Catharsis Cricket

One of the joys of the newly re-branded Sky Sports Ashes channel is the ubiquitous nature of the shows entitled 'Australia/England's Best Days'. One, as anyone who followed cricket in the mid-90s and early 2000s will testify, is far more frequent than the other. It's comical, in a way that only self-deprecating English cricket fans will find funny, to imagine archivists and producers rooting around amongst video tapes, frantically searching for England highlights, until they stumble upon that most dead of dead day's cricket, Day Five of the Fifth Ashes Test, where England's Andy Caddick took a few wickets and avoided a whitewash.

Soon, the boot will almost certainly be on the other foot. In one of the few rivalries where it is still acceptable to shout the opposition's nationality in a derogatory fashion (see 'you English bastard!' or, 'you Aussie convict!' for examples), Australia's class of 2013 are doing their best to turn this Ashes series into an anodyne walkover.

When a leading cricket betting writer is advocating a five-nil whitewash before the start of August as the best value punt, you know that the series is on its knees in terms of gambling profitability. As a sporting contest, the death knell is never far behind.

A notable sea-change to the Sky Sports Ashes schedule is when they get round to showing Edgbaston 2005. Glorious, glorious Edgbaston. I was there in that bear-pit of a Saturday Edgbaston crowd, and it remains one of the finest day's sport I've ever witnessed. That day, each Australian wicket was treated with a jubilant, mischievous roar, yet undoubtedly tinted with a hint of genuine tribal glee. There was a sense of 'eighteen years of hurt', and Fatty Warne, Trampy Gillespie and Little Man Syndrome Ponting were going to get it in the neck.

Fast-forward eight years to now, and England fans are sighing disappointedly, sympathetically, when Ashton Agar, the Australian debutant number eleven, gets out on 98. Have they forgotten all those years of misery? Or are the Australians just too bad to even bother getting worked up about? Too nice, even?

06-07 Ashes- tell me that doesn't make your blood boil.
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I've tried my best to hate this current crop, but it's just too difficult. Shane Watson, if you look at his face, should be immediately dislikeable, but he seems intent on bringing his own side down from the inside, so he should be welcomed, not castigated, on these shores. Peter Siddle, who equally has a punchable face, should be vilified by supporters, but as he's the ultimate 'whole-hearted bowler', I find myself wanting more Siddles. Even David Warner, guilty of punching England batsman Joe Root in a Birmingham club, is only hated because of his own off-field follies, rather than his tenacious batting.

This is not to say that I'm not absolutely loving this series. Non-partisan fans might ask how such a one-sided contest, especially in a sport such as cricket, which relies on ebbs and flows, could ever be considered interesting. Cynics might ask whether I found 2006-07 as enjoyable, when England were whitewashed. For the non-partisans and the cynics, the answer lies in each other's questions. This is revenge, and anyone who feels sorry for Australia needs to spend a few hours watching 'Australia's Best Days'.

Even 2002-03, right at the tail-end of those eighteen years of hurt, still held a perverse enjoyment. We might not have realised it at the time, but those one-sided cricket series were brilliant. To use an analogy, it's a bit like the film The Usual Suspects. For the first ninety minutes, I always find myself wondering why I'm watching this slow, dull, average thriller. And then, because the last fifteen minutes is so excellent, I come away thinking 'no, actually it was brilliant after all'.

Catharsis Cricket
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For eighteen years, the Ashes might have seemed dreadful, yet we kept watching. It was only in 2005, when the Ashes were regained, that sitting through all that pain became worthwhile, and, mercifully, we're still reaping the benefits now.

This summer, like none other before, is catharsis cricket at its very best.