English cricket has always been about the Ashes. England against Australia. The two countries have been hard at it since 1877. Everything in the four-year cycle is geared to beating Australia. No other opponent comes close. Compared to the Ashes, the World Cup is a bauble and the World Test Championship an irrelevance. The Ashes is all.
Today that looks like a curiously old-fashioned view of the world. The series against India, which ended on Monday at two matches each, was as good a Test series as has ever been played. It was filled with partisanship and drama, along with the ineffable pursuit and regular capture of excellence.
England and Australia play for the Ashes, which are supposedly held in a tiny urn. Perhaps England and India should now play for something similar — but maybe a little more tasteful. They should play for the incense, held, of course in a classic agarbatti stand. Because this was a classic series, it deserves to be set into a wider context: one in which matches become not part of cricketing history but of cricketing legend. Because this is beginning to look like a rivalry for the ages.
The summer brought us five matches of advantage and counter-advantage, with two victories for India, the last in classic English conditions of murky light and swinging ball.
The series has been too cramped: five Tests in seven weeks have been murderous on bodies as well as on nerves and the casualty rate has been high. It was fitting that the last rites were played out with a man batting with his arm in a sling. The two teams fought each other more or less to a standstill.
The schedule meant that India had to play two matches without their best bowler, Jasprit Bumrah. And ridiculously — gloriously — these were the two matches India won.
The hero of the series would have been Joe Root if England had won: instead we must celebrate Mohammed Siraj who forced the draw. He has been the spirit of the Indian team: above all, revelling in the unaccustomed role of number one bowler. His ferocity set the series alight. His desire for victory was so intense, it was a wonder he didn’t suffer from rage-fatigue. But no, he was always up for one more blast — and it was his last blast that won the last match. For him it’s always personal. Every single spell was a contest not just of skill but of will.
Some fast bowlers are like surgeons: cool, calculating and deadly. Siraj goes for hot. He is always better if he picks a fight with someone. He’s of the same school as Australian Ashes heroes like Dennis Lillee and Merv Hughes. Siraj not only brought India their two wins, he also elevated the series from very good to utterly compelling.
There have been bursts of bad vibes as a result of all this competitiveness: but nothing to which the most fastidious could object; after all, no one was under the impression that this was a tea party. Siraj was the leading wicket-taker with 23, and he also set the tone. He made sure that England had nothing easy. The touch of a raging streetfighter within him was the difference between an England victory and the draw they actually got. We would have been praising England’s strategy had they scored another half-dozen runs: now, instead, we must talk about their shortage of bowling options and dropped catches; six went down in India’s second innings and that was in the end decisive.
Naturally, we praise Root’s batting: I don’t think I’ve seen anyone who makes batting look so easy so often. Since he has calmed down after the first excesses of Bazball — the hyper-attacking strategy introduced to England by the coach Brendon McCullum or Baz — he has shown the virtues of the classical style again and again, scoring 537 runs. But he was out-classicked by the Indian captain, Shubman Gill.
What a task: to follow Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma and captain a dressing room full of intimidating old stagers. You always worry that captaincy might affect a player’s batting. It certainly affected Gill: now he’s captain, he can’t stop scoring. He hit 754 runs in the series and, as a result, never for a second had to worry if he had the respect of his team. But both teams were damn good.
That’s why the series was great: Root versus Bumrah, Stokes versus Gill, England versus India, bat versus ball. This was classic Test match cricket: cricket as it was meant to be played. Never mind the Ashes this winter: let’s look forward to the next time these two teams get together to play a full series of five-day matches. After all, they’ll be playing for more than pride. They’ll be playing for the Agarbatti.