The Ashes 2019: Strap yourself in for a six-week rollercoaster without equal

The oldest rivalry in the game has snuck up on all of us but it promises to be one of the closest series in years

So it begins. Six weeks of incessant phone checking. Six weeks of carrying headphones at all costs so you can slip off into Test Match Special at the first moment it isn’t too rude.

Six weeks, in between meetings suddenly rendered meaningless to you, of darting around whatever non-specific area of London you happen to be in asking empty pubs whether they have Sky Sports and are just choosing not to play it. Six weeks of asking if they can put the sound on too.

Six weeks of, after patient negotiation, compromising that if anyone else comes in to the pub and seems even the slightest bit perturbed by cricket being on, they can turn the sound back off, but you will guarantee to pay your way if the visual stays. Six weeks of ordering microwaved chicken pies you didn’t want but ‘might as well eat now it’s here’ when that happens.

Six weeks of politely having to listen to the bar stuff ask what the point of cricket is whilst you very subtly but very regularly look over their shoulder whenever the bowler runs in. Six weeks of explaining it’s hard to know who’s winning until both teams bat at least once.

Six weeks of missing eight Australian wickets fall in a series-changing session (usually taken by Stuart Broad just as everyone has decided he should be dropped) because you have to go to this thing that you promised you would go to ages ago and there’s absolutely no way you can get out of it at any costs without serious repercussions. Six weeks of mother cricket dishing you up rain on one of only two days you have totally off to watch the f***ing thing and then gifting you the begrudging appreciation of watching Steve Smith bat all day with the other one.

Six weeks of feeling like you might have been quantum leaped into the body of whichever member of the forever impermanent England top three’s turn it is to be on the precipice of the end of their career, suddenly disturbingly empathic of their inability to get anywhere near a cricket ball. Six weeks of clenching your fists as if you have somehow personally achieved some feat for the greater good of humanity when you see any semblance of the series on the front page of a newspaper, as if all this might not have been in vein.

These are the modern truths of a mid-thirties fan of the world’s (at it’s best) deepest, (without exception) most beautiful and (in it’s most common state), most frustrating game, trying to stay in touch with an Ashes series whilst attempting to juggle an actual life alongside it. Truth be told, it presents significant challenges.

Afford yourself a moment to remember where you were on the eve of the Ashes the last time, and the time before that, and the time before that. The way your life has been shaped, often against it’s will, and the Ashes series' that have come to map, entirely accidentally, each juncture. It’s a poignant thing in itself when in the locality of your own memory.

The problem with the cricket in the recent past though is, like a fly banging it’s own head against a locked window only to be eventually let out when it’s lost the will to fly out at all, by the time the series arrives, part of you is so puffed out by the forced expectation of the Ashes, that you’re pretty much beaten up by it already.

You brace yourself for the montages of the ages; blurry black and white images of bodyline series-era batsmen looking like they are actually being chased by a ball with the mind of an attack dog, Kevin Pietersen boarding an open-top bus with a jug of what looks like purple Pimms, Michael Clarke telling Jimmy ‘get ready for a broken f***ing arm’ and so on.

Forever packed tighter and tighter towards each other to the point of cross-eyed indifference to all involved, and with no actual close Test matches in recent memory, the home side often winning at a canter, you would be forgiven for worrying, if just quietly to yourself for fear of sacrilege, that the entire thing had talked itself into a corner.

Root leads England in what he hopes will be a successful series (Reuters)

But here we are in 2019. The difference, and the pertinent one this time, is that, well, in a strange circumstance of events, the Ashes has kind of snuck up on us. It’s here now. Already. You’d be forgiven for having not thought about it too much. Both that and the fact cricket suddenly finds itself with another opportunity to not just engineer a scrap of one, but truly capture a cultural moment again.

Thanks to a final hour of a World Cup final sent from the gods, as the wider nation watched on terrestrial television, to witness, to be frank, even more drama and joy than those of us banging the drum even thought the game could deliver, the Ashes, is here in the perfect window of the game's potential re-contextualisation, right here on our lap. What’s better too, is this series is seemingly genuinely evenly matched.

Both sides find themselves in the tantalising balance between establishment figures, potential and fragility. On pitches which should suit, each seam attack is loaded with options, both etched in stone greats of the game (Anderson, Broad, Siddle, Starc) and a few greats-in-waiting (Archer, Cummins, Pattinson), with variation and quality to match any era. Each batting unit is full of dormant game-winning individual performances (Buttler, Stokes, Smith, Warner) but frail on even the most circumspect inspection.

The rollercoaster of the Ashes is upon us once again (Getty Images)

Ball should slightly dominate bat. That’s when Test cricket is at it’s best.

They will all be, weather permitting, result games. It really should be the closest one in ages. England are blessed now with the un-engineerable hook of some new identifiable and relatable hero’s to the wider world, (Buttler, Stokes, Archer, Root et al), present in the Test side and waving the flag for the game's highest form.

That might be enough pride-poking for the Australian side who, chastened by being in England to witness them win their first World Cup, will no doubt be incrementally tempted to rid themselves of the self-imposed ‘it’s the taking part that counts’ post sandpaper-gate party line and revert to type.

This Ashes offers the genuine possibility that we won’t be following out of misplaced loyalty, but from a primal level engagement to a series always in transit. That would be good, wouldn’t it? See you on the other side.