It wasn’t everything we dreamed of but it was a lot of fun

It’s only a week on from the Ashes but it already feels like another time in another world. Which I suppose it was. A very different time zone and a very different climate. And don’t I know it as the jet lag hits hard and a British January hits even harder.

In the half-sleep dream state that has been the best I can manage from two in the morning onwards, I’ve dreamed of Australia and half woken up still half expecting to be there. The big skies, the warm air, the iced long blacks, a glimpse of Sydney harbour, a swim between the flags. Then the return to reality kicks in. So while they’re still just about warm in the memory, here’s a few final thoughts about my trip and a couple on the future of the England cricket team that don’t seem to have been considered much in all the wash-up.

I wrote about Adelaide being wholly consumed by its test match week and what a joy that was, but really it was like that everywhere. The people of Melbourne were furious that they only got two days of their test, as if their whole summer holiday had suddenly been cancelled. Sydneysiders came out in their tens of thousands too, breaking attendance records and flooding the field in a moment of joy on the final day of the series. Public parks are full of excellent cricket squares. The game is on all the time, everywhere. The opportunity to watch or play cricket is constant, and the test match format is still clearly the top of the tree, given the peak slots of the season.

To be a test match fan in Australia felt a bit like finding a place that accepts you for who you are after a lifetime of living a secret in pursuit of an obscure, misunderstood minority habit. We have our church hidden behind the stone walls of Lord’s of course, and our underground illicit communication channels on radio 4 longwave. And maybe there’s something attractive and rewarding in that. But it’s also nice to feel normal and part of a mainstream sometimes. And the fact that cricket is so mainstream in Australia rather than something played by ever narrower sects of society, probably also goes a long way to explaining the series result. There’s a lesson there somewhere if anyone at the ECB ever wants to learn it.

Talking of people who care about test match cricket, I have mixed feelings about the Barmy Army to say the least. There’s a large element that’s nothing more than the worst of boorish football fandom without either the humour of the songs nor the threat of actual physical violence to back it up. If ‘god save your king’ or ‘convict colony’ songs were ever funny once, they certainly seem a bit past it now in a country that Britain almost certainly has more to learn from than to teach. And mocking a man for crying on the telly is probably not in line with best practice on tackling men’s mental health. But after travelling, talking and sometimes sitting with them for three weeks, I realised that I like the fact that it’s test cricket that they travel in such large numbers for, that they help maintain it in countries where it might otherwise struggle, and that they continue to follow England at it whether England are any good at it or not (which is probably for the best really). This thing of ours needs all the friends it can get ultimately.

There are other groups of test match cricket fans who don’t feel the need to boo Alex Carey for applying the laws of test match cricket though. One of the great joys of my trip was the opportunity to meet up with other followers of the Final Word podcast, or ‘Final Nerds’ as they/we are known. It’s a community that has gone way beyond just meeting up at or around test matches as well. There was a friendly game at the beautiful Birchgrove Oval the day before the Sydney test, people sharing Airbnb’s who had only ever met on Discord chats, and locals offering endless support, advice and hospitality to those of us who were just visiting. And beyond that, in incredible and really touching acts of generosity, there was an open house in Melbourne on Christmas Day for solo travellers in the city, and a friend of a friend’s balcony opened up for the new year’s eve fireworks in Sydney. At a time when social media seems to be an unmitigated negative influence on the world, to be able to make new and lasting friendships through it on the other side of the world was an absolute pleasure. My friends Collo, Geoff and Tooves have done an extraordinary thing here that I’m very grateful for. (And buy their book to find out more about why I give them the sterling equivalent of Joel Garner’s test bowling average every month, and why this is a community of people for whom that is completely normal behaviour.)

Talking of normalised behaviour, do the England team have a drinking culture? I’m not convinced that they do, or at least not any more than their peers of past or present. The problem isn’t drinking before or after cricket matches, it’s losing the cricket matches. No one would care if the results had gone the other way. The trip to Noosa and the emphasis on taking the pressure off would be celebrated in fact. So the solution to English cricket’s problems probably isn’t the largely performative reinstituting of midnight curfews for the players. It’s probably more in making clear that you can go out as late as you like but if you don’t perform there will be consequences. Treating people like adults who can be trusted to prepare properly for test matches is a good thing. But so is then actually preparing properly for test matches. Being an adult also means living in a world of accountability and outcomes. You can’t have it both ways.

But also, don’t expect Brendan McCullum to change. You can’t have him both ways either. The idea that we should keep him as coach but he should have a harder environment, more technical coaching, all the good bits we like but none of the bits we don’t, is fanciful and naïve. He’s been admirably honest in what his approach is. It’s about creating an uber-relaxed environment and giving his players the confidence and belief to express themselves. If you think that’s too loose, too consequence-free, then fine, it probably is. But if you suddenly want Alistair Cook running four-hour naughty boy net sessions as part of that or Justin Langer destroying dustbins in the dressing room as well, well it’s just not going to work. McCullum has been admirably honest about that too. Either give him the authority to be true to his beliefs or say goodbye. My sense was that Ben Stokes decided about halfway through the Brisbane test that Bazball wasn’t working when it really mattered and he wanted a harder approach. In which case it’s probably a good time for McCullum to go and for a coach who fits that new philosophy better to come in. But a messy fudge will be the worst of all worlds.

And if it is the end of the Bazball era, we shouldn’t forget the joy it has brought either. It’s self-proclaimed mission to save test match cricket was always overblown (and it certainly doesn’t need saving in Australia), as a trick of the mind it was probably always likely to fail, but it did produce some extraordinary moments and helped re-imagine what test cricket could be. It brought tens thousands of England fans to Australia in the hope of seeing something incredible. That didn’t quite stick, it wasn’t everything we dreamed of, but the memories were good and it was a lot of fun while it lasted. So thanks Baz, and don’t forget to pick up your ghetto blaster on the way out.