ENGLAND MUST SURVIVE THE GABBATOIR
Rocked by injury, mocked by Aussies, if Ashes aren’t to disappear too, now...
THE Ga b b a — or the ‘Gabbatoir’ to its friends — can do funny things to an Englishman. In 1954-55, Len Hutton invited Australia to bat, oversaw an innings defeat and thought about throwing himself into the Brisbane River. In 2002-03, Nasser Hussain repeated the trick and England lost by 384 runs.
Four years later, Steve Harmison picked out Andrew Flintoff at second slip with what he later described as ‘ the worst opening ball in the history of Ashes cricket’. England lost by 277. And in 2013-14, Alastair Cook’s team were blown away by Mitchell Johnson for 136 and 179. That defeat was by 381.
Inevitably then, it is at the Gabba that Joe Root’s side will embark on the latest chapter in the Ashes — assuming he can find 11 fit and able cricketers on a tour that has already seen Paul Collingwood, a member of the coaching staff, take the field as a substitute.
Perhaps t he only diplomatic message to Root and Co ahead of the first Test on November 23 is a no- frills ‘ good luck’. Because if Australia had the Eiger, the Gabba would be its North Face.
The Australians have not lost there since November 1988 and that was against the all-conquering West Indians. If they regard the place with less reverence than they do the giant MCG and with less affection than the picturesque SCG, then locals treasure the Gabba because it is good at giving touring teams a frosty welcome.
England, by contrast, have won at Brisbane only four times in 20 Tests — twice in the Thirties (including the Bodyline tour) and once against Graham Yallop’s Kerry Packerweakened 1978-79 Australians.
The most recent victory was in 1986- 87, when Sir Ian Botham’s first-innings 138 set England on their way to a 2-1 triumph. With the open- air Gabba then yet to be redeveloped into today’s cauldron, highlights of that game have the whiff of ancient history.
PHIL DeFreitas was making his Test debut and added 92 with Botham, his hero and room- mate, before taking the first- innings wickets of David Boon and Dean Jones. The experience was, he says, ‘ incredible’. But eight years later, with Australia three Ashes wins into their sequence of eight, Brisbane would be less kind.
‘I remember bowling from both ends during the warm-up,’ he says of the 1994-95 series. ‘I preferred one end and we were all set to go but then Mike Gatting suggested to Mike Atherton that I should open from the other, because the wind had changed.
‘ It’s not an excuse but the change of ends threw me off my rhythm and for the first few balls the length was not what I wanted.’
Michael Slater cut DeFreitas’s first ball — a wide long hop — through point and Australia never looked back, closing the first day on 329 for four. It was the definitive statement of intent.
‘Not the tone you want to set at t he st art of t he Ashes,’ says DeFreitas. ‘ Slater was a bit like David Warner. Another opener might have let it through but not him. Then Martin McCague pulled up with injury, so we were a bowler down. It was hard work.’ England have drawn two out of seven Gabba Tests and lost five. Yet it is sobering to think that, in terms of results, Brisbane is not even England’s Australian bete noire. For that honour, you must go to Perth’s WACA, where they have won once in 13 Tests and lost nine.
The WACA has a springy pitch and the Fremantle Doctor blowing in after lunch to help the swing bowlers. But it lacks the Gabba’s essential snarl, its sense of an entire nation closing in for an early kill. Simon Jones understands the point only too well. Chasing the ball in the outfield on the first day of the 2002-03 Ashes, he jarred his knee in the turf, ruptured ligaments and was carried off the field — and out of the tour — in agony.
‘ I’ve only watched the replay once,’ he says. ‘I’ve tried to forget it. I was just doing what I’d done a thousand times before: sliding in the outfield. What I didn’t know was that it was sand-based, because it was also used for Aussie Rules. That was annoying — we could have been told about that.
‘As I was carried off, someone in the crowd shouted that I was a “Weak Pommie b******” and threw a can of lager at me. But I didn’t take it personally. The Gabba was like that. It’s a seriously impressive stadium with its own intimidating properties.’
Jones had di s missed Justi n Langer with his ninth ball that morning, one of only two Australian wickets to fall all day after Hussain had done a Hutton.
‘We were in turmoil on that tour before a ball was bowled,’ says Hussain. ‘ Andrew Flintoff and Darren Gough were injured and Graham Thorpe hadn’t toured for family reasons.
‘When we turned up in Brisbane, I had a bit of a scrambled brain with everything that was going on. I was looking for things that weren’t there, trying to reinvent the wheel.
‘Marcus Trescothick came up to
me and said the ball had been hooping round corners on the practice pitch and in the nets and I thought: “Well, if we can get them 20 for two, we’re at least in the game”. I was forgetting that we’d be batting last on a tricky pitch.’
Matthew Hayden and Ricky Ponting promptly put on 272 for the second wicket. In the fourth innings, England were skittled for 79. ‘ You play t hese l ow- key friendlies at the start of the tour, then you get to Brisbane and the increase in intensity is like nothing you’ve experienced before,’ says Hussain.
‘For the Aussies, a Gabba Test is just their normal start to the season, another game of cricket. But England have been building up to it for months.
‘My decision has gone down in folklore but it did not cost us the Test or the Ashes. We just weren’t as good as Australia.’
And t hat i ntensity? In 1956, Hutton wrote: ‘Imagine preparing to bowl to the roar of a crowd as lusty-voiced as a packed Stamford Bridge or Highbury.’ Steve Harmison’s recent autobiography makes roughly the same point as he relives his 2006-07 nightmare. ‘ It’s up to me to bowl the first delivery of an Ashes series that has been talked about, pontificated over and bull******* about since I bowled the final ball of the last one... I’ve never been less certain about anything.’ After the ball ended up in the hands of Flintoff, Matthew Hoggard ran in from fine leg, thinking Hayden must have edged it. ‘Yes!’ he shouted. ‘Great start!’ It has been a while since England made one of those at Brisbane. History awaits the man who can.