A beloved tradition

I think Mike Marqusee gets this wrong:

With the arrival of the Australians and the prospect of an Ashes summer, cricket suddenly finds itself enjoying near-football-like status in the media. Advance bookings have broken records at grounds across the country. On eBay, tickets for the first day of the Lord's Test are being auctioned off at £300 apiece - getting up to Wimbledon semi-final rates.

One of the things the England-Australia contests have going for them is pedigree. This is perhaps the world's longest-established international, stretching back to the first Test match in Melbourne in 1877 (Australia won). Over the generations it's acquired a patina of legend (Bodyline in '33, Botham in '81), and in a world of the instantaneous that has an attraction.

But the era when Australia-England contests might be considered world-title fights is long gone. It's a bigger cricket cosmos these days, England is no longer its centre, and there is a widespread recognition of that reality among both fans and players. The gathering excitement about the coming summer's play, at least among cricket lovers, has less to do with heritage than the joys of competitive cricket. First, Australia are the best cricket team in the world and never dull to watch; and second, for the first time in a generation England seem to have a realistic hope of matching them on the field.

Yes, it's the anticipation of competitive cricket, but it's also the tradition. Regardless of world rankings, in England the best-loved series is always the Ashes. There's no one, but no one, that the Poms more enjoy beating at cricket than Australia. At the moment there may be a special reason for this in that - excuse me while I suppress an unworthy guffaw - they haven't won a series against Australia since (when was it? oh yes...) 1986-7. But it goes deeper and further and longer. Australia is the main enemy. You lose to Clive Lloyd or Viv Richards, whatcha gonna do? They're too good for us. You lose to Australia? Whatever is the English for oy vey a hurban! - those tough, mean, relentless bastards. And you win against Australia? Just watch this summer, if it should happen. It'll be a national extravaganza like you don't remember since... since 1981, I'd say. And then there's also, beneath this deepest and oldest cricketing enmity, a sneaking admiration, however apparently contradictory. We love to beat them, but my, what a cricketing tradition it is that they've had and been displaying on these shores every few years since forever.

So England may not any longer be the centre of the cricket cosmos, but England-Australia is what matters most to the followers of English cricket; and, though I can't vouch for this from my own direct experience, I believe it to be so, too, for Australians.

Mike goes on to a discussion about problems of 'access' today in English cricket. But this is marred by an absurd paragraph in which the tough macho talk of the sporting media ahead of this coming Ashes series is linked by him with 'the ethic of neoliberal economics'. He could profitably have left that out.