In Saturday’s issue of The Times, columnist Giles Coren suggested that so poor was the Australian side coming into the Ashes Series this summer, that the series should be scrapped. He continued to say that even a side boasting the likes of Derek Pringle and Jonathan Agnew (the 2013 figures, rather than their hey-day, of course) could still cast aside the Ozzie opposition.
In playing devil’s advocate, Coren raises an interesting point. What if this series proves to be so one-sided that the cricketing fans, both plastic-seated and armchaired, decide that the competition, and therefore excitement, just isn’t there?
The consequences should The Ashes finally be buried would be awful. The fabled series is cricket’s flagship contest, one where hundreds of millions across the world, from Mumbai to Maidenhead, watch every minute from home, and tickets for the matches themselves are worth far more than their weight in gold.
Take that away, and the sport loses its biggest source of income. Test-playing venues across England and Wales rely on those matches for their continuation in business, to pay the staff who make the ground tick, let alone the investments needed to stage such world events.
There is, of course, one other point to make in response to Coren, and that is that it’s highly likely that the series will be far more closely contested than the form guide suggests. All too often in sport the wounded underdog, so easily dismissed with its tail between its legs, will turn and snap at the hand ushering it aside. For competition, and the sport’s sake, I hope that this is the case.
