Aggers' Ashes
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AGGERS’ ASHES Agger's Ashes Book.indb 1 04/03/2011 15:52 Agger's Ashes Book.indb 2 04/03/2011 15:52 JONATHAN AGNEW AGGERS’ ASHES The Inside Story of England’s 2011 Ashes Triumph Agger's Ashes Book.indb 3 04/03/2011 15:52 First published in Great Britain in 2011 by Blue Door An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 77-85 Fulham Palace Road, Hammersmith, London W6 8JB Copyright © Jonathan Agnew 2011 1 The right of Jonathan Agnew to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978-0-00-734312-6 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in a retrieval system, in any form or by any means, without permission in writing from the Publisher. 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Find and more about Harper Collins and the environment at www.harpercollins.co.uk/green Agger's Ashes Book.indb 4 04/03/2011 15:52 This book is dedicated to England’s Ashes heroes past and present Agger's Ashes Book.indb 5 04/03/2011 15:52 ALSO BY JONATHAN AGNEW Thanks, Johnners (Blue Door, 2009) BY BEN DIRS AND TOM FORDYCE We Could Be Heroes (Macmillan, 2009) Karma Chameleons (Macmillan, 2010) Agger's Ashes Book.indb 6 04/03/2011 15:52 CONTENTS Foreword by Jim Maxwell 1 Acknowledgements 3 Preface 5 1 The Phoney War 7 2 Brisbane Test 61 3 First Test Interlude 85 4 Adelaide Test 91 5 Second Test Interlude 113 6 Perth Test 131 7 Third Test Interlude 149 8 Melbourne Test 161 9 Fourth Test Interlude 183 10 Sydney Test 199 11 Afterword 225 12 The Records 241 Agger's Ashes Book.indb 7 04/03/2011 15:52 Agger's Ashes Book.indb 8 04/03/2011 15:52 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 Australia’s 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 O’Keeffe’s 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 Strauss’s team played better cricket than any England team in Australia for at least 56 if not 78 years. 1 Agger's Ashes Book.indb 1 04/03/2011 15:52 AGGERS’ ASHES Alastair Cook’s expedition was the most significant tour de force by a Cook since Captain James’s visit in 1770, and his polishing skills made the Kookaburra laugh at Australia’s batsmen, helping Jimmy Anderson to swing through the top order. Andrew Strauss’s composure and maturity formed a strong partner- ship alongside Andy Flower, whose hard-nosed managerial skills rivalled Sir Alex Ferguson’s at Old Trafford. When will Andrew and Andy get their gongs? Cook’s remorselessly efficient batting was complemented by Jonathan Trott’s 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 Australia’s 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 Australia’s rugby league connection with Yorkshire. I’m 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 England’s 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 England’s 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. 2 Agger's Ashes Book.indb 2 04/03/2011 15:52 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Every time I have toured with England, the broadcasting technology has improved, as have the means by which people back at home, in the depths of winter and often through the night, can follow the cricket. This Ashes tour broke all manner of new ground in the way we were able to establish a surprisingly close level of contact and rapport with our listeners. Email and text messages seem old hat now when compared to Twitter, which has taken the cricket world by storm. Players tweet, journalists tweet and so do the fans – in their tens of thousands. This was undoubtedly the ‘Twitter Tour’, featuring Ashley Kerekes, a 21-year-old nanny from Massachusetts, whose boyfriend had unwittingly supplied her with the username @theashes. It says a lot about the modern world of social networking and its appeal to commercialism that, following an extraordinary week in which Ashley’s followers soared from a couple of hundred to more than ten thousand – as cricket fans demanded scores and Ashes gossip from an initially bewildered Ashley – that both she and her boyfriend picked up a free trip to Sydney to watch the final Test. It had all started as a big joke, but certainly she had the last laugh. Another Twitter star was EllaW638. A Chelsea football fanatic and, coincidentally, another children’s nanny, this time from the Home Counties, Ella stayed up all night – almost every night – to tweet scores and updates after every over. All from her mobile phone to another 4,000 insomniacs. Then she went off to work. The BBC website carried blogs from just about everyone, it seemed. Tom Fordyce was with us on the tour and wrote colourfully every day. Some of his excellent contributions are reprinted in this diary, and I am very grateful to him for allowing me to do so. I’d also like to thank Ben Dirs, Oliver Brett and everyone at the BBC online team who, with Lewis Wiltshire, have all played a part in producing the 3 Agger's Ashes Book.indb 3 04/03/2011 15:52 AGGERS’ ASHES additional and wonderful material that sits alongside my entries. None of this would have been possible without the help of Adam Mountford, the BBC cricket producer and all my colleagues on Test Match Special. Many of the humorous comments and pithy observations of Geoff Boycott, Michael Vaughan, Michael Slater, Ian Chappell and Justin Langer are also included here. And I must thank the England coach Andy Flower for overcoming his early misgivings and allowing the injured Stuart Broad to work with us on Test Match Special for the Perth Test. Of course I must also mention my old friend Vic Marks for providing the live radio commentary of my unique version of the Sprinkler Dance when England won the series in Sydney. When the Ashes were finally won on Australian soil, I fulfilled my life-long broadcasting ambition to be on-air to report the moment. I am forever grateful to my ABC broadcasting colleague and friend Jim Maxwell for generously ceding the microphone at the critical moment and for writing the foreword to the book.