Mythology of the first over is rooted in a brutal reality

The entire Ashes series might not hinge on the first six balls, but English combatants must be fearless from the start in the face of fired-up Australian quicks

We should know by now that sport is never more compelling than when physical risk is introduced. This explains the creep of dread before a world-title boxing showdown, the guilty thrill of the Ayrton Senna years in Formula One and the start of a first Ashes Test in Australia.

Cricket is game of myriad individual contests involving spin, seam and above all speed, where the dial can strike a point where skill turns into survival. The point, in other words, that England’s batsmen will reach when Mitchell Starc and Pat Cummins run in to bowl at the Gabba. Imagine facing a missile flying too fast to properly see and hard enough to smash your bones.

Here in Brisbane, it may sound as if cricket is in circus barking mode in a plea for relevance at a time when the long-form game is endangered by Twenty20.

It would be a mistake to think the antagonism is confected. The city is alive with threats, premonitions and haunting memories of Mitchell Johnson in 2013-14, with his bandido moustache and hellfire eyes.

To start where we should, the first ball, first over, and first session are among the most mesmerisingly intense rituals in world sport, especially when batsmen who are cold to the crease must deal with a ball hot from the hand and travelling at 90mph-plus, from a bounce the brain struggles to compute, such is its sheer velocity.

Trying to decide the hardest job in sport would keep a jury going long into the night. But right up there is facing a new ball from a fired-up Aussie quick on a surface designed to redirect it past your nose like a bullet.

These brutal realities will not stem the mockery, the bloodlust or the disdain when batsmen fail to deal with lightning bolts. Lest we forget, even if Starc and Cummins can be blunted England will need to negate the precision (and pace) of Josh Hazlewood, and perhaps the spin of Nathan Lyon, who claims the Poms were “scared” of Johnson four years ago. All this, under unrelenting scrutiny from an audience with no clue of what it takes to be out there for five days with history on your back, and with the natural human fight-orflight battle raging.

Curiously, the Gabba is a nondescript Meccano ground. The stadium itself has no aura. Yet the grass burns in the imagination. It takes players to untold extremes. And in this series, the dislocation will be felt by an unusually high number of Ashes rookies and possibly over-promoted team-fillers.

Before England left for Australia, I talked to Alastair

Cook about Australian pace, the mystique (or myth) of the first over, and stress management in the crucible of Ashes cricket. Cook’s 766 runs in 2010-11 are a monument of grace under pressure. “They [Australia] could pick four or five who will bowl quicker than our