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As it often was on the pitch, so it is off it: if not Stuart Broad, then David Warner, and if not David Warner then Stuart Broad.
The Ashes phoney war feels more intense than ever, and Broad and Warner – retired now, but no less retiring – are at the heart of the battle.
We wouldn’t have it any other way, of course. That the Ashes can generate such heat (if not so much light) with more than a month to go before the first Test in Perth says everything about its capacity to get two nations’ blood pumping. Indifference – now that would be a problem.
Yet it is 143 years since Australia beat Monkey Hornby’s England by seven runs at the Oval, sparking the mock newspaper obituary for English cricket that itself spawned the Ashes. And the angst and the aggro show no sign of abating.
If anything, thanks to the amplifying effects of social media and the proliferation of podcasts, things are getting feistier.
Every time either country awakes, there are 12 hours of hot takes from the other side of the world to catch up on. And no one is going to attract more likes or followers by staying quiet.
Stuart Broad and David Warner have a long history of rivalry around the Ashes, with the England bowler dismissing the firebrand Aussie 17 times in Tests
Broad insists Australia's team is their weakest since 2010-11, when England won the urn Down Under by three Tests to one
This week, Warner said Australia would win 4–0, with rain in Sydney accounting for the only draw. He argued that while his former team-mates would be playing to win – the ‘Australian way’, apparently – England would be interested only in a ‘moral victory’. The tumbleweed that greeted this observation suggested that even the Aussie media are tiring of that one.
Broad, who has always got under Australia’s skin in the way Warner has burrowed under England’s, used his For the Love of Cricket podcast with Jos Buttler to argue that this winter will pit the worst Australian side since 2010 against the best English side since that Ashes series, when Andrew Strauss’s team won three Tests by an innings – a feat that has grown in stature with every failed trip Down Under.
Broad’s overall thesis was not, as he put it, outlandish, and certainly bears more scrutiny than Warner’s ‘moral victory’ dig. ‘The fact of the matter,’ said Broad, ‘is Australia generally have to be bad to lose in Australia, and England have to be very good. England have a great chance of being very good, and Australia have a decent chance of being bad.’
But is he right? In 2010 Australia, it’s true, were a shambles. Their spinners included Xavier Doherty and Michael Beer, while their seam attack leaned heavily on Peter Siddle and Ben Hilfenhaus.
Mitchell Johnson was still three years away from his reign of terror. Ricky Ponting was on his way out of the captaincy, and Michael Clarke – not always popular with team-mates – on his way in.
Australia’s current iteration have plumbed no such depths. Even if Pat Cummins misses a Test or two with a dodgy back, they can still whistle up Scott Boland, with his Test bowling average of 16; the captain’s armband, meanwhile, passes easily to Steve Smith, Cummins’s superior as strategist and tactician.
And they are surely a better side than the 2013 mob who lost 3-0 in England, the only time in the last five decades that the Australians have failed to win a Test in an Ashes series.
Where the current team have looked vulnerable is at the top of the order, with the 38-year-old Usman Khawaja’s reflexes threatening to fail, and feverish talk of a debut for Tasmania’s Jake Weatherald who will soon turn 31. Neither player will worry England.
Sam Konstas is drifting out of Ashes contention altogether after averaging just eight against the West Indies
Tasmania’s Jake Weatherald, who will soon turn 31, could be a late bolter to open the batting in the Ashes for Australia
Sam Konstas, meanwhile, is drifting out of contention altogether. Australians went mad for his reverse scoops off Jasprit Bumrah less than a year ago. Now, after he averaged eight against West Indies, they are washing their hands of him.
But, at No 3, the tide may be turning. Unwanted during the recent series in the Caribbean, Marnus Labuschagne has begun the new domestic season with four hundreds in five innings for Queensland, which seems to have taken care of one selectorial dilemma.
And if the choice between Cameron Green and Beau Webster at No 6 will hardly send shivers down English spines, their bowlers will first have to get through Smith and Travis Head.
Then comes the counter-attacking wicketkeeper Alex Carey. Australia are better placed than they were in 2010-11.
What of Broad’s claim about England? Fifteen years ago, they had a very good side: their entire top seven finished with a career average above 40, and in that series only Paul Collingwood of that group failed to score a hundred. The bowling, led by Jimmy Anderson, was relentless.
But whether England pick Ollie Pope or Jacob Bethell at No 3 in Perth, they will start this series with three of their top seven averaging below 40 (Zak Crawley and Ben Stokes are the two others).
Their bowling attack, meanwhile, may include a spinner, Shoaib Bashir, whose Test wickets cost 39. And for all their fast-bowling threat, we are yet to see how Jofra Archer, Mark Wood, Brydon Carse, Gus Atkinson and Josh Tongue make it through a five-match series. There is promise, certainly, but no guarantee.
No, for the best England side since 2010-11 – and always taking into account the conditions – it’s hard to look beyond the team that won in India in 2012-13. Alastair Cook matched his heroics in Australia two winters earlier, scoring three centuries, while Kevin Pietersen, rehabilitated after Textgate, made a memorable hundred in Mumbai.
Alastair Cook and Kevin Pietersen on tour in India back in 2012, when a superb England side won the Test series 2-1
Ben Stokes has the chance to lead England to a rare Ashes victory on Australian soil this winter
Then there was Graeme Swann and Monty Panesar, who outbowled India’s spinners to claim 37 wickets between them as England came from 1–0 down to win 2–1. India would not lose, let alone draw, another home series until New Zealand stunned them last year.
Perhaps the Ashes obsession makes a triumph like that easier to forget. But it trumped the win in 2010-11 because at the time India at home were stronger than Australia at home.
Broad, of course, may be making a subtly different point. The Bazballers are as committed to their approach as any England team before them, perhaps stretching as far back as Bodyline in 1932-33. In that respect, they are on a pedestal.
Whether that will translate into a rare win in Australia is another matter. But, between now and Perth, the speculation is going to provide plenty of fun.
