Talkin’ Jetlagged Ashes Blues

When I returned from holiday a few weeks ago, we got off the plane at Bournemouth International Airport (“International”?! – It’s just a series of Porter-cabins!), lost our way to customs from the runway, waited an age for our cases to come through, then had to wait for our taxi which was 1 hour late. Not ideal.

<<I just want to sleep>>

Andrew Strauss, fresh from a 23 hour flight back from Australia via Singpore, after a 3 month tour, might think that was easy pickings, for he had give a press conference when he arrived back in the UK on Monday morning. Just about the last thing in the world he would have wanted to do I’m guessing!

3 practice matches, 5 tests and 7 ODI’s for Strauss, the same plus two 20-20 matches for some of the others; it’s been a gruelling series for them. Add to that all the injuries England have picked up and I’d forgive them all for being absolutely pooped to be honest!

So aside from the fact we decimated Australia in the Ashes, then fell apart against them in the One Dayers, was the tour overall a success or not?

Well it's clear the balance of focus was proportionately spread across the tests and one dayers at a ratio of about 80% to 20%, but apart from that....

I would have liked to have seen the ODI’s taking place before the Ashes themselves, and I think 5 matches would have been sufficient, 7 was just too many. This would have required the series starting earlier in the year (October), but at least then the players would have been home mid-January for rest and recovery ahead of the World Cup.

No one in hindsight would agree with me more I suspect than Eoin Morgan, who now misses the World Cup with a broken finger. Devastating for Morgan himself; even more so for England’s chances of winning the tournament, as Eoin is one of our genuine match-winners. Lots of pressure now rest on KP’s shoulders, but he loves big pressure, doesn’t he?

Now, there’s no guarantee switching the schedule would have spared Morgan, but a longer recuperation time would have definitely helped.

In addition to the “recuperation time” argument; surely the ECB knows that most England cricket fans care more about the Ashes than the ODI’s for the purposes of this series (granted it's different for the impending World Cup), so at least by having the Ashes at the end of the tour, the climax of the series would have been the bit everyone (including the players, lest we forget) were looking forward to/watching/spending money on the most.

Remember this moment lads - when we get home in about 97 days

Ending with the Ashes would also have given the players the chance to travel back to the UK together, and begin preparations for the World Cup at the same time. Further, in the event the team did well (which it did - BLODDY WELL, if you can remember that far back), it would have opened up the opportunity of the players parading the little Urn through the streets of London, to the millions of fans who watched in their hordes over the course of the winter, on their return.


Beats a Stella any day

Instead the players landed back in Heathrow and quickly went their separate ways. Straussy met the press, as did Flower, Finny tweeted “No massive fan fair at Heathrow, just a taxi driver holding a sign for me with my name spelt wrong” and a roast dinner cooked by his mum waiting for him at home. What a  way to end a tour which few who watched it would deny was one of the most exciting and satisfying they'd ever seen!

All of that said, in securing a 3-1 series win in the Ashes that will live as long in the memory as it is sure to do in the record books, this England team can be rightly proud of themselves.

And so to the World Cup: England leave Saturday 19^th February, and hopefully Bresnan, Swann, Broad and Colly are all fit. Hopefully (well, I hope) Trott moves up to no.2 and Prior down to no.6 in the batting, and with the spin that’ll be on offer in India, I also hope Swanny’s fit, and I’d pair him with Yardy, with Brezza, Broad and Jimmy bowling quicks.

Selection: done.

Ok so maybe the preparation wasn’t so bad after all!