The Ashes:comforting as a celestial clock in our time of distress

Rarely has the sound of leather on willow seemed quite so heartening.

It is,of course,the sound of summer. Of renewal.

Starc sends Burns packing with the first ball of the series.

Starc sends Burns packing with the first ball of the series.Seven

The ancients are thought to have travelled to Stonehenge to witness the sun setting on the eve of the winter solstice,and to have returned to greet the sunrise at the summer solstice.

They were,we might imagine,reassuring themselves at the stones of their heavenly timepiece that the chill of winter would always be replaced by summer warmth.

And so it is with the rhythm of Test cricket.

I am not a cricket tragic,I should confess. Years ago I struggled to explain the game to a room full of Americans,failing dismally and concluding with the limp observation that maybe it wasn’t so different to baseball,because there were fielders,a bat and a ball. Perhaps I was ahead of my time:the Big Bash League was yet to be invented.

Truth was,I couldn’t properly explain the esoterica of a Test series to myself. All that stuff about forcing the follow-on or playing for a draw …

As for the physics of how a cricket ball swings – we must leave that to the skill of my colleague,Greg Baum,for whom sport whispers secrets and who can explain themystery of reverse swing in a poetry that mesmerises.

Having played a bit of cricket at primary school and the first couple of years of secondary,I drifted away from the game.

Stonehenge - nearly as mysterious as the game of cricket.

Stonehenge - nearly as mysterious as the game of cricket.Getty

The flash of bowling or standing before the wicket and belting a ball was all very well,but dawdling in the field for hours in the sun,the ball rarely coming near,seemed boring beyond measure.

Besides,there were girls and music by The Beatles and The Rolling Stones.

Still,the background sound of many summers remained the comforting murmur of Alan McGilvray on the radio and,when we got TV,Richie Benaud on Channel Nine.

Here were the voices that told us all was fine,whatever might have troubled us through the year.

And so,when the Ashes series began this week at the Gabba – Lord,is there a more satisfying Australian place name than Woolloongabba,which is supposed to mean either “whirling waters” or,even better,“fight talk place” – could the timing have been more sublime?

Australia’s David Warner is bowled off a no-ball by England’s Ben Stokes on the second day of the first Test.

Australia’s David Warner is bowled off a no-ball by England’s Ben Stokes on the second day of the first Test.Tertius Pickard

We have lived through two years of pandemic anxiety,false hopes and enforced inertia. Had we been druids wishing to visit Stonehenge to check the celestial clock,we would have been prevented from travelling there. Or anywhere else.

And here came Mitchell Starc,doubt in his eligibility for the Test team hanging over his head,thundering down with the first ball of the Ashes series and – who could believe it? – delivering a late-swinging yorker that took the leg stump of England opener Rory Burns.

First ball!

In 144 years of the Ashes,such a thing had happened only three times.

The long pandemic winter – the two years of long winters,indeed – had been temporary after all,Starc’s ball told us.

Perhaps an Ashes series – languid days stretching out,with not much happening for much of the time – is the perfect antidote to the months of lockdowns and border lockouts.

It is almost as if we have been in training.

From isolation,we are being permitted to ease into weeks of an event moving in slow motion from one city’s glorious green field to the next,requiring nothing more from most of us than an occasional flicker of the eyes towards a TV or an ear to the radio when the shouting indicates something has interrupted the extended periods of inconsequence.

Here seems merciful distraction from a period when a nitwit on Australia’s public payroll feels free totitter along with an American conspiracy theorist at mention of the monstrous wickedness of the Auschwitz extermination camp,and his leaders fail to consider it worthy of his disqualification from their government.

Danald Bradman signing autographs at the SCG in 1947.

Danald Bradman signing autographs at the SCG in 1947.Fairfax

It seemed possible,too,at least for the moment when Starc bowled that first ball,to put aside the scandals that had left many in doubt about whether cricket was cricket any more:thesandpaper cheating,Tim Paine’s texting secrets re-emerging to burn his captaincy,and the long-smoulderingracism row ripping through the English game.

If this was cricket delivering diversion from idiocy and relief from lockdowns and the fear of illness and death,what must it have been when the first-class game returned after its long hibernation when World War II ripped lives apart?

Just two weeks after the war in Europe ended in May 1945,the first in a series of what were called Victory Tests were played in England between an Australian Services XI and England. Almost half a million spectators,delirious with relief,turned out for the five three-day matches,two of which were won by each side with one drawn.

The following summer of 1946-47,England came to Australia for the first Ashes series since 1938. Australia,led by Don Bradman,won 3-0. The crowds have never been surpassed.

The total attendance for the five tests was 853,122. From a national population of just 7½ million.

Test cricket,welcome back,even if the weather turns unforgiving during this La Nina year.

You feel as comforting as the summer solstice to a people in search of a sign.

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Tony Wright is the associate editor and special writer for The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald.

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