THE ASHES Fearless Root refuses to be spooked by Ashes ghosts
As locations go, it was not the most auspicious. On the eve of the first Test, England captain Joe Root held court outside the Odeon suite at Brisbane’s sofitel hotel.
It was here, four years ago, that grim- faced ECB executives announced the end of Jonathan Trott’s tour; the most pitiful victim of what Australians call mental disintegration.
It was another crisis of confidence that spinner Nathan Lyon was attempting to provoke when he made his incendiary comments about Australian pace and English fear earlier in the week.
He wanted to put that reminder of 2013, the scars left by Mitchell Johnson, back in the visitors’ heads. ‘Get ready for a broken arm,’ as former captain Michael Clarke had it. Root seemed singularly unmoved by the talk. He was once a team-mate of Lyon in south Australian grade cricket.
‘I played with Nathan in Prospect and at the time we weren’t sure who our first spinner was,’ Root deadpanned. ‘He’s obviously come a long way since then.’
It was as sweetly-timed a retort as one would expect from a beautiful stroke player, but Root knows by the time his team take the field at the Gabba, subtlety and Wildean wit will be in short supply.
An airless, oppressive concrete tunnel takes the players out into one of sport’s most hostile arenas, where on the first day of the last Ashes tour the home crowd joined as one in calling stuart Broad a w***** as he ran in to bowl.
Footballers may be familiar with concerted abuse, but terrace chants do not come combined with 100mph deliveries and the gladiatorial nature of one man, and his bat, versus 11. If sport’s determination to root out bullying reaches its fullest expression, cricket will be banned outright, such is the nature of the contest.
Root, a rookie captain, is marshalling a top order of Ashes novices against what appears a ferocious and sharp Australia attack. It has genuine pace in Mitchell starc and Pat Cummins, plus the diligent and dangerous Josh Hazlewood, whose relentless accuracy makes him arguably the pick of the lot, earning comparisons with Glenn McGrath.
And it’s Brisbane, where Australia bring tourists to be crushed and perish. The hosts have not lost a Test here since the visit of West Indies in 1988, which is why Queensland is so often awarded the opening fixture of any significant series.
Yet as intimidating as those numbers might be, there is a flipside. so talismanic is the Gabba that if Australia do not tee off with a win there, it undoubtedly affects the rest of the series.
Victory is presumed to the extent that draws feel like defeats and have the same demoralising impact. Including West Indies’ victory in 1988, Australia have failed to win in Brisbane eight times in 29 years — and went on to win only two of those series. West Indies (1988 and 1992), England (2010) and south Africa (2012) all won after surviving Brisbane. Only sri Lanka in 1989 and England in 1998 have lost. Failing to win in Brisbane, Australia have not won a Test series this century. And the weather forecast is expected to take time out of the game this week. Who’s fragile now?
‘ To get a result here would certainly put them under a lot of pressure, because they haven’t lost at the Gabba for such a long period of time,’ said Root. ‘That is our main goal, to go out there and try to upset that.
‘The atmosphere here is something that if you haven’t experienced it, is very different. It is like being in India for the first time, throwing up different things at the ground, or the stuff and noise an Ashes series brings. You know, ex-players coming out and saying things, current players saying things that are a load of nonsense.
‘ It is part and parcel of the build-up. The more guys talk going into a series, though, the more they put pressure on themselves. One thing Australia did very well last time was talking up certain things, then they delivered. But this is a completely different tour.
‘You hear a lot about these scars from the last time, but that series happened four years ago, and we’ve now won four of the last five Ashes series. We’ve got a lot of guys who have very fond memories of 2015, so I don’t know whether they are just trying to brush that under the carpet.
‘Lyon is now going to be under pressure as well, so we need to make our lads aware that it’s not just us who will feel the heat, it is those guys, too. It will be quite hostile but I suppose it is just a case of being aware that the most important thing is what the rest of
the guys in the dressing room think, and being very clear about how you want to go and do things.’
To that end, Root is insistent that England’s relative inexperience compared to previous tours is an advantage. Like England manager Gareth Southgate selecting young players with no memory of previous tournament failures, Root hopes to make a virtue of the absence of Ashes demons past. He will name his team today, but it is no secret Mark Stoneman will open, James Vince will be in at first wicket down and Dawid Malan bats at five.
‘Last time round we came here from a year when we hadn’t lost a Test, with a very experienced side and a lot of guys who had won a lot of Ashes cricket and had great success,’ Root recalled.
‘What happened was a massive shock and we struggled to come back from it. So this is a different set of players against a different Australia side. Only three guys in the squad were in the last series.
‘Of course you want to harness experience and make sure you don’t fall into a similar trap, but both sides are in very different places. We have to be ready for everything the Gabba brings, but ultimately it is about trusting what we have been doing for the last six to eight months.’
The Odeon suite is England’s team room now. Root visits daily and sees no ghosts.