has done his hammy, feck
So has Hazelwood! Wait, no, he’s ok, phew.
Mark Wood has a tight hammy!
This rash of tight hamstrings is emblematic of how cricket fans are feeling. We’re tight. The tension is so fraught that it’s actually pleasurable.
When we finally get that first ball in Perth, there’ll be a sense of primal release incoming. The beauty of Test cricket is that the opening delivery will only be the start of a rolling festival of tension that weaves its way through the summer.
The suspense is terrible, I hope it will last.
We have supercharged the ABC Cricket Pod for the summer. Get across every angle with Corbin Middlemas and Ed Cowan, with eps dropping Monday, Friday and after every day of play all summer long.
