Agnew - Aggers Ashes

Foreword
by Jim Maxwell

Two performances stood out as England completed a comprehensive Ashes victory just before high noon on Friday, 7 January 2011 at the Sydney Cricket Ground.

Throughout the series the Barmy Army chorused every moment of play. They should have been given free entry because they were so entertaining, rapturously encouraging the dreaded Poms, and alternately mocking the Aussies. Mitchell Johnson was a favourite target.

Johnson found his mojo in Perth with some surprising swing bowling, but like his accomplices, Hilfenhaus and whoever passed as a spinner, the bowling was mediocre, chasing the game that Australias batsmen had lost.

While England celebrated with a traditional victory lap and acknowledgement of their supporters, the BBC correspondent Jonathan Agnew conducted the post-match interviews as he had done so thoroughly in 2005 and 2009 when England regained the Ashes at The Oval. Formalities completed Aggers broke off into a weird gyration, twisting like a Hills Hoist clothes line (for our English readers, a Hills Hoist is a height-adjustable rotary clothes line invented just after the War in Adelaide), or a giraffe on speed, he thus began a nervous performance of the Sprinkler Dance. Having watched England cop Down-Under hidings for twenty years and endured Australian co-commentator Kerry OKeeffes jibes about the Poms going for silver and not for gold, Aggers cut loose.

Like the Barmy Army he had earned the right to celebrate, because Andrew Strausss team played better cricket than any England team in Australia for at least 56 if not 78 years.

Alastair Cooks expedition was the most significant tour deforce by a Cook since Captain Jamess visit in 1770, and his polishing skills made the Kookaburra laugh at Australias batsmen, helping Jimmy Anderson to swing through the top order.

Andrew Strausss composure and maturity formed a strong partnership alongside Andy Flower, whose hard-nosed managerial skills rivalled Sir Alex Fergusons at Old Trafford. When will Andrew and Andy get their gongs?

Cooks remorselessly efficient batting was complemented by Jonathan Trotts hungry accumulation. Aussies expected them to be nicking catches to slip or getting whacked on the pads in front. Instead, they settled in for a banquet.

In the TMS box Sir Geoffrey Boycott was in full flight at Australias batting ineptitude, with just a hint of schadenfreude when wickets were tumbling. There was a moment when England were on top and, as you can on radio, I digressed to Australias rugby league connection with Yorkshire. Im ready to continue that reminiscence in 2013 if Geoffrey appears to be gloating again!

Michael Vaughan showed his versatility by tweeting as frequently as Shane Warne, extolling Englands virtues; Vic Marks sagely scrutinised the contest and wondered where James Hildreth might fit in; while scorer Andrew Samson answered every ridiculous question from the ABC commentator as calmly and accurately as a quiz mastermind.

Shuttling between the TMS and the ABC commentary boxes, Aggers had been preparing, anticipating Englands historic moment. Happily for him that moment coincided with Christmas in Melbourne in the company of wife Emma and stepson Tom. I look forward to seeing them again in England when our friendship is rekindled and the Ashes are regained.

For an England cricket correspondent, an Ashes tour of Australia should be as good as it gets the pinnacle of ones career. It is a wonderful country with plenty to keep you occupied and, despite the traditional semi-serious Pom-bashing by the media, a genuinely warm welcome is guaranteed. Comfortable hotels and easy travel make it difficult to argue against this being the best job in the world. But, and it is a big but, for the past twenty years the cricket has been anything but competitive, inevitably robbing each of my last five tours of the continent of its key ingredient. I have witnessed England winning only 3 of the 25 Tests they played in Australia during that time, and losing, sometimes quite badly, 18 of them.

It has not always been easy reporting on those disastrous campaigns. My emotions would typically range from initial disbelief how can England be this bad again? through anger at the teams continuing ineptitude to ultimate despair. It has been impossible for me to be entirely impartial as I am sure many TMS listeners will understand. Commentating on the local Australian Broadcasting Corporation [ABC] something I have always loved doing, incidentally had become embarrassing, as time and time again I would invariably have to sign off with an apology to the Australian listeners for the gulf between the two teams, a gulf that created such one-sided Test matches.

But buoyed by England winning the Ashes in 2009, and having watched Australia struggle against Pakistan the following summer, the Ashes tour of 2010/11 from the outset felt altogether different. Without players of Australias golden age of the 1990s like Shane Warne, Glenn McGrath and Adam Gilchrist, I was not alone in feeling genuinely optimistic about Englands prospects this time around. So much so, that when pressed for a prediction before the players left home, I put my neck on the block and forecast that England would return 3-1 winners. And so it proved.

Jonathan Agnew, February 2011