Ashes: Australian lustre inspires English inevitabilities

Breathe it all in, marvel at its grandeur. Tread carefully with each passing step, and up into the nirvana you arrive. Welcomed by a Strayan sea of green and gold still there are few white barmy blobs sprinkled delicately around The Gabba, a coliseum historically unkind to its pale tourists. Heavy is the air that floats around, pushed with force onto the Brisbane heads. Still, the senses are aroused; it’s day one of the Ashes after all.

‘Australia win by ten wickets’, ‘Australia win by 381 runs’, ‘Australia win by 277 runs’. Here we see a bloody massacre, a futile excursion to another hemisphere. England the habitual recipients of their own déclassé, The Gabba as synonymous with Australian success as shame is to the English. Not since the days of Graham Dilley and Stuart Broad’s sire has the St George’s flag flown proudly above the Queensland skies. Known only now as fables, the lessons have yet to be learnt. Thirty-five years and eight Tests on, there’s been an awful lot of waiting.

‘These things take time’, a once starry-eyed Morissey sang harmoniously beneath the bright lights in-front of a swarm of screaming Smiths melophiles. But here, under the circular ribbon of sparkling bulbs that iconic lyric resonated within the brains of those British inebriates. Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood, Pat Cummins: Australia’s three musketeers. They were men at work, carving through splintered bats. At the opposite end it’s the three stooges: Rory Burns, Dawid Malan, Joe Root. A combined score of six, the former departs for a diamond duck, optimism fractured the moment the big hand slapped its smaller sibling’s palm at the peak of the clock.

But this was a story of bowling: the art, the beauty, and the overwhelming devastation of it all. This was Australia at their slickest, their most deadly. Like a shiver of sharks in a frenzy, feasting on the scared and the wounded. Ravenous they were from the outset; England could not cope. All the anticipation and expectation, dreams and wishes flushed away in an instant as Starc steams in over the wicket, flinging the first ball of the Ashes down hard and full with a touch of swing. Burns caught in a pickle, as if he had swapped the spikes for skates, before hearing the sound of a Kookaburra crashing into wood. Bails sail through the mugginess, his leg-stump awkwardly positioned. Cue a lonely walk back to the embassy.

Up went the limbs, followed by a deafening roar echoing, wrapping around the arena. Few batters have better averages in Test cricket than its white-ball counterparts, yet one of them was next to stride out — butterflies fluttering profusely from within — as Malan came, then went soon after. Feathered into the grippy darkness of debutant Alex Carey’s gloves for his first Test match catch on..err…dayboo. Arise for Root, the regal vibes flowing down his sweaty skin. Plan B initiated as the white flag remained inside for now. But fifteen deliveries later and that fictitious pennant was waved hysterically from the visitor’s dim windows.

Succumbing to a holy jaffa, perfection was the line and the length, Root dangles his New Balance out into the open. A thickish edge gobbled up at first slip by everyone’s favourite, David Warner, as the esteemed skipper departs with his decaying side 11-3. Inevitable, isn't it? Always cherishing the hope, always realising swiftly that it was foolish to imagine such nonsensical lunacy. Too much of this early chapter will be heaped on those opening batters. Haseeb Hameed looked fluid, until he wasn’t. Jos Buttler got himself well in, before he got himself well out, and even Chris Woakes caressed the ball smoothly in all directions of the green compass. Promise arose between Ollie Pope and Buttler: a partnership of 52 of style and maturity from the mentee and the mentor. Who needed to be resolute were the openers, the willow-wielded guardians of the sport. 147 all out. Cricket’s back everyone.

But this was not wholly testament to England’s efforts with the bat, rather supremacy with the seam slotted between the index and middle fingers. Captain Cummins takes five and waves the red cherry towards his fellow supporters, bums off seats as they rise to applaud excellence. A couple each for Starc and Hazlewood, and one to the enormous Cameron Green. With ease the hosts claimed day one, but much time is yet to be spent before the rising phoenix flaps its wings over Australia’s prized land.