He began with a flat leg break into the rough outside off stump. Trescothick played forward, bat and pad together, and was caught by Ponting close on the off-side. Simple as that. His seventh ball was a higher leg-break that Vaughan edged to slip. Strauss fell to a leggie that ripped out of the rough and carried from the inside edge of his bat to leg slip. Then Bell flipped a Lee bouncer into the greedy hands of Kasprowicz at long leg: 32 for no wicket had become 57 for 4.
I have seen four bowlers who could manhandle the opposition in this way. It comes from the power of personality. Lillee, Procter and Botham are the others. Warne preys upon insecurity, or uncertainty, like no other. Then he strikes, with a poison for which there is no antidote.
However, even the King cannot bowl from both ends. Surprisingly, given there were so few runs with which to play, Ponting turned to Shaun Tait at the Radcliffe Road end of the ground. Pietersen and Flintoff saw the moment and licked their lips. Boundaries flowed. Sensing the shift, Ponting recalled Lee, who charged in to knock them both over. The fear set in again, like a Stephen King novel. Geraint Jones fell next, Warne’s venom working its way through the veins of the England dressing room. Lee besieged umpire Steve Bucknor to answer his call as another rocket ball pounded into Matthew Hoggard’s pads but the Yorkshireman survived the Jamaican and then calmly drove twice through extra cover, first for two and then for four. His wife said she had never seen him drive a ball for four. He had picked a good time to impress her. As Warne searched for flight and spin, Giles eased a half-volley for a couple. On the dressing-room balcony, the tension manifested itself in contorted faces and daft, desperate expressions.
Each negotiated delivery received roars of approval, each run scored brought a cacophony. With two needed, unsung Ashley reached out and worked two balls from Warne to leg: the first hit Katich at short leg, the second headed out to the mid-wicket boundary. At the sight of this, everybody English went mental. The winning runs had been made and the seemingly impossible—to at last beat an outstanding Australian team and reclaim the Ashes—was now very possible.
Above all things at the end of this marvellous match, I remember the way the players of both teams embraced one another. Hard-bitten rivalry became mutual respect at the instant of a push to mid wicket by a tall left-arm spinner. The sun shone upon many a smiling face, whether capped in blue or green. Vaughan led England’s players down the pavilion steps to greet the two unbeaten batsmen and eleven vanquished Australians. He and Ponting warmly shook hands and shared a joke. Nottingham’s outpouring of joy spread across the land: godspeed to London and the Oval.
After numerous interviews and a fascinating soliloquy from Boycott about how hard it is to get over the line against Australian cricketers, we came off air in state of euphoria. Even the crew had taken to pacing the corridors of the media facility with the rest of us when things got nervy, and throwing hats in the air at the moment England won.
Kirsten was with me for the match and we drove back to London after the C4 highlights show, which I voiced live over edited pictures. It was a hard enough gig after a dull day, but after a day such as this it became the most gruelling half-hour of interpretation and storytelling imaginable. She drove the twenty minutes to the motorway with me crashed out in the passenger seat before I woke abruptly and took over. I swung onto the M1 heading south, hit the accelerator pedal and was settling into The Rising by Bruce Springsteen when the phone rang. This is an almighty name drop, but I shall tell the tale anyway.
The caller was Mick Jagger, with Charlie Watts, in a hotel room somewhere in the US. They had watched most of the match on Jagger’s laptop, courtesy of a Slingbox and were beside themselves with excitement. Charlie wanted detail: how lucky was it Flintoff got Clarke on the stroke of lunch and wasn’t it luckier still that the umpire gave Katich out? Jagger wanted sensation: the Gary Pratt moment, for example, and what it must have felt like batting against Warne. He said that when Jones was caught having a mow at Warne, Charlie went and hid in the bathroom. Jagger has always liked cricket, and is rightly credited with bringing Sir Paul Getty to the game. He says that in the 1970s, Getty lived in Chelsea so he would go round to cheer him up. In the summer, they watched the cricket on the telly and the Rolling Stone began to teach the multimillionaire about the game with which he was to fall in love. I first met Jagger at Getty’s beautiful private ground in Oxfordshire, then stepped out for a while with his PA. We have remained friends since and he comes to the cricket occasionally, sometimes hanging out in the commentary box to the amusement of Boycott, who takes the mickey out of his clothes, shoes or long hair. The two Stones were on the phone for an hour, finally saying goodbye as we passed Luton Airport. The Ashes of 2005 had hooked everybody.
In the London Daily Telegraph, Michael Parkinson said, ‘Eight million tuned into the last knockings of the Trent Bridge Test. That’s as maybe. But how many were looking? This Test series has an epic grandeur capable of making all other big sporting events seem puny by comparison . . . This is now a formidable England team with a tough, intelligent captain and an appetite for a scrap. They are united with a team spirit and common purpose . . .’
Matthew Hayden wrote, ‘In years to come people will scroll through the history books to learn about the remarkable series that took place between England and Australia in 2005. Should we get up at the Oval, it’s something I’ll read about day in, day out. If not, I’m afraid the books will gather dust on the shelf.’
Michael Vaughan again: ‘To be honest, after Trent Bridge I was more nervous than I had been all summer. Finishing the job is hard, especially against that lot. I wasn’t sleeping much, and every possible angle and outcome went through my head. I kind of began to pray we would pull it off. We had come a long way; I couldn’t stand the thought of letting it go.’
FIFTH TEST, THE OVAL
Of all the Tests, this is the one I remember least well. A case, I suspect, of so much happening that it became a blur. Notwithstanding the interruptions for bad weather that gave the whole occasion another dimension, it was an immense game of cricket: a match with the power to define careers. Australia had to win to retain the Ashes, England to draw in order to claim them back. For all England’s dominance over the three middle tests, the score was 2–1 in the home team’s favour. That was all.
On the Test match merry-go-round, players and commentators, administrators and ground staff gather around the pitch each morning to chew the cud. On 8 September 2005—very late in the summer for Test cricket—there was a collective apprehension in the air. The match referee brought the coin with him and Vaughan, who is by his own admission ‘a useless tosser’, was relieved to see another feeble flick land in his favour. I remember thinking how I wanted England to make it through the match as much for him as for anyone or anything else. He had led his team with calm authority during long weeks of high tension and heightened passion. He thought quickly on his feet, using his bowling attack with the same shrewdness that had characterised Brearley’s captaincy 24 years earlier. There was something of Raymond Illingworth’s steel in him too. For sure, he is up there among the very best England captains.
Bat, bat and bat again was his mantra against Australia, and Strauss and Flintoff rewarded him absolutely. Strauss plays down the quality of his own batting, especially against Warne, but he held firm as the great spinner took the first 4 wickets of a Test match for the first time in his life. Having been 81 for no wicket, England found themselves 131 for 4. Strauss needed help and found it from Flintoff, who played an innings more in keeping with his classy Trent Bridge hundred than the boisterous affairs at Edgbaston. The pair put on 143. England made 373. Surely now . . .
We should have known better. Alfie and Haydos found their mojo with well-crafted hundreds. Hayden had not been himself since Simon Jones picked up the ball in his follow-through and winged it back at the startled batsman in the one-day international at Edgbaston, a match England won with almost as demonic a performance as the one in the T20 game at the
Rose Bowl. Worse, from Hayden’s point of view, was a rogue story that accused him of refusing to sign autographs for kids. No doubt about it, the Team England machine had worked the press to its advantage. But now Hayden drove and pulled with his more usual gusto, while Langer nudged, jabbed and cut with typical vigour. Australia was not going away. Conspiratorially, the rain trimmed Saturday’s play to not much more than three hours. These belonged to the Australians until the ground staff raced the covers to the middle with an almost indecent relish.
English supporters sang and danced while Australians stripped to the waist and made as if the sun was burning their torsos—slip, slop, slap. On Sunday, the Australian batting reverted to series type. Clarke and Gilchrist were trapped in front by Hoggard, who dealt with Lee and McGrath as well. A fired-up Flintoff took care of all but one of the rest. The last 5 wickets fell for 11 runs as gung-ho batting tactics rebounded. Mind you, this gave England a tricky period in bad light and Warne duly snared Strauss before the umpires came to the rescue of Trescothick and Vaughan. The players left the field at 3.40 pm and, for the two and half hours until play was officially called off, the English sections of the crowd had another knees-up. It is rare to see such celebration upon an umpires’ offer of bad light.
Thus, after seven tumultuous weeks—and seven memorable years—we arrived at the witching hour. On 12 September 2005, the Ashes went back to England and Channel 4 said goodbye to cricket. It was also the day that Richie Benaud made his last broadcast in the UK. He had been at it since 1963 and was much loved. With the rights moving away from free-to-air television, he had decided to call time and to enjoy the south of France for longer periods than his work had previously allowed. I do not mind admitting these three events stirred emotion in a way that is hard to describe. Joy and sadness fought one another for our attention; this was the day of pride and a fall in more ways than one.
PRESENTING THE ASHES
First up, we had to bring the climax of the series to air. The television running order—or run sheet in Australia—was assembled by the producer, Gary Franses. My respect for him is unconditional. He consults, appoints and cajoles. He put out fires and regulated ego. Once, I did something daft and he had the courage and sense to tell me. Another time, he was part of a decision with which I wildly disagreed but had to live. Otherwise, for seven summers and many a spring day shooting the breeze of the challenges to come, we got along famously. We are very different, which is probably the secret.
Each morning, four stapled A4 sheets were distributed to every key member of a vast crew. Some of them, each at the helm of a smaller but important entity, would have been a part of the meeting from which the running order was created. Up to a point, it was a collaborative and democratic process. Until Gary put his foot down.
The first page listed the requirements of the day and the various on- and off-air times. The second page was self-explanatory—the commentary roster; the ego thing. Six commentators for 24 shifts means four per person per day, which is exactly as Gary wrote it most of the time.
Page 3 was the 30-minute lead-in to the day’s play. The timings were important, because Channel 4 is commercial and therefore ruled by advertising. We had to hit breaks because the slots were pre-paid. I frequently kicked colleagues in the shin, which meant, ‘Pleeese shut up, we gotta go.’ At Channel Nine we now have an hour-long lead-in show, which can take some filling. During that half-hour period on Channel 4 in the summer of 2005, we seemed tight for time every morning. Essentially, the brief was to summarise the story of the day before and set up the potential of the day ahead. To do this, you need good vision and graphics, a player interview or two, and commentators with something to say or demonstrate. Each has a skill of his own and Gary was masterful at having the right person in the right place at the right time. Believe me, that is rare.
This is how I saw those various skills. Tony Greig loved to educate the viewer with examples both practical and theoretical. His passion for the game was undimmed by age or exposure, and no one researched cricket’s current affairs like Greigy. In addition, he loved to stir things up, supporting the underdog and rattling the favourites. Michael Slater brought the same energy and enthusiasm to the commentary box that characterised his enterprising and often brilliant batting. If the job needs one thing above all else, it is enthusiasm. Michael Atherton appraises even the most controversial aspects of play, or the players, with a calm intelligence. He was the perfect foil to Geoffrey Boycott’s more pointed approach. Boycott does his own view, straight, like no other. If his job is to be an expert on cricket, he is damn good at his job. Of course, he polarises opinion but isn’t that the point? Benaud was the start-up man and the finisher, and most things in between. His role in the success of the coverage cannot be overstated.
My job is to get the best from the talent, leading it to the subject at hand and asking questions that the viewer at home might ask themselves. On commercial television, I have to weave in and out of breaks, so be able to plan a question with a view to the length of time the answer may, or may not, take. Ideally, you go soft to start and then work towards the more serious issue. But if time is short you cannot delay. Sometimes the producer or director will have a specific angle or an alternative point. Equally, there may be a problem with a camera or some vision and then the presenter has to turn on a dime. This means the commentators must turn with him, something Atherton does particularly well.
Michael Parkinson once said to me that you need an ego to do the job but no ego in the job. I see myself as the middleman between the product, which in this case is the game, and the audience. My aim is to get the product across simply, intelligently (I hope) and with enthusiasm. And to hit the clock when need be. Michael has been a tremendous supporter and, along with my wonderful stepfather, Brian Widlake—whose fine television and radio career ended at about the time Hampshire were winning a few trophies—has provided me with informed and generous advice.
The fourth page was the 40-minute lunchtime show. On the first day of the last Test, for example, we were talking to Richie, skimming across his life in the game before getting through some housekeeping in the second segment. Page 4a was my notes. As I’ve said, I’m not a believer in scripting live television. I think it takes away from both intuition and instinct. I have bullet points and look to interact with guests, rather than drive the thinking. Occasionally, guests dry up and then I earn my money.
Generally, there would be a run sheet for tea as well but by the end of a series like this, we winged it. The narrative of the summer of 2005 was a run sheet in itself.
AFTER 16 YEARS, THE URN RETURNS TO ENGLAND
England had to negotiate a 98-over day without too much going wrong, simple as that. There was excitement in the air—or ‘nervocitement’ actually—because nobody was completely at ease with the position in which their team had finished the afternoon before. The rude awakening from the previous day’s bad-light party hangover was the realisation that Warne and McGrath had long perfected the humiliation of English batsmen. The glass-half-empty brigade suddenly saw the potential for more of the same. As for the Australian faithful, not much since Lord’s had suggested their team were in the right parish to pull off a miracle. The Oval was full to bursting as spectators peered through the morning mist. We made a decent half-hour’s telly, ‘Jerusalem’ boomed with grandeur, and out came Ricky Ponting’s Australians.
McGrath had missed the Trent Bridge Test with an elbow problem but now he was back doing what he does best. Vaughan and Bell had their off-stump indecision clinically exploited by the man they call the Pigeon, and Warne accounted for Trescothick and Flintoff at the other end. The pitch was offering wicked amounts of spin and the King was all over it. It occurred to us that this was the last time we would see the pair of them together in England—McGrath and Warne, that is—and that cricket might never have seen such a partnership of fast and slow, so fierce in its collective intent. It is not enough to simply call them great bowlers. They are very
great sportsmen, who transcended their game and rewrote its history.
There was a saving grace for England in the form of a South African. Since Greig first made the journey from the Eastern Cape to the south coast of Sussex, many a Southern African had followed him. Liveliest among them was Allan Lamb; most powerful was Robin Smith; most demure, Graeme Hick. I dare say none of these gifted three could have played the innings now put before us by Kevin Pietersen, a brazen lad from Pietermaritzburg. My, how long it seemed since that off-driven six off McGrath at Lord’s. But it was a mere 50 days, and K.P.’s bravado was intact. He had made a poor fist of defending his wicket before lunch so, over a ham roll, he asked Vaughan how best to go about the business of saving the match and securing the Ashes. Vaughan said, ‘Your game is to take ’em on, to attack, so go do just that. An hour from you and we’ve won the Ashes’, which summarised his general approach to the series. Attack when possible but stay in Australian faces if not.
Obediently, Pietersen took ’em on all right. Warne had dropped him at slip, a straightforward chance in front of his face, and was immediately made to pay with a couple of those slog-sweeps that take no prisoner. Lee bounced him at great pace and watched in amazement as the ball disappeared into the ether. Only once did Pietersen get the shot wrong, and Tait very nearly pulled off a catch on the long-leg boundary that would have impressed even Strauss. One pull stroke, from a 93-mile-per-hour ball that was barely short at all, came back past the stumps from which Lee had delivered it. Benaud said he thought it was coming through the television screen. Nobody could quite believe what they were seeing. If Ponting played the finest defensive innings of the series, and Flintoff and Geraint Jones had combined at Trent Bridge for the most thrilling dovetail, Pietersen now stole their show. This was an everything innings and doing just as Vaughan said it would.
A Beautiful Game Page 34
