Cricket
The England men’s cricket team arrived with swagger and talent, further validating the author’s unbridled loathing. Their humiliation in the first Ashes Test was righteous. By Martin McKenzie-Murray.
The delicious first Test destruction of England
There’s an exemption I’ve made for myself regarding my treatment of real estate agents and the English cricket team. The exemption is this: I will be unflinchingly contemptuous of them and will never, ever doubt the righteousness of it.
Never.
I’ll never care if I’m graceless, vulgar or impatient. I’ll never wonder if I’m indulging schadenfreude a little too much. Never will my conscience be burdened by my treatment of either party.
My position regarding the first is entirely rational, and born of long and bitter experience with these congenitally unserious goons. About the English cricket team, I’ll confess that my exemption might be irrational – but no less enjoyable.
England’s self-immolation in Perth last week was almost obscenely pleasurable to watch. Never mind the history that this bizarre Test match so hectically made – I’m talking first of all about the deep, animal pleasure of watching the humiliation of England.
I understand the Australian team were once, and very recently, notorious for their ugliness. At some point, their swagger was replaced by petulance and a charmless kind of intimidation, and indeed an inquiry into this degradation launched when the sandpaper was exposed in Cape Town. You know, the moment our team was so beset by scandal that prime minister Malcolm Turnbull, a man serenely indifferent to sport, was publicly compelled to feign interest and wax moral about it.
Anyway. I get it. I make no claim for Australian exceptionalism in regard to our sportsmanship, but I think it’s fair to say that since that princely wanker Michael Clarke left the scene, things have remained damn competitive without the stench of obnoxiousness.
Fair as I think that is to say, I don’t care. Were we still a unit of insufferably shallow egomaniacs, I would nonetheless find pleasure in this humiliation of England.
Before we come to England’s misery in Perth, I’ll note that the word “Bazball” has become as welcome to my eyes or ears as a Jofra Archer delivery to my groin.
The compulsive and idiotic churn of media is such that buzzwords like “Bazball” work like salt in a kitchen. But under coach Brendon “Baz” McCullum, England itself has become almost cult-like in its insistence about its exceptional courage and dash – gifted pirates, remoulding the game.
It became tedious long ago, and not least because it wasn’t true or terribly successful. Their noise of self-appreciation has become, for me, irritating and increasingly dubious.
Yet, for all that, I’m grateful. Grateful because, in my lifetime, I’ve only ever known a visiting England side to arrive with the aura of sick, parentless children. Never mind what happens on the oval (typically, humiliation) – just watch footage of their transfer through our airports and there you’ll see their later humiliation manifest on their tight, unsmiling faces.
Pale, timorous. That’s how it’s been. So as someone who loved the competitiveness and swagger of the touring India side last summer, I welcomed the cockiness of this England side whose preparation on our soil extended only to a short match against their reserves on an oval where I once played.
Hey – whatever. Bless them. They knew things we didn’t, apparently, and it was nice to see an England side that believed they might not only win but also conquer, when so often in the past you could simply watch their sheepish collection of luggage at the airport’s carousel to witness their diseased confidence.
So, game on. We had here an aggressive and talented England side that seemed neither intimidated nor shy. Good. Great. Godspeed.
Nineteen wickets fell on the first day, which was extraordinary, and presumably the head groundsman thought this a form of slander – but there was nothing wrong with the pitch. Mitch Starc, now leading the bowling in the absence of captain Pat Cummins and Josh Hazlewood, was electric.
At his best, he’s the very best, but Starc can err. He didn’t here. He took 7-58, and England were bowled out for 172. Embarrassing for England – until Australia came to bat.
Australia’s batting has relied upon decreasingly dependable veterans for some years now, and if Steve Smith and Marnus Labuschagne have enjoyed late hiccups of their former brilliance, the creaks of the 38-year-old spine of Usman Khawaja might now suggest retirement.
Which is to say that the batting has some vulnerability, exposed on the first day by the thunder of Jofra Archer – a freak of pace and bounce who was now returning after a four-year absence due to injury. He took just two wickets in the first innings but was venomous, so much so that I assumed his rehabilitation to be triumphant and that England might now have their own Jasprit Bumrah.
Australia were all out for 132 and the first day wasn’t even over. England would bat again with a now considerable 40-run lead, and by lunch on day two they’d made that effectively 1-105.
The game was done. Surely. England would cruise to victory and justify their swagger at the baggage carousel. Then Scott Boland and Mitch Starc kept bowling a rarely deviating line and length on this sprightly pitch, and the English batters kept slashing for cover drives on wide balls well on their rise. These, predictably, were nicked behind – and goddamn if the same itchy and self-defeating aggression wasn’t repeated afterwards.
It looked pathological. Four consecutive English batters all flashed at similar balls and were dismissed in much the same way, and a dramatic, match-changing collapse followed. Scoring speedily has its advantages, to be sure, but they can be overstated in a game that might last five days. England’s aggression now seemed untethered to anything that had happened, say, just six balls ago.
We’re still only in day two of a five-day Test when England are bowled out for 164 – a lead of 204. This still seems competitive, though a modest target from what seemed possible only a few hours before successive English batters had impulsively martyred themselves before the same god of idiocy.
Even Joe Root, typically a brilliant but modest technician, went thrashing like a man clubbing seals, and England’s advantage was quickly shortened. Barely halfway through the second day, Australia came out to bat chasing 205 for victory.
England, it seemed, had shit the bed, but it was still too soon to say. Australia would have to again improvise one of its opening batters – dear Khawaja’s back was still no good, and so Travis Head volunteered and joined debutant Jake Weatherald.
Head’s opening was an accident. But licensed to thrash, he did so. Head wields the bat like it’s made for baseball, and it matters little if you’re a part-time off spinner or a talismanic paceman. The man bludgeons.
The inelegance is inspiring. Head’s batting is intuitive, unfussy and very often game-changing. As the opener, he single-handedly embarrassed the English pace attack that had looked so scary in the first innings.
I’m not sure what came first – Jofra Archer’s fatigue or his demoralisation. But the sharp whip that he flashed in the first innings was gone – he was now bowling much slower and without much wit.
When Head smashed a straight pull shot over Archer’s head for six – a shot that resembled a baseball home run – the result was locked. It is hard to describe how difficult and impudent that shot was. To swat an allegedly fearsome fast bowler back over his head for six is absurd.
Travis Head, as the substitute opener, scored the second fastest century in Ashes history – 100 runs off 69 balls, and he twirled his bat deliciously when he achieved it.
The game was now effectively over. Only five or six hours before, England were dominant and likely victors; now, despite Head’s dismissal for 123, Australia cruised to victory – by eight wickets – before stumps on the second day.
It’s not so much that England are down 0-1 in the series, but rather how strange and emphatic their loss was. They should have won, but comprehensively didn’t, and I can only hopefully assume they’ll be haunted by this.
Which returns me to my personal exemption. Elsewhere in life I might strive, however clumsily, for grace and prudence – never for real estate agents, or these touring clowns.
So it pleases me to read the words of English great Geoffrey Boycott after this Test, whose disappointment is far more interesting than his batting ever was: “From this has-been the message is simple: when you keep throwing away Test matches by doing the same stupid things it is impossible to take you seriously,” he wrote. “They never learn, because they never listen to anyone outside their own bubble, because they truly believe their own publicity.”
Brave, or stupid? There are four more Tests left here for England to figure it out.
This article was first published in the print edition of The Saturday Paper on November 29, 2025 as "Brand of dopes’ vainglory".
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